All at Sea

Nice day today but a bit breezy. Went to the club tonight. As expected, there was a naval game going on but no Dave Hewins or Paul 1809 wargame. It had probably been cancelled. Going by Paul's blog it seems Paul had an extremely busy weekend and was picking up his new car tonight, amongst other things. In this Naval Wargame there was Steve Mercer playing Andy Hamilton with Ron Skeet joining in. Steve Mercer and Ron Skeet were on the Spanish Side while Andy Hamilton was British. Andy lost to Steve last time. I took quite a few photos as usual but this time I tried out a new setting on my camera. According to my digital camera book, for taking photos of some objects close-up it said the camera should be set to the lowest ISO. I therefore set my camera ISO to 50. It is supposed to produce the best quality and minimize the depth of field. I can tell you that quite a few came out.

As I have been talking about in previous posts, the photo I am going to show you - the final result - has been fixed/corrected in picasa for lighting, contrast and colour, cropped to show the image up more then sharpened to produce a clearer photo (above). It has also been resized. It is the Spanish ship Rayo. The period is the War of the Spanish Succession. The same process will soon be applied to all photos for the website past and future. It is also to produce the best high quality photos of our wargames to make the website even more worthwhile. Judge for yourself whether it is worth all that. I think it is.

How I Take Photos

Some people may be wondering how I get my photos to look the way they do. It's actually very simple. It has been learned over time by trial and error. I don't use a flash, loads of photos are taken, several shots are taken of whatever I am trying to take a photo of, the camera is in macro mode, the camera settings have been adjusted to suit the lighting conditions of the subject: more often than not for fluorescent lighting. I am not a professional by any means just a wargamer who enjoys taking photos and likes to get in close but not too close (it looks blurry otherwise). I also like to show off all the excellently painted figures by the members of our club in their wargames. That is just taking them however. At the moment I am at the stage where my quality control is in overdrive (read my picasa entry). This afternoon I practiced on a ladybird in the back garden. What's that got to do with wargaming? Because the subject is small as are some wargaming figures. The same approach was used to photo the ladybird (above). The lighting setting was obviously adjusted to daylight. This photo has only been resized, it came straight from my camera without any editing.

My friend Jamie came round and helped me with the garden, sorry grass, with us both taking turns mowing the grass. Jamie did also tidy up the garden, bag the grass and did some raking. I did some raking too. For his trouble, I knocked off some of the money he owed me and bought him some cider which we shared. Bought us both some munchies too. Glad he came round anyway as I am always working. No weeding or cutting the sides was done. The edges of the grass are still untouched. Hopefully I'll find time this week to so some weeding, put on weedkiller and cut the grass edges.
Here is a photo of the back garden today after we cut the grass.

On another matter, Crawley Wargames Club emailed me today. They have linked back to our official website. I, of course, will do the same. Crawley is presently in the latest issue of Wargames Illustrated with the Reiver game they displayed at Salute.

Scotty back in space (but not beamed up)

Not done much today. Had intended to get some things done. Decided I'm going to cut the back garden grass tomorrow instead. Supposed to be really warm. Did a little tidying up. Had the TV on for hours - mainly VH1 blasting through my stereo. Doctor Who was excellent in the second part of that Dalek story. 1 Dalek escaped, actually left voluntarily, at the end. Well if they that destroy that one, how are the daleks going to keep coming back?

Will have the gallery for the Battle of Almanza 1707 game up in the next day or so.

To my surprise, in the news today, the actor who played Scotty in Star Trek who died a few years ago, his ashes have been sent into space today. Being a huge Star Trek fan, I have placed below a video from youtube which is an interview with James Doohan talking to him about how many students have gone into engineering because of his star trek character. Follow the link above to the BBC coverage of James Doohans ashes being sent into space. On an historical note, James Doohan was one of the many soldiers who participated in the D-Day landings in Normandy in World War 2. May he rest in peace.

