Dice have no Memory

Wargamers exhibit many superstitious and peculiar behaviours when it comes to their dice. We've all seen it (and probably done these ourselves) but the simple truth is that Dice have no memory.

 

Hobbying Safely

Humans are uniquely gifted with intelligence and foresight to enable them to avoid hazards, but so often we ignore the risks until it's too late. Model makers and miniatures painters are just the same and many of the common hazards (and accidents) associated with our hobby have remained the same for as long as there have been gamers painting miniatures to play with. The first step in avoiding accidents is identifying the risks and this video discusses some of the common ones and how to avoid them.

Not now Death, I'm Busy

Never paint your last miniature, it could be fatal. Once upon a time, I had a huge lead mountain that was becoming a millstone around my neck and cluttering up the house. I made a conscious effort to reduce the pile and only buy what I intended to paint. But increased lockdown productivity and a lack of trade shows have reduced my lead pile to dangerous levels. It's time I bought more miniatures, on purely health grounds of course.

Judging from many conversations I have had over the years, I suspect that most of us have a lead mountain that is far from at risk of elimination. But just in case, keep some miniatures aside as life insurance. 

Strange Attraction - Picking a Wargame Period or Genre

What is it that attracted you to a particular period or genre of wargaming? Were you inspired by a new set of rules or a new figure range? Or was it a new book or film that got the creative juices flowing? I have been chatting to some of my friends about what motivated them and they suggested a few things I hadn't even thought of.

Maybe there are a few things in this video you hadn't thought of. As always I would love to hear what you think, either in the comments below or on my channel, Miniature Adventures. 

Work life balance

We often hear about the work/life balance but for many people, it is fundamentally wrong. I believe that is because the equation is incomplete and we need to add a third element to truly balance our lives in a way that suits us. 

It won't come as a surprise that I think hobbies should form the third element of the equation. The life half of the traditional equation is often full of its own type of work (the chores that need to be done every day) and understanding this - and making time for hobbies and other pastimes - is the first step towards a happier life. 

I'd love to hear what you think so please join the conversation below or in the comments over on my YouTube channel. Until next week, keep gaming and keep rolling high! 

Wargamers Anonymous: Is Wargaming an Addiction?

Is Wargaming an addiction? Does your hobby interfere with your normal life? Do you skip meals or forget appointments and skip paying bills? Do you lack self-control or exhibit poor judgement? All of this has been prompted by a recent conversation with an acquaintance who described my hobby as addictive. It got me thinking though and today's video examines the evidence. This is far from scientific because it's based entirely on my own experience of the hobby.

 

If you enjoyed the video please like, subscribe and share. And of course, if you have any anecdotes or stories to tell please leave them in the comments below or over on my YouTube Channel. Until net week, keep safe and keep rolling high!

Disorganised Slacker plays Wargame

I'm currently berating myself for being disorganised and lazy because I haven't really got anything to show you today. I haven't even got a quick unboxing video or pointless monologue. What a slacker! 😆 To be fair to me (and I always am If I can) it's not for want of activity. I've had quite a bit of holiday during August and much of it has involved tramping up and down the Motorways of Britain visiting interesting museums and spending time with my family. As always I have shot a ton of pictures and will be trying to share some of the photos and discuss the museums I have visited over the next few weeks...once I get time to sort through them. 

While you wait for something interesting to happen here, and if you need a Wednesday fix of Miniature Adventures, why not pop on over to my YouTube Channel and watch a few videos. 😊

In truth, I haven't been entirely idle. I have been carefully planning and preparing a big solo game with my 6mm Punic War armies. This finally got underway yesterday and will probably take me a few days to get completed, especially as I am filming it for a video AAR. In the meantime here are a few teaser shots to whet your appetite. 

These pictures will have to suffice for the time being because it will probably take me weeks to edit the video I have already shot. The 'script' for the film is already the longest and most complex I have ever done and all this for a ten-minute AAR! 

Is Wargaming Expensive?

I recently read an article which mentioned some data that was published last year suggesting that the Average UK household spending on Games and Hobbies was just £3.20 per week. That is a pitiful sum of money when compared to my hobby spending so it begged the question, is Wargaming an expensive hobby?

So it probably won't come as a big surprise that my conclusion is that while I may spend more on my hobby than the average Brit, I consider that money well spent and therefore consider my hobby to be a good value for money. You may disagree and of course, I would love to hear what you think in the comments below or over on my YouTube Channel Miniature Adventures. 

As usual, if you enjoyed the video please like, subscribe, and share. 

The Quarantined Wargamer - Unquarantined!!

