RSS FeedAngus Konstam is an author and historian - visit his website at
www.anguskonstam.com or e-mail him at anguskonstam@aol.com
He's a member of the Orkney Wargames Club, which meets in Kirkwall on Thursday evenings.
See their Facebook page for more info.
Queen Victoria’s Little Wars, The Men Who Would Be Kings, 28mm I missed last week’s club night thanks to another engagement, so I didn’t get my game fix. To remedy this, I was planning to run a small colonial game with Mr. Babbage – the solitaire system that came with the rules. Halfway through though,
The Great War at Sea, Fleet Action Imminent, 1/2400 scale It’s been a while. Last week I couldn’t reach the club in Kirkwall ’cause the Churchill Barriers were closed – the causeways I have to drive over to get into town. Then, thanks to ferry cancellations and a gale, I couldn’t get to my big
The Seven Years War, Post of Honour, 28mm With just Sean 2 and I this week due to funerals and sports events, we played a game at my place rather than the club. That made sense as otherwise it’s a 30 mile round trip for both of us. He had to act as a taxi
Bismarck’s Wars, Fire & Fury, 10mm With two of our usual crowd off doing other things, Sean (1) and I were left to entertain ourselves at the club this week. I was surprised when, given the choice of a whole range of periods, he opted for this one. He tells me he likes the period,
Ironclads, Dahlgren & Columbiad, 1/600 scale We hadn’t played a naval game for a while, and so we opted for this – a sea battle in the era of ironclads, but without a single ironclad in sight! Still, David Manley’s excellent rules cope with wooden-walled steamships perfectly well. This game, a refight of the Battle
The Second World War, Chain of Command, 28mm For the second week in a row my car is in the garage, waiting for the mechanic to get cracking. So, as I couldn’t make it to the club, Sean 2 kindly offered to pop out for a Sunday evening game. He’d never played Chain of Command
Bismarck’s Wars, Fire & Fury, 10mm With my car in the garage I wasn’t able to get in to the wargame club. So instead, Sean 2 came round for a game – he lives a few miles away. As I couldn’t be bothered getting my full 6×4 foot table out, I set out the game
The Seven Years War, Post of Honour, 28mm With just two of us this week, and as we both live near each other, a half hour’s drive from the wargame club, we decided to stage a game at my place. When asked, Sean 2 opted for the Seven Years War, as he hadn’t gamed that
The English Civil War, For King & Parliament, 28mm When we decided on an English Civil War game this week, we reprised our fictitious little campaign nest in South Yorkshire. In it, the Royalist Earl of Doncaster (played by Sean) is locked in tabletop combat with my guy, the Earl of Rotherham. This week, Sean
The Napoleonic Wars, Shadow of the Eagles, 28mm This game was dictated by the fact that I picked up more boxes of cavalry than anything else. So, unsurprisingly we decided to stage a largely cavalry clash, which would take place near the village of Gülden-Gossa, to the south of Leipzig. On 16 October, during the
Mary Queen of Scot’s Wars, The Pikeman’s Lament, 28mm This week the wargame club wasn’t open, as we’d been bumped by another worthy group. Instead, I played a game at home over the weekend – a skirmish set in the age of Mary Queen of Scots. In The Pikeman’s Lament, one of the scenarios is
The Second World War, Chain of Command, 28mm This was the third scenario of our Operation Martlet “pint-sized campaign”. The last two saw the British 49th Infantry Division push into the Normandy village of Fonyenay-le-Pesnel, driving back the forward outposts of the 12th SS Panzer Division. Now, the advance units of the Royal Scots Fusiliers
The Second World War, Blitzkrieg Commander, 6mm This was a game with quite a few firsts in it. For starters, it was the first game laid on and run by Nick since he came to Orkney. Thanks, Nick, for stepping up to the plate! Second, it was my first 6mm game for the best part
The Seven Years War, Post of Honour, 28mm This week we continued our try-out of Post of Honour, the free SYW rules from Keith Flint. As they’re very similar to Keith’s Napoleonic set Shadow of the Eagles which we use, then the learning curve” is pretty minimal. Still, there are a few differences, and we
Bismarck’s Wars, Fire & Fury, 10mm We rarely play the same period twice in a row, except when we’re trying to learn or re-acquaint ourselves with a set of rules. This was the case here. For last week’s 1866 game I forgot the playsheets listing the European amendments to the rules. So, we decided to
Bismarck’s Wars, Fire & Fury, 10mm It’s been a while since we last delved into this colourful period. The last time we were trying out Piquet’s Field of Battle. This time though, we returned to what is probably my favourite rules set for the period – Fire & Fury. While these are for the American
The English Civil War, For King & Parliament, 28mm Once again there were just two of us gaming this week. So, we opted for a small English Civil War encounter – part of our continued feud between the Royalist Earl of Doncaster (Sean’s alter ego) and my own Parliamentarian one, the Earl of Scunthorpe. In
