Reenacting Poland 1939

I attended this morning a reenacting event in Madrid gathering several IIWW groups operating in our city. The main theme this morning was a recreation of the invasion of Poland in September 1939, although this afternoon it was planned a Normandy battle and the Varsovia uprising. A beautiful and sunny day after almost a week of heavy rians,  my young song Alex was me again (his second military-related event in a week) and had a great time.

A few photos of the battle between Polish and German troops...

Ediciones Platea Presentation at Club Dragón

Ediciones Platea made a presentation of their recent editorial production at the Club Dragón premises this morning. The three cofounders together with the secretary of the club can be seen in the photo heading this post. The people behind this new venture are a group of long-standing military historian aficionados (very active in other forums and associations) who saw the opportunity to cover a a market gap in Spain: good high quality military history works not available in Spanish.

Their emphasis was  in the quality of the translation, a careful editing and a reasonable price/quality offer as key to success. As mentioned in a recent post here,  the three initial selected titles are now classical II World War titles, and two of them (It Never Snows in September and Tank Men) by Robert Kershaw, a British author never translated in Spanish until now.

Charlie Don't Surf Gaming Materials

As will TooFatLardies sets, to play Charlie Don't Surf you will need to main gaming means: a set of blinds and card deck. I present here our home made materials that you can download as a free pdf just clicking on the right hand column of this blog in the "RESOUCES SECTION" are. True you will need to invest sometime in printing, cutting and working out the cards but at least I will have provided you with 50% of the task done for free.

I Visited "MILITARIA" Exhibition

A nice last Saturday summer today and what best than visiting MILITARIA, one of the few military fairs and exhibition in Madrid. I went with my youngest son Alex (pictured above with a "Sreaming Eagle") . The last time I attended MILITARIA was in 2003 (if I'm not wrong) and the exhibitors hall was then the main lobby area of a hotel in Madrid. Today it was at the Palacio de Congresos, a  quite large exhibition center in central Madrid. So I was expecting a signficant larger show than in the past. 

New Military History Spanish Publisher

This post is aimed mainly intended for Spanish readers, but it can be of general interest. In the midst of this long economic crisis and with the headwinds affecting the publishing industry, it is really great news that a new publisher takes the challenge to hit the market. I'd really like to welcome Ediciones Platea that will fill a substantial gap in the field of military history literature in Spanish.

Farewell Santiago Carrillo

Warning: totally offtopic (and politically biassed for some)

Coming back home from the office, I listen in my radio car the news that Santiago Carrillo has passed away this afternoon. Aged 97, a piece of  living history of modern Spain dies with him. And many of you probably wonder, who was this man? Well, he was  General Secretary of the Spanish Communist Party and one of its key leaders through a long exile following the defeat of the Spanish Republic in the Civil War 1936-1939.

Now, don't misunderstand me, I'm not or haven't been communist or voted communist since the Party was legalised again in 1977, not even a supporter.  Being  pursued for many years by the Spanish dictator and living in a forced exile, he returned to Spain after Franco's death, refounded the Party, broke with the dependance on Moscow well before the Perestroika  era and helped to provide the necessary stability for Spain to walk from a 40-years dictatorship regime to a full democracy, a period in Spain we know as the "Transición" (the Transition).

Battle Chronicler - Useful tool for Bloggers? #UPDATED#

I just saw in Hinoken's blog a free software program specially interesting for bloggers. The name is "Battle Chronicler" and at least on paper looks like a very helpful tool for wargamer bloggers like me. From its website:

Dux Britanniarium: Household Guards

Slowly but surely, my Romano British army is progressing. Since the end of the holidays my painting time has diminished dramatically, with only some short spots available over the weekends. Yesterday I spent most of the day at home, recovering from a bad late-summer cold (which left plenty of time for painting, as none in my family dare to get to close to me...) and today I concluded the Household Guard section,  the elite team of the army. Miniatures from Gripping Beast and shiled transfers from LBM.

Casualty - Shock Markers

A key mechanism shared by the majority of the TooFatLardies rules sets deals with representing moral and how this affects the performance of the combat units: while the mainstream system used by many rule writers consisits in assigning more or less arbitrary moral values to the units and throw a dice to check if they  remain under control, in the TFL sets, combat units accumulate "shock" points as a result of fire and fighting, up to a limit when it loses cohesion as a fighting force and then run for cover ("loose the bottle").

The main advantage of the system is  allowing commanding officers and NCOs (the Big Man  in TFL terminology) to act and prevent units from accumulating too many shocks, by spending action or initiative points to restore the moral of the combat unit.

Back home...

All good things must end and holidays too. Tomorrrow first day at work, the children will start school on Tuesday. A very relaxed an uneventful August, but  hobby-wise enough productive, although my ambitious initial targets have not been reached by far.

I did some nice progress painting with my Vietnam US Army and civilians, as posted a couple of weeks ago,  and have also finished 3 Romano British levy units for my Dux Britanniarum army.