"Wargaming In An Exceedingly Poor Manner..." Topic

All,

Believe it or not, despite limited wargaming time, I've actually been quite busy using up every minute I could spare. I just haven't used it in a intelligent manner… Once again I have found myself in a gaming void, lacking motivation, then gaining motivation but then lacking proper miniatures, gathering proper miniatures but then lacking appropriate rules, or having my motivation for whatever project I was working on superseded by another, new project. I've been spending time and money like I'm independently wealthy, which, I assure you, is not the case… I've had so much going on that I need to break this post up into sections (should really be separate posts, I suppose, but I'm feeling too lazy for that at the moment).

I'm going to post a bunch of photos here to give you a taste, but please understand there are hundreds more on the blog, if you are so inclined.

More troops for WWII North Africa. A whole bunch of tanks, guns, and infantry, representing forces from seven nations! From far left, down, to right, up to far right, we have Yanks, Brits, Australians, Indians, Italians, Germans, and French.

Some 2-pdr Portees. The vehicles and guns are from Gaming Models, the drivers are Battlefront, and the gun crews are Peter Pig.

How about some Indians?

More Yanks.

French.

Bersaglieri.

Folgore.

Afrika Korps engineers. Did some Fallschirmjaeger engineers, too.

Some Hermann Goering Panzergrenadier Division troops.

Some individually-based American paratroopers…

And Germans.

Tried an Operation Barbarossa fight, didn't like the rules.

Tried a US/German fight in Tunisia, wasn't satisfied.

Got into Blood Red Skies.

Got me some Royal Marines.

And some Waffen SS.

Some modern Marines for the desert.

And some for more temperate climes.

Here's a pic of some Vietnam-era US advisors from Peter Pig. I re-based most of my 15mm Vietnam-era troops, including late-war ARVN, US Army, NVA, VC, and Montagnards. Even my French Foreign Legion and Vietminh.

Then I painted up a bunch of Peter Pig WWII US Marines as early war ARVN.

And did up some armor for them, as well.

If you'd like to see boatload more photos, please click the link to the blog:
link

So, there it is, a glimpse into the never-ending void of my wargaming mind. Can't say I haven't done anything, just haven't done much in the way of gaming. As my buddy Shaun says, I'm in peril of becoming a 'collector,' having lost my 'wargamer' status. Believe it or not, I am actively attempting to rectify the situation; my plan is to basically transfer my KG Klink concept to the Americans.
That is, I'm planning to take a fictional, stylized US "Combat Command," but sort of 'bathtub' it down to battalion size, with a company of tanks, a company of mechanized infantry, and supporting ATGs, MGs, mortars, SPGs, TDs, armored cars, and engineers, with each vehicle commander and small unit leader as a named character, and follow them through the entire war, tracking their campaigns, wounds, and medals for valor. My plan is to start with Operation Torch (thus the need for some Vichy French), then into Tunisia, Sicily, and Italy. At some point they'll leave Italy and go to France; not sure yet if I want to do the breakout from Salerno then go to Normandy, or do Anzio and then Operation Dragoon. Either way they'll end up pushing into Germany, going to hit Hurtgen Forest, maybe the Bulge, and then all the way to the bitter end.

Any minute now ;)

V/R,
Jack

Well if it's a 'collection', it's a darn fine collection that any 'wargamer' would be delighted to own!
Get some mud on them boots!
Cheers!

The dividing line between "collector" and "wargamer" is a fuzzy one at best. And it varies over time. We've all had dry spells with little or no time at the gaming table. There's no shame in using that time on other aspects of the hobby or to step back and reassess.

This year was an especially fractured period for me too, but TBH, most of my wargaming life has been pretty "inefficient", as you so nicely put it. It's just the standard malady of a hobby rooted in mercurial passions.

I'd like to know more about your reasoning behind the switch from 10mm to 15mm WWII. I just did the opposite.

(Okay, technically I chose 1/144 for tank gaming; I still have 15mm IJA, USMC, and Brits for Pacific War jungle fighting, so it's not really as dramatic as starting over. But choosing yet a third scale for WWII ground combat was a big and costly decision nonetheless. Let's just not talk about air and naval scales…)

Beautiful work Jack!

Wish I had a cash dollop every time I heard my internal voice say "it'll be great" about some new game project or period.

