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 A change of scale this week, and of battleground. We were off to the North-West Frontier, and a punitive expedition against the troublesome Waziris of Marsdi Khel. It’s a village in the Tochi Valley, and in 1897 it was one of several trouble spots
The Second World War, Rapid Fire Reloaded, 12mm After a hiatus of a week, as I had an AGM to go to, we resumed our ‘Battling through Grangemello’ game this week, which was set in Sicily in July 1943. We’d stopped it at the start of Move 8 – a convenient point, as that’s when
The Second World War, Rapid Fire Reloaded, 12mm A few months ago a scenario appeared in Wargames, Soldiers and Strategy magazine which looked interesting. It was set in Normandy, but it was simple enough to rejig it for Sicily instead. In this one, as a Yorkshireman, Sean took the British 15th Brigade, part of the
The Seven Years War, Honours of War, 28mm The decision to make this an all-cavalry battle was all down to laziness. I hadn’t planned the game, and so rather than looking out a mixed force for both sides, I just grabbed the cavalry boxes. Actually, they weren’t all cavalry – one of the boxes had
Bismarck’s Wars, Fire & Fury, 10mm Okay, Bismarck wasn’t responsible for this one, but it still fits into the same historical period. As I’d recently painted up some Italian buildings, we decided to take the fight to Northern Italy this week, and fight part of the Battle of Magenta – the big scrap outside Milan
The Second World War, Chain of Command, 28mm With just Nick and I available this time, we decided to play a CoC game, set in 1940. that seemed the perfect excuse to stary a new ‘pint-sized campaign. I opted for Attack on Caesar’s Camp, which follows the fortunes of the 51st (Highland) Division of the
The French & Indian Wars, Rebels and Patriots, 28mm We opted for a French & Indian Wars game as there were just two of us. We’ve played ‘Scenario L – Defending Mendenhall’s Battery’ from the rules before. As memory serves it was an easy win for the defenders – the ones with the big guns.
The Second World War, Rapid Fire Reloaded, 10mm We were off to Sicily this week, trying out a scenario devised by Kevin Calder in the latest Wargamers’ Annual. It wasn’t the usual fare – deployment was pretty random, to reflect scattered units, and instead of morale worked out at battalion level, as usual, we did
World War II Naval, General Quarters 3, 1/2400 scale Nick from the club has just bought loads of 1/6000 scale WWII ship models. He wanted to try out General Quarters v3, as he’d last used the set back when it was v.1. So, I l staged this by way of an introduction to the rules.
The Back of Beyond, The Men Who Would Be Kings (adapted), 28mm It’s been quite a while since we last ventured into the ‘Back of Beyond’. As Nick pointed out, we usually run it as a pre-Christmas game, but this time ACW river rams got played instead. We made up for it this week, with
The English Civil War, For King & Parliament, 28m After a couple of weeks fighting with tanks in Russia, we hankered for something less modern and closer to home for this week’s game. We settled on the English Civil War, and a small game set amid our fictional struggle for control of South Yorkshire between
The Second World War, Rapid Fire Reloaded, 10mm Its very unusual that we play two similar games back to back. Still, as I said last week we’re trying out different rules sets for our 10mm WW2 kit. Last week it was Iron Cross, while this time it’s Rapid Fire Reloaded. Now, I haven’t played Rapid
The Second World War, Iron Cross, 10mm It’s been a while. Damn you, Christmas and New Year, for your enforced jollity and closed venues – like the hall we game in! This week though, we were back, or at least Sean and I were. The plan was to try out two rules sets for this
Ironclads, Dawn of Iron, 1/600 scale For the final club game we wanted something fairly light-hearted and frivolous. This sort of fitted the bill. As you know, I’ve been trying out these rules, but this was their first proper outing, a multi-player game with lots of ships. There’s something about Mississippi paddle steamers – they
The Seven Years War, Honours of War, 28mm We needed our Seven Years War fix, so we staged this little game at the club this week. the idea – lifted and adapted from an old Charles Grant scenario – had the Allies trying to force a crossing of the River Else, a tributary of the
Ironclads, Dawn of Iron, 1/600 scale As part of the ‘learning the rules’ drive, I staged another small American Civil War naval game at home, to see how less well-protected ships fared under these new rules. In the end I staged a slimmed-down version of Hampton Roads, and the fight between the Monitor and the
Ironclads, Dawn of Iron, 1/600 scale I’m sure I’m going to bore you over the next few weeks. First off, for various reasons I’ll have to skip two club nights. So, instead, I’m going to post a couple of American Civil War naval games, as I’m trying to learn this new set of rules. I’ll