Yesterday was a big day for me because I got my Second Covid Vaccination dose (my wife had her's earlier in the week). It's an important and much-anticipated step forwards for this family and for my hobby because I can start to think about the real possibility of some face to face gaming in a few weeks time. After the 17th of May, (assuming the Governments roadmap isn't changed) groups of up to six will be able to meet indoors and so some small scale gaming can resume. It's been over a year since I faced an opponent across the table and I'm looking forward to it immensely. 

Incidentally, I've not had any side effects with either dose. I'm not denigrating those that have had side effects and chosen to post about them, but I expect there are also a lot of people out there that haven't had any side effects and this non-news isn't celebrated enough. So there you have it, nothing happening here, nothing to see, move along, please. 😀

Until next week, Stay safe, keep gaming, get your vaccination and keep rolling high! 👍

Do wargames need an umpire?

The latest video from The Quarantined Wargamer went out on Friday and in it, I talk about whether we need an umpire when we wargame? My group nearly always have an umpire to coordinate and oversee our games when we play in the shed-o-war. There are routinely up to four players per side and it can get a bit 'noisy' (Imagine 'Presidential Debate' noisy, but a bit more civilised!). Having an umpire to adjudicate rules interpretations and to shepherd us through large and complex games makes those large and complex game possible. 

As always I'd love to know what you think. Please join the conversation either here or on my YouTube Channel and as usual I'd ask that if you enjoyed the video please hit the Like button and consider subscribing to my channel. Next week I will be discussing the apparently controversial subject of Undercoat! 

Is Historical Wargaming in Decline? - A Response

So a few weeks ago LittleWarsTV put out a video, asking Is Historical Wargaming Dying? Since then it seems to have generated quite a bit of feedback and discussion. Far be it for me to avoid the thorny issues of the day, so here's The Quarantined Wargamer response video. 

As I say in the video I'm not an industry insider, so this is entirely my own opinion based on the evidence of my eyes (back when trade shows were still happening!) and from conversations, I have read or been part of over the last few weeks. 

As always please join the conversation here, or on my YouTube Channel, I'd love to know what you think. 

Learning New Rules

So what's the easiest way for you to learn a new set of rules? Personally, I've never been one to be able to sit and read a whole set of rules cover to cover. No matter how interested I am I find it hard to focus when just reading. I’ve always been like this, and way back in the mists of time, when I was at University, I instinctively sought out alternative ways to study, rather than just reading textbooks. Friday's episode of The Quarantined Wargamer explores the subject of how we learn new rules and suggests some techniques for getting those pesky facts embedded in our grey matter. 

We all have different ways of absorbing new information, and I certainly don't have all the answers. So what are your tips and tricks for learning new rulesets? I'd love to hear from you, either in the comments below on my YouTube Channel. If you like enjoy the video please hit the Like button and consider subscribing to my channel. 

Next week I'll be talking about why we should Encourage rather than Criticise those starting out in our hobby. 

Ditch the Army List

I have been spending a lot of time during lockdown playing solo wargames and small scale test games across a range of periods and rulesets. The common denominator has been that I haven't abided by the army lists and often the 'sides' were wildly asymmetrical. And the result has been some really interesting min games that have left me asking, why aren't we doing this more often? The latest episode of The Quarantined Wargamer aired on Friday and I'd love to hear what you think on this subject.

As always I hope you enjoy the video, and if you do please consider hitting the Like button and subscribing to my channel. And of course, I'd like to hear what you think so please leave your comments either here or on my channel. 

This coming Friday sees The Quarantined Wargamers first 'outside broadcast'! Until then, stay safe and keep rolling high!

The Importance of keeping Notes

I have always kept a notebook close to hand, a habit I developed as a student at University. Thirty years later and nothing has changed except that now I keep notes on my hobby activities rather than my studies. Time and again I have found them invaluable, particularly when painting and returning to a project, months or even years later. The latest episode of The Quarantined Wargamer discussed why I keep notes and how I have found them so useful. Times are changing and now I also keep notes electronically (on my phone) but I always have a paper notebook and pencil close to hand. 

 

 

As usual, I'd ask that if you enjoy the video please hit the like button, consider subscribing to my channel and of course join the conversation by commenting either here or on YouTube. Next week I'm going to talk about show or convention demo games and in the process, I hope to show a load of pictures of some wonderful looking games. 

Swearing at the Games Table

When if ever is it appropriate to swear around the games table? In the latest episode of The Quarantined Wargamer, I discuss this controversial subject with the minimal use of expletives! The use of swear words depends on the setting in which it is used, who is listening and the context or intention of the language. Our reaction to certain words is much about emotional conditioning at an early age as it is about societal rules of correct behaviour. I try to explain this conditioning, recognise when it can be broken and suggest some alternatives. 