Picasa

Went to the doctor's this morning to talk about my antidepressants. I have been on them for approx 9 or 10 months, nearly a year. Have only been on antidepressants for the past few months to slowly wean me off them. At one point I was on 100mg a night of Amitryptyline. Last night I took my last 25mg tablet of it. Good news is, although he offered to put me on 10mg for another 2 months, I will be not taking any more antidepressants. I want shot of them. My Doctor and I have agreed that I will now be off them and he doesnt think there will be any side effects.

Picasa, one of google's programs. It's really good. Before I formatted my pc I downloaded it and played with it. Last night I did the same as well as this morning. Considering I take loads of photos each week for the Grimsby Wargames Society Website with some for this blog, Picasa is just the thing I've been looking for. Why? You may ask. My photos have got better over time. I had been using Paint Shop Pro to try to "fix" my photos, whether it be brightness or something else. Spent hours trying to correct my photos manually. With Picasa I can do it in a click. All I would use Picasa for, now and in the future, is to auto contrast photos before correcting the lighting and colour with the "I'm feeling Lucky" button. Tried it on a lot of the photos I have put in the galleries over the past few months. It has worked wonders. The Photos look even better than they did before. May crop them too depending on the photo and what I was trying to take the photo of. Another thing that Picasa will help me with is the Galleries. Photos can be exported into a web page format, a gallery. Wargames Illustrated uses Picasa to display photos by various photographers and wargames companies. I can just modify the webpage to add links to blogs or websites etc and upload it. I have already fixed and edited the photos I took of the Battle of Almanza 1707 game last week as well as the Border Reivers game from 12th March. The photos look great. Wait till you see. Although seem may have been deleted by myself from the camera or hard drive, I still have the vast majority of the original photos I downloaded straight from my camera. Some of those photos have now been fixed. The rest will be fixed in due course. Some photos that I still have but were not used for lighting problems etc can now be brought back and used if I need to. The galleries will be revamped with all the photos in them fixed from now on, starting with the most recent and working backwards.

All that typing makes me feel peckish. Anyone fancy some spam?

More Border Reivers Stuff

I picked up issues 234 and 235 of Wargames Illustrated today from Dave Hewins Model Shop. I mainly picked up 234 because there was a scenario on The Battle of Antietam in September 1862 of the American Civil War. Issue 235, apart from being the latest one, had an article on the Border Reivers game at Salute by the Crawley Wargames Club of which most of the Reivers on it were by Vendel. Which was obviously what Derek was talking about when I spoke to him on monday.

I undercoated my Border Reivers today with GW spray paint Chaos Black. Not having spray painted before or not painted for years, I just used basic common sense to get them done. Here's a photo of my undercoated Reivers. All Reivers and horses got 2 coats both sides. Hope it wasnt on too thick. This is the paper I moved them to after undercoating them. Still undecided which colours to paint them but I have the photos from our club's game which I took and Dave Tuck's Reivers which he gave me as an inspiration. Don't want them to look the same as other people's Reivers, similar maybe. It may also be easier to set a colour scheme for certain figures and if I have to paint another reiver of that figure, use the same colour scheme i.e. paint reiver with crossbow certain colour, paint next reiver with crossbow same as first one. It was such a nice day they were painted in the back garden on the top of an old washer destined for the tip.

Before undercoating I decided to have a good look at all the Reivers Dave Tuck had been good enough to give me. There were 13 painted in all, with 3 half painted to go on horseback. Dave had also given me 3 white undercoated horses, which were undercoated with the other figures this afternoon. Dave's painting is excellent as I will show you a few photos I took of them in the back garden earlier. Above is a photo of the half and unpainted Reiver figures etc given to me. Below are the photos I took of Dave's Reivers. Enjoy.

The photos taken at the Battle of Almanza game on monday were taken with an exposure of +2.0 without realising it. Normally I take photos with an exposure of +0.0. It has given me an idea as to how to possibly reduce the glare from the lights in photos. All photos of Reivers taken today were taken at my normal exposure.

The Reivers are Here!