We certainly have to be self-motivating to craft and create for this chosen hobby like we do, but the final returns often don't compensate for all the effort (maybe Anti-Climactic should be the title of our universally-experienced ruleset).

Another strange experience might also come from having heightened expectations for 'returns', while seeing that the average gamer doesn't connect presentation fidelity as offering a rare opportunity – my area is thick with "Flat Earth Society" games and gamers – there's rarely a hill to be seen on the tabletop, and the periods and rules played devolve into a sameness of flat boards and exchanging 'broadsides' (despite the period being presented). Still, the general impression is that this is all fine and good – so why would anyone expect or want to do more?

Great looking collections.

Michael – Thanks, and working on it! I've actually played the first seven fights in North Africa, have number eight set up and ready to go. Need to write some batreps…

Blackjack – Indeed, truer words were never spoken! There's been a tremendous amount of satisfaction derived simply from the completion of so many projects this year, even if I didn't do much playing with them.

YA – Yes, the worst part of wargaming for me is inspiration igniting passion fueling motivation spurring purchase and preparation, only for that passion to have subsided once everything is finally ready, having been replaced by another spark of inspiration. I suppose that's why I've built up so large and eclectic a collection; I didn't really plan it out that way, but I suppose it's been a subconscious effort to have on hand whatever may strike my fancy, poised and ready for the moment inspiration strikes! ;)

Why the switch from 10mm to 15mm? Man, that's a horrible story with no satisfactory answer. There was no plan to switch; I had 10mm stuff for pretty much everything my heart desired, I was gaming all the time, everything was great. Then, right before COVID, my wife took my boys to a comic book shop; the comic book shop carried Flames of War stuff but was looking to get out of the business and so they'd slashed everything by 50%. Spurred on by my sons, my wife bought me a British North Africa and a German North Africa starter set.

When the COVID lockdowns hit I suddenly had tons of time on my hands; I painted up the sets my wife bought, and I really liked how they looked. 15mm just has a 'functional level of detail' that you don't have with 10mm or 6mm, meaning the smaller scales have great detail in the palm of your hand, but not necessarily on the tabletop, whereas I could see, and enjoyed seeing, a lot more detail with 15mm on the tabletop. And at that point I turned switched into collector/project manager mode, rather than wargamer mode. With plenty of money and time, my appetite grew voracious, insatiable even, and I just kept buying and painting, buying and painting, and when I couldn't keep up with painting all the stuff I'd bought, I started paying people to paint it for me (or buying it painted)!

Without ever playing a game in 15mm I'd suddenly amassed quite a sizeable collection; seeing the redundancy, I sold off quite a bit of 10mm gear, though I still have a tremendous amount of 10mm WWII and modern stuff taking up space.

For what it's worth, I think you've gone the right direction; I wish I hadn't done this, I wish I hadn't switched to 15mm, I wish I'd stuck with 10mm. It's cheaper, it's quicker and easier to paint up, and it looks better on the tabletop for the type of games I like to play (reinforced company to battalion-minus).

That is, in a vacuum, a 15mm tank looks better on the table than a 10mm tank on the table, but a table full of 10mm tanks in a game looks infinitely better than a table full of 15mm tanks in a game (assuming we're using the same sized table for both, and all in my humble opinion, of course). The one thing I'll say that 15mm has going for it is the availability of terrain, particularly ready made terrain. I'm lazy and, not wanting to spend too much time and effort on terrain (in terms of prep and/or scratchbuilding), and how easy it was to source, I played with 10mm toys on 15mm terrain, and over time this began to wear me down as I looked at photos in my batreps and began thinking "man, that just looks stupid, those little dudes up next to those giant buildings." I'd played with them for years and it didn't bother me, but once I saw it I couldn't unsee it.

But it's too late; I've spent the past three years collecting and prepping 15mm forces and terrain, it would be too difficult to dispose of these. I'd love to go back to 10mm, but I couldn't see listing all these and having to pack them up and ship them to dozens of different buyers, probably not making my money back even on the unpainted lead, then still needing to do it all again in 10mm (well, at least catch those forces up to all the things I have in 15mm that I don't in 10mm). What I need is someone with giant 10mm troops and terrain collection to trade me straight up for my 15mm collection, and he can swing by the house with a trailer that I can load up for him ;)

Dave – A dollop indeed! ;) And anti-climactic is perfect; they look so good, have so many cool/intriguing mechanics, but then I find it just doesn't work for me on the tabletop, usually from the standpoint of taking too long. And that's very interesting regarding the sameness of flat boards and exchanging broadsides; I do suppose that if you pick the right echelon, it's almost true though? ;) For my part, I've slid back into my happy place with 5Core Company Command again, it just does it for me. It's not perfect, but it gives me what I'm looking for.