As usual, I'm always interested in your views, so please leave your comments below - preferably without the use of foul language! Alternatively, you can join the conversation on my YouTube Channel and of course, I would ask that you consider subscribing so you don't miss any of my short videos. It's free, there are no adverts to get in the way, and you can always turn me off if you think I'm talking rubbish! 

Planning & Targets

There is a reason why you get deadlines and targets when you're at work... because it gives you a point to focus on. It gives you an excuse to put other things aside to focus on a particular piece of work. It also helps you to focus on what's important...or at least, what is important to your boss. So how can this mysterious power be brought into a gaming environment where we are not going to be fired if we don't achieve a particular target?

The latest episode of the Quarantined Wargamer discusses this topic and as always your feedback is most welcome. 

Am I on the right track?... or am I just crackers? As usual, please drop me a line below (or over on my YouTube Channel) and tell me how you plan and organise your hobby workload. 

The Art of Tidying Up!

For many people at the moment, we are finding ourself with more time on our hands than we are comfortable with. Whether you have recently gone back to work, or like me, were never off in the first place, there can be a lot of pressure to ‘Do something constructive’ with our time (particularly from idiots like me!) urging you to get on with painting, building new terrain, play games and use the internet to stay in touch with friends. These are all laudable pursuits and of course, I heartily recommend them. However, I would like to propose one more worthy but often overlooked activity... Tidying up your workspace!

The latest episode of The Quarantined Wargamer became available on Friday and if you haven't already seen it, here it is. 

Our painting stations, desks and mancaves can get a bit messy at times. Its happens to us all at one time or another. But keeping things tidy and organised not only helps keep a workspace efficient its also good as a way of clearing the decks mentally, preparing ourselves for the next painting session.

So, do you agree with me? Do you have any good tricks and advice for organising your hobby space that you would like to share? Please feel free to and share your thoughts and suggestions in the comments below (so long as they are polite!) or over on my youtube channel. 

A golden age of gaming?

It occurred to me recently that I’m busier and more productive than ever where my hobby is concerned (certainly busier than I normally am at this time of year), and anecdotally, So are all my friends. We are all playing more games, in more formats, with a wider group of people than ever before. So while we all recognise that we are living through a terrible time in our history, we may one day look back on this period and consider it something of a Golden Age where our hobby is concerned.

The latest episode of the Quarantined Wargamer aired on Friday and in it, I discuss this idea and ask if you agree with me.

Productivity, creativity and energy seem to be very high in our community at this time and I think its a good thing. As always I'd love to hear what you think. Do you agree or disagree, am I talking out of my posterior or have I hit the nail on the head? Please leave some feedback here, or in the comments section on YouTube. 

Stay safe folks, and may you always roll high! 

Use your wargaming Pound/Euro/Dollar wisely

Friday saw the latest episode of the Quarantined Wargamer air on my YouTube channel. This week I discuss the need to support our favourite hobby traders and manufacturers by continuing to spend with them. I'm not oblivious to the fact that many people out there are struggling financially at the current time - and I'd never advocate putting your hobby ahead of paying essential bills or feeding the family - but for those us that can do so, we should continue to support our regular traders. Otherwise, they may not be around in six months or a years time. 

So do you agree with me or disagree. I'd love to hear your opinion (so long as it's polite!). As always please feel free to comment below, or in the comments section on YouTube. Stay safe folks! 

Spelunking and other pursuits

The last couple of weeks have been exceptionally busy for me. I'm still working pretty much full time, only part of which is working from home, so it's been... let's call it 'challenging'! And I've also been very busy on the hobby front. I have been quietly getting on with some figure painting for frostgrave and working on a couple of small terrain projects for my 15mm Normandy setting. One of these is nearly finished and I'll be posting some pictures soon and I'm putting together a tutorial video on my YouTube page for the end of the week, but more on that later.

The Internet has been coming to its own for my hobby at the moment because I've been using it to stay in touch with the Rejects via Zoom enabled 'paint and chat sessions' on a Monday evening. These have been highly enjoyable because when we're playing a normal game we very often don't get a chance to just chat about how things are going. Most post-game conversations tend to drift in the direction of politics and that can get a little heated because we are pretty a diverse group! The P&C sessions mean we have had a chance to catch up with a few of the rejects alumni in the form of Fran, Ian and John so it's been good to see them and catch up, especially in these difficult times when social connections are more important than ever. I hope these painting chat sessions become a regular feature well after social distancing comes to an end because for me they have been a bright point in what has otherwise been a dark period. 