My replacement Reivers from Vendel finally arrived this morning. I rang Derek up at Vendel to let him know after all those other phone calls I had made. Hopefully I can get them undercoated today along with all the unpainted Reivers and weapons that Dave Tuck was good enough to give me. I am also planning to go to Dave Hewins shop and pick up a copy of Wargames Illustrated, hopefully the one with Vendel in.
To celebrate finally getting my Reivers, above is an unseen photo from the Border Reivers game on March 12th 2007 at the Grimsby Wargames Society.

The Battle of Almanza 25th April 1707 (Refight)

Before I detail my report of the Battle of Almanza game at the club on Monday night, I shall recap on other things first. Monday morning I rang up Vendel again to enquire about my order. Once again they apologised but did seem a little mixed up as to whether they had sent it or not. Once again, I told them my details though this time I mentioned I was from the Grimsby Wargames Society, had left some posts in their forum and that Derek at Vendel did say he was going to put a link back to us on the Vendel site. He was still interested in doing so. Derek also mentioned that Vendel had recently been in Wargames Illustrated, which I did not know at the time. I will have to get a copy. Once he had made the connection between myself and the club and checked up my details he said that I should receive them on Tuesday. Tuesday came but the Border Reivers still hadnt.

The Battle of Almanza 1707 refight was huge. Paul had set it all up on the day before for that game. He had also written up details of each army, which were:
ANGLO-PORTUGESE ARMY:EARL OF GALWAY (pictured)

(on right) 4 BATTALIONS PORTUGESE, 7 SQUADRONS PORTUGESE HORSE,
2 FIELD PIECES
(centre) 4 BATTALIONS ENGLISH, 4 BATTALIONS DUTCH, 6 BATTALIONS PORTUGESE ,1 FIELD PIECE
(left) 4 ENGLISH BATTALIONS, 3 SQUADRONS PORTUGESE HORSE, 5 SQUADRONS DUTCH HORSE, 2 SQUADRONS PORTUGESE DRAGOONS, 5 SQUADRONS ENGLISH DRAGOONS, 1 FIELD PIECE

FRANCO-SPANISH ARMY: DUKE OF BERWICK (pictured)
(on left) 6 SQUADRONS FRENCH HORSE, 4 SQUADRONS SPANISH HORSE, 2 SQUADRONS FRENCH DRAGOONS, 2 SQUADRONS SPANISH DRAGOONS, 1 FIELD PIECE
(centre) 14 FRENCH BATTALIONS,
12 SPANISH BATTALIONS,
2 FIELD PIECES
(right) 10 SQUADRONS SPANISH HORSE, 2 SQUADRONS SPANISH DRAGOONS, 2 FIELD PIECES

Myself, Paul Robinson and Ron Skeet were on the Franco-Spanish side. Andy Hamilton and Mark Alcock were the Anglo-Portugese. Ron took the left, Paul took the centre with me on the right. All my figures were spanish. There were 3 artillery guns I was able to fire. As usual, I took my own photos. There was a tough fight in the centre of the table. I could not see how well or not Ron was doing. For quite some time, I didn't do too badly before Mark's british had broken through with infantry and had begun to take the hill I was on. I only missed a few times with my artillery but otherwise always got some kills. One of my artillery guns kept killing Mark's british horse. Mark's horse even charged that same artillery gun unsuccessfully before skulking away. If nothing else on this game, I thought my artillerying and my dice throwing were quite good. Most of the photos I took were from my part of the game. Both my spanish and mark's british horse started meleeing at one point as I had charged towards him. The Melee was still in progress when the game finished. The photos are below.

A View of the centre of the table showing both sides as they had begun clashing. Note those rings on the infantry.







A Close-up of some of the British Infantry facing me with a view of his field guns and artillery in the background







The Melee between my spanish horse and mark's british horse. As the Melee continued, the horse in the background of this photo joined in along with his general. My general also joined in which is when I lost him.