Thanks, 79th!

V/R,
Jack

Great work Jack! Been a while since you posted. Now I see why! Glad to see you are well and still at it. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and family.

Sam

Jack, after my posting above, and then going to your blog, and checking out all your great painting work and expansive period choices…….then thinking on that, and applying that to my shelves of stuff here……

I thought you know, there's tremendous variety in our possessed collections, but we seem to only have that ability to focus on one facet of these at a time, eh? Like, why can't I get my 10mm American stuff played more, so then it's work, work, work on getting that part of a collection "capable" (then maybe a game comes off from this work). But wait again, there's the 28mm ACW stuff that needs attention, and so that dismounted cavalry and horse-holders need completion, so then it's work, work, work once more, and then maybe a game comes off from that recent work task.

Instead, why not attach a nicely capable collection to a battle board design, and say "Final". Now if I want to play with that 15mm AWI collection that's been sitting in the shelves for so long unused, I just put it into a presentation rotation. In fact, the game I put on with this AWI collection could be nearly identical to the last game I had prepared and played, until it was all packed away. The variety of gaming would then be satisfied by the interval of time elapsed between getting a particular collection out to play, and the inspiration to play wouldn't have to come from some immediate need to complete anything necessarily as new (required) work on a collection prior to doing so.

This is almost like thinking of "pulling out a collection", as if pulling out a board game, where the boxed game has everything needed to enjoy some immediate action. Sure, the board action is limited to the game contained within, but if one wants variety, pull out another favorite "box" and try that again…….it's an idea to imagine a rotation of gaming as THE plan. That the enjoyment will come from cycling through the collections, and that revisiting these collections will be fresh enough, just in getting them out onto the game board once again. Might even be the same scenario played a year ago, or with a slight twist, but if your memory is like mine now, it'll seem like it's new [but good old times] all over again. :)))

This is how all of my collections wind up sooner or later. Like most gamers, I settle into a system I like playing with each collection, and the miniatures selection/basing/terrain/markers all work together. To play a given system I usually have a group of boxes (and sometimes tubes) I pull out as a set. I can assemble a CY6 game, a GQ3 game, or an AWI RF&F game in a few boxes and tubes.

This paradigm breaks down when interest wanes. Sometimes the pieces get borrowed and don't come back; sometimes my old projects look too crappy to use and get thrown out; sometimes I made improved bits that don't work with the old period anymore; sometimes a collection languishes long enough to be broken up by shifting out of the way too many times.

For decades I strove mightily to limit my land gaming to 15mm, which meant much of my terrain worked for any period in a temperate climate. I do have some period-specific pieces (buildings, fences, bridges, etc.), but the roads and trees and streams are universal. Then, just this month, I jumped into 1/144 WWII all the way up to femur fractures. I've been telling myself I can still use my 15mm terrain trees, lichen, haystacks, roads, creeks…. but I bet there's a whole new set of buildings, fences, bridges, and distinctly modern items like telegraph poles in my future. Even worse, I just pulled the trigger on a big Kallistra Hexon collection that's going to be about 16-24 cubic feet of hex-based terrain stuff which will not be re-usable for non-hex gaming (so basically a complete duplication of my battlefield cloths, styrofoam hills, and scatter terrain). To be fair, in my feverish long-range plans, it will replace/supplement/extend my naval gaming shore terrain, get my Ogre Miniatures collection on the table at long last, finally enable me to try out Rommel and Panzer Grenadier and Nations at War, etc. So, you know… I think it will work out… Heh.

- Ix

Hello Sam! Semper Fidelis, hope you all are having a great holiday season! I keep thinking about ‘Two Brothers' and when/how to get back to them ;)

Dave – Yes, exactly! If you've never seen my buddy Joe Legan's blog ("Platoon Forward"), he has various WWII (GIs in the Pacific and Europe, US paras in Europe, Brits, Germans, and Italians in North Africa, Brits in Italy, Germans in Soviet Union, Italians in Greece, just off the top of my head), Vietnam (US, French, and ARVN), