Over 60...

No, not my age but the number of people (actually 61) that has already enrolled to my blog. Welcome the out two latest friends: straight from Australia, Beccas with an extensive interest in many historical and not historical periods; and Ironcolumn a fanatic ancient-plastic-and-WAB personal friend of mine. It's almost a year and a half since I launched this blog and then I wasn't sure if I was going to have the time or even the moral to keep it alive. Thanks to all the 61's for  taking the time to leave your comments and share your ideas; and to the many others casual lurkers for reading my posts. Over 21,000 visits through this period is really encouraging.

Stalingrad Part I

At last!!! After many months waiting, we played the first game of our summer Stalingrad campaign last weekend with our favourite rules Troops, Weapons and Tactics of the TooFatLardies company. And just from the first few turns I can foresee that a very bloody affair will develop, and not too different from what really happened in the autumn of 1942.

The setup of our game is the urban area surrounding the famous Red Barricade tractor factory. The dates 14-17th October, when the German assault scalated in ferociousness and intensity, finally breaking the Soviert army line and reaching the Volga river bank.

Six Weeks - A promising start

A few months ago, this book was recommended an commented by Sidney Roundwood in his blog. Having followed Sidney's posts in the blog and the TFL Yahoo Group for over a year now, I tend to rely on his balanced opinion and critical judgement. Being a quiet summer national holiday today here, I decided to start this afternoon with the book... and whow! ...the prologue was really spine-chilling, describing the few minutes before  jumping over the top and run into the German line.

You can read these first pages in the Amazon website thanks to the "look inside" facility and make your own opinion, but it looks really promising, as a way of digging deeper in the psychology and tribulations the real men (flesh and bones) behind your little tin soldiers.

Night of the Hunter

Sidney Roundwood is another of my favourite bloggers and a key member of the TooFatLardies community. His blog, mainly dedicated to the WWI rules set Through the Mud and the Blood  is a source of inspiration for wargamers and aficionados of this period. Sidney has published several add-ons to the main rule body dealing in detail with tanks, snipers or trench raiding actions. More recently he's be working on night fighting and  today we we have played one of his latest scenarios, "The Night of the Hunter" which can be downloaded  here.

Hobby-Personal Life Balance

Not always possible.... :-)

Zulu!

 

No, not a comment about this (very) great  film, but a quick AAR illustrated with pictures of my last game at  the club last Sunday (and some photos too). To be honest, this a wargaming period that have never attracted my attention; but my mates wanted to try a new Zulu war scenarios book with the idea of playing a campaign likely in autumn... so I decided to give a try.

On to Stalingrad (V)

This is an update about our summer wargame project at our club, a street fighting in Stalingrad using Troops, Weapons and Tactics, the skirmish platoon level rules of the TFL factory. I have already posted some updates on the progres of this project which is now ready to roll. I include today a couple of photos of the game table, already finished,