A really good game. Probably the biggest I've taken part in since I came back to the club earlier this year. During the night Danny Malone dropped by to see us. We hadn't seen him in months. There was also a Seven Years War game going on upstairs between Tony Walmsley and Dave Hewins. On this occasion I did not get to take photos of that game being so caught up in this one.
Martin Buck lent me the book "The Red Badge of Courage" set in The American Civil War. I did not have a bag so asked Mark to look after it so I could pick it up another day.
Paul's game report of the Battle of Almanza can be found on his blog at http://grimsbywargaming.blogspot.com/2007/04/almanza_24.html
The History of this battle can be found at the Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Almansa

Still No Reivers

The Title should say it all. My Border Reivers still have not come. It was the big Salute wargames show in London this weekend, which Vendel would have attended. If they have not arrived Monday morning, I will be ringing them up again.

A bit late because I was busy, feeling slightly rundown I had been trying to generate publicity or at least announce Paul's wargame on Monday night 23rd April - The Battle of Almanza 1707. Announced it in the Wargames Forum, emailed several yahoogroups including our own yahoogroup. Also posted and crossposted it in several forums in The Miniatures Page. Actually I am growing to like that period of history, judging by some of the history I have read and our games and figures at the club.

Needed some chillout time yesterday watched and listened to one of the music channels, blasted through my stereo. Not long finished sorting out the photos I took from last monday before typing this entry. It turned out that of the few I took with Paul and his son James at the club, there was only 1 decent one (above).
This particular piece of artillery at that time was commanded by Paul's son James.

I aim to have 2 galleries created and placed on the Grimsby Wargames Society Website before I go to bed. Another mixed games gallery with the other being the photos from the 15mm American Civil War game last week.

Invisible Border Reivers

Still no sign of my replacement Border Reivers that I ordered from Vendel by Paypal on April 8th 2007.

When am I going to get my border reivers?

All Quiet on the Home Front

Withdrew my rent to take it to my landlords house who is also best mate. He had gone away for a few days so gave it to his girlfriend Sara. Puss had unfortunately done some accidents recently in the flat and felt it seemed time to get her a litter tray so that things could be done correctly. Sometimes I close the catflap to prevent other cats coming in and stealing her food. Puss has only learnt to come in from outside not go out. Thought Puss might need retraining but apparently not. After encouraging her towards her new facilities she just climbed in and did what she had to. On a much better note, I also bought Puss a new toy. Its a carrot-shaped toy filled with Catnip. Puss doesn't usually like Catnip but she was playing with it straightaway, knocking it about everywhere. Puss has other toys. It's nice to see the cat happy. In fact, since she came to me she has always been a happy cat.

Other than that, just cleaned the flat up. Hope to look at some more wargaming forums before I go to bed to say the least. Need to sort out my wargaming photos properly from monday night in the next few days.

15mm American Civil War

First, the reivers from Vendel did not arrive this morning. I'll give them to the end of the week to appear.
Before giving a report and a photo from the 15mm ACW game last night, here is a photo from the 15mm Napoleonic Swedish v Prussian game on our 18 foot table last night. Mark Alcock was playing with the Swedes while John Ogden was Prussian. The Photo (left) is some of John Ogden's Prussians in cover in a wood.

In our 15mm American Civil War game there was myself and Dave Tuck on the Union side using our own figures. Mine were originally bought from Dave Tuck several years ago which is apparently when any 15mm ACW was last played. Dave Tuck was using his own figures. Ron Skeet and Steve Mercer were Confederate using Steve's figures. Dave was dealing with Steve at his end of the table while I was dealing with Ron. We used the Whipping Bobby Lee playsheet. No scenario just battle. My dice throwing was absolutely atrocious on this occasion with many of my soldiers routing, running off. I did manage to inflict some casualties on Ron but kept getting forced back and losing casualties of my own. My dice throwing saw to that while Ron's dice throwing was good and kept pushing forward. I was pretty much nearly overrun at my end. At Dave's End things were going much better. He had inflicted casualties on Steve's Confederates and received some himself. Dave was at least holding his position with very little, if any, retreating. Neither side stopped fighting or shooting at each other. If the game had carried on Dave and I would have had to slowly retreat anyway as this was one battle we were not winning. A good fun game. First time I had played with my 15mm ACW Army and the Whipping Bobby Lee playsheet.
I am wondering if our battle could be compared to the first Battle of Winchester in 1862 where 3,000 Union men lost their lives. Below is a photo from our 15mm ACW game. The Confederate forces in this photo were under Ron's command at my end of the table. At this stage these figures had not yet advanced fully towards me. Ron had several regiments in a line from this point directly opposite me. Though I did have some artillery, though not near these figures, most shots were unsuccessful.