The wonderful and terrible Interweb has also facilitated getting back into some role-playing games for the first time in years. A few months ago my daughter and her partner asked me to join them in a 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons game based on the stranger things TV series. The Young Padawan and I joined Sarah and Perry in this short campaign and we had a great time. So good in fact we decided we would play a regular ongoing game of D&D in the Ravenloft campaign setting. We had a couple of sessions before the shutdown began and have been exploring ways to continue playing despite social isolation. Later today we plan to try the Roll20 site for the first time and It'll be interesting to see how this works.  

I've also been playing Dungeons and Dragons with my old gaming group, some of whose members I went to school with! We decided to play the old red box classic D&D and have been using Discord as a way of keeping in touch rolling dice and seeing each other. It's been a mixed success but that has nothing to do with the game and more to do with technology and bandwidth. My ageing laptop struggled a little bit in the session on Friday and in the end, I opted to play the game via my phone and tablet because they just worked so much better. Everyone is 'winging it' where technology is concerned at the moment, and gamers are no exception.

It's been really good to play with these guys again because the last time we had any sort of regular gaming session was probably 6 or 7 years ago as it became increasingly difficult to get together as members of the group moved away and got jobs in other parts of the country or indeed overseas. One of the group joined the session on Friday from Los Angeles while others dialled in from various locations around London and the Dungeon Master was based in Lincoln. When my technology held up it was very good we were all able to see each other on video and on the other half of the screen we had a text chat session going where we could roll dice and write silly messages to each other (none of us has grown up!). Again this is a session I hope we continue into the future because it's been great fun to see the guys again and overcome the issues we've had in the past with gathering together.

In addition to all this gaming, and as I've mentioned here a couple of times, I've been doing some videos for YouTube. It's been a thoroughly enjoyable experience and I think I'm going to come out of this quarantine situation with a whole new skill-set as a result. Step-by-step I've been learning about presentation skills; talking to camera; scriptwriting and editing; and of course filming. I'm hoping each video is slightly better than the last one and so by the time we get to September I might finally have a product I'm happy with! I really enjoyed doing these videos, although it is very time-consuming. I'm currently working on a tutorial video that probably won't last more than 5 or 6 minutes but has taken up the best part of a day and a half just for the filming and I haven't even got to the editing part yet.

In order to fit in all this stuff, I'm trying to be a little bit more disciplined with my time. As already mentioned I'm still working and that's been taking up a lot of time. Most of my colleagues are furloughed at the moment and until this week I was the only one taking calls. I work for a small charity offering benefits advice to local residents, so you can imagine I have been exceptionally busy with the current set of circumstances that most people find themselves in at the moment. It's rewarding work, but it has been very distressing at times. Combined with the ever-present existential threat of Covid-19 to my family (particularly my Daughter and Brother-in-law who are nurses on the front line), I really need my hobby to get my mind off of negative things.

So in order to fit in as much as possible, I have been scheduling my free time in much the same way as I would schedule my work time. This means that as far as possible I'm going to try to stick to a fixed timetable for publishing both on the blog and for videos on YouTube. I need to allow time for the planning and execution of what I'm working on and I can't make it up as I go along. What I don't want is for the writing of the blog or the production of videos to become a chore or something that interferes with gaming time or paint and chat sessions and all the other things I've been enjoying recently. My aim is to continue posting once or twice a week on the blog depending on whether I have something to talk about, and the YouTube videos will start to be published on a fixed weekly schedule. This means I can do most of the filming I need over the weekend and the editing and new scriptwriting on a Tuesday and Wednesday. I hope to improve the quality of the videos I do, and I don't want to be in a position where I'm rushing to publish something, so planning is key.

I'm still working on a few other projects... like I haven't got enough to do! I have been working on my Zulu wars rules but I've also been given some serious thought about skirmish gaming for world War II. I'm really enjoying What a Tanker, but for a while now I have wanted some rules to include infantry. I've been doing a little bit of reading about what's available right now - and I'm sure most gamers will have their own preferred set of rules and could make their own recommendations  - however, I really like Too fat Lardies stuff and so I've bought a copy of Chain of Command. I think it's a cracking set of rules and I've really enjoyed reading it. I still have some 15mm second world war infantry figures from when I played Flames of War and I don't think it would take much effort to re-base them singly for use with CoC. I'm not in any rush however and I need to give some thought to this before adding it to my ever-growing to-do list!

So as you can see I'm being an exceptionally busy boy. I'm spelunking again after many years away from role-playing. I'm exploring technology to stay in touch with all my friends. I'm playing new games and adding to old collections. And despite the lack of any trade shows my hobby expenditure seems to be as much as ever. But that's a discussion for another day.