In future, I look forward to gaming ACW at least several times a year from now on. All to be arranged of course.

Bowled Over

On saturday I rang up Vendel Miniatures and spoke to Derek about my order. It seems they ran out of metal for a fortnight, putting them behind. On top of that were their orders from Triples and all orders since. They will be going to Salute in a few days time. Derek said he was working all weekend to catch up with the orders and should receive my border reivers tuesday hopefully.

Went to the club tonight. Finally had my much anticipated 15mm ACW game with Dave Tuck. In our 15mm ACW game Dave and I were Union, each using our own figures. Steve Mercer and Ron Skeet were Confederate using Steve's figures. Other games going on were:

War of the Spanish Succession: Paul Robinson vs his son;
Romans v Carthaginians: Dave Hewins (Romans) vs Andy Hamilton;
Swedish Napoleonic era: Mark Alcock (Swedish) vs John Ogden (Prussian)

Took photos from all games. Over 100 which is a bit mad even for me. A lot didnt come out as usual but a decent amount did. Had a glance through them. There are some good shots from at least 3 of the games. Undecided on one of them. As there is a lot, cannot give previews from all games tonight but can give 1 preview. Read my blog in the next day or so as I will post some more. This preview (above) is a shot of Dave Hewins Romans.

Encountered an unusual problem tonight, though I think it will turn out to be a blessing in disguise. Lighting. It was too bright taking photos. On the other hand, it means there will be no need to brighten them up in Paint Shop Pro, just sort the good shots from the bad shots. Hope the lighting stays that way.

To my surprise, Dave Tuck not only let me keep my copy of the Whipping Bobby Lee playsheet, he also gave me his Border Reivers as he was not that interested in them plus the Border Reivers rulesheet. Thanks very much Dave. We won't see Dave for at least 3 weeks as he is disappearing to the Caribbean. If he runs into any pirate ships, I'm sure he'll know how to sort them galleys out. Shiver me timbers.

Looking forward to receiving my replacement Border Reivers from Vendel, hopefully tomorrow. All the best photos will be on the website in approx. 7 days time as usual.

Dying of Suspense

Still waiting for my border reivers to arrive. I was under the impression that the £1.50 postage was next day delivery. I was emailed back on wednesday confirming that they had received my complete address. Fingers crossed they'll come tomorrow. If not, I will be ringing them up to enquire.

Doctor Who is on tomorrow night. May have to watch it On Demand sometime next week.

Border Reivers Delay

Did not do garden in the end as not long after I had done my business in town I relaxed and laid on the bed. Fell asleep for a few hours. It was because I didn't get a full night's sleep last night.
The Border Reivers I ordered which I paid for by paypal a few days ago will be delayed. Not until I had paid did I realise that my paypal details, particularly my address, were incomplete. Stupid Boy. Emailed Vendel with the information. Hopefully they may arrive tomorrow or friday.

Falkirk District Wargames Club have put the photos I took of their game at Triples on their website and exchanged links too. I was politely emailed by one of their members after they had done so. I joined their forum out of interest. They started a topic on the "Grimsby Wargames Society", welcoming me to their forum. The topic can be viewed here: http://www.falkirkwargamesclub.org.uk/phpbb-2.0.21/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=234

Life on Mars finale was excellent. We finally found out what had happened to him, with a twist. Watched it on Demand. As I don't watch that much telly, I treat myself to an episode of BBC's Extras starring Ricky Gervais from Sunday just gone. It was fun. The one where they go to the BAFTA awards. Ironically in real life, Extras has been nominated for 2 BAFTAS mainly nominating Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant.

I'm practically willing my border reivers to come.

Bank Holiday

Didn't go to the club tonight. Didn't think there'd be much gaming on. Going next week instead. Looking forward to receiving my replacement border reivers. As it is forecast to be boiling, I intend to get the back garden sorted out. Will probably email some clubs before I go to bed tonight and explore some wargaming forums.

Life on Mars finishes tomorrow night. Accidentally missed 3 episodes of the series and want to catch up. Watched last weeks episode On Demand. Doctor Who was good on saturday too.

Easter Weekend

Went to the Star Trek CCG 2nd Edition Tournament at the society on saturday. Arriving late, Mark Alcock, Stuart Motley and Sonny Jensen were playing a card game of Wyatt Earp. Mark had bought this game at Triples along with some others. In the end Stuart and Mark had gained $30,000 in reward money with Sonny not so far behind. Then we had the tournament. Mark let me borrow one of his many decks. Stuart won the tournament with one of his ace decks (no surprises there then) with Sonny coming second. Stuart had to leave quickly as he was going to Warwick Castle,where his dad already was, for a few days with his re-enactment group "The Lincoln Castle Garrison" who unfortunately do not have a website yet. It was good to see them all as I cannot always attend these tournaments as I am quite often working overtime.

My article finally got finished saturday with some final touches yesterday regarding my visit to Triples 2007. It took me hours to do it. It was typed straight into the webpage off the top of my head, whilst trying to incorporate my photos into it. You can read the article here: My Visit to Triples 2007 with the updates here: Updates

Went to see my natural mum at Easter. Brought some soft-centred choccy for her as they are the only ones she can eat. She lives in a residential care home in Waltham, has been schizophrenic for many years and fast approaching 70. I am the only member of the family who goes to visit her. She still recognises me and everyone else at the home. Mum is always pleased to see me. Dropped by at the wrong time as it was nearly tea time when I went. Within 20 minutes of me arriving, she was nodding off in the chair. She was actually quite quiet which is usually an indication that she is very tired. The Choccies I bought her were Lindor. Just a small box. Doubt she could have managed a large one.

Had planned to start undercoating my border reivers today but I can't find them anywhere. the last place I saw them was at the club but I'm sure I bought them home. They were in the same bag as my GW paints. That bag also had a hole in it and my reivers were not in the bag when I checked. Am devastated. Was looking forward to start undercoating my reivers this weekend and start painting them within a few days. Ordered a replacement batch from Vendel Miniatures. Will keep looking. If the others turn up, I will have extra. If they don't, I will still have some reivers. Fingers crossed they are not far away.

Wandering around the back garden this afternoon to decide what I was going to do with it now Summer has arrived, another neighbourhood cat paid us a visit. Puss, my cat, came into the garden with me and was chewing grass as cats do. This other black and white cat was one of the 3 cheeky cats who, on occasion, I have "caught" doing a runner through the catflap after helping themselves to Puss's food and milk. It is why when Puss comes back in through the flap, I close it to stop any other cats sneaking in. Puss has not yet learned to go out through the flap yet. I took a photo this afternoon of this cheeky black and white cat (left). Below is a photo of Puss I took yesterday in the back garden. Had to move quick because she is very hard to take photos of as the only time she usually isn't moving about is when she's sleeping. I have other photos of Puss which I like but this is the best photo in ages.
Puss is a stray who wandered into my back garden a year ago and has been with me ever since. She's a lovely, nice cat, 4 or 5 years old, friendly, affectionate and good natured. Took her to the vet's for a check up before christmas. Puss was in perfect health with a really nice coat. Got her vaccinated and de-wormed. She is a very happy cat who has the terrible job of sleeping most hours of the day. I have always been glad that she found me and not anyone else.

Climate Change

It seems that according to the world's scientists Climate Change is a scientific fact. It has been debated for years but now apparently there is a scientific basis for it. I have always believed in it having observed the change in weather over the past few years or so. Things seem wetter in the UK and in North East Lincolnshire in particular Winter has slowly lost its bite. It still is cold but very milder. Snow fell this year but did not settle. Just light snow showers with hail. It wouldn't happen these days. Our hot days are really hot when we do get them. Otherwise they are gloomy and quite often wet. It is time the Governments of the World sat up and took notice of these findings. The severe impact of Global Warming may not happen for decades but it is the children of today in our schools who will be living in it. It affects everybody.

It was good to see those 15 servicemen who had been held by Iran for 13 days return yesterday with their debriefing today. They did the best they could under the circumstances and carried themselves with dignity throughout their ordeal. It was the Iranians who were in the wrong. When they were ambushed they were only lightly armoured against the Iranians who were heavily armoured. They would not have stood a chance. Britain should be proud of these servicemen.

Those World War 2 Italians..

Went to the club last night and thoroughly enjoyed it. There were 3 games going on:
15mm Seven Years War, Andy Hamilton and Tony Walmsley playing (see photo above, Horse Drawn Artillery by Tony Walmsley); War of the Roses, Dave Hewins, John Ogden, Andy Sharp and Mark Alcock playing. Dave Tuck and Steve Mercer were good enough to let me participate in their WW2 North Africa game between the British and Italians in desert terrain once again.

The Figures in the War of the Roses Photo (left) were by Dave Hewins.








The objective in our WW2 game was for the Italians (myself and Dave Tuck) to capture 3 Tents in the desert. Steve Mercer already had one, Dave and I had 2. In the end, the British won on completing the objective of capturing the tents and on points too. Gave the British a hard time though. Well, I thought so. Funny thing is, I was throwing lots of high dice all game but it still did not save us. Hence the title of this entry, Those World War 2 Italians...
Here are some previews of photos from the World War 2 Game:











In this final preview shot (below), Dave Tuck's Italian "Tankettes" had been machine-gunning Steve Mercers Infantry and Artillery Guns. In response, Steve rallied all his nearby tanks to attacking the "Tankettes" in a Blitzkreig. The "Tankettes" are the tanks smoking.

After sifting through all the photos I took last night, this was the result of how many of each game turned out as good as the photos on this blog:

Seven Years War - 6 Photos
War of the Roses - 4 Photos
WW2 Italians v British - 20 Photos (there were more than one of some).

There is much work to be done on the website in the next few days before Easter: Article and Photos of Triples, last night's photos, the War of the Spanish Succession photos and more. Easter is still my deadline. Bear with me but I promise you it will be worth the wait.

Orange Glow Removal

Happy April Fools Day!

I didn't feel like blogging at all yesterday. Felt slightly exhausted with my batteries not being even slightly recharged. So yesterday just watched some telly before went to bed, getting up this morning for work starting at 10am on checkouts. Feel slightly recharged today, better than recently and think I may have a cold. Sniffing a lot over the past few days too. Doctor Who was great last night. Good start to Series 3, introducing a new feisty companion, the lovely Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman). Looking forward to the next episode.

I had hoped to get my Triples article up by now but apart from being busy, a little under the weather, some of the photos from Triples are taking some time to sort out. After experimenting in Paint Shop Pro, I have a possible solution as to how to remove that annoying orange glow from the Octagon lighting, restoring the colour in the photos to what they should be. It's certainly a lot easier to tell how well the shot came out without that orange glow in the way, so can delete bad shots immediately. Playing with Paint Shop Pro as I type this. Should have photos sorted tonight along with gallery of last monday's game, making changes to the website over the next few days. Will have it all done by Easter. Hopefully before then. Determined to get my border reivers undercoated in the next few days. Enjoy the Doctor Who Trailer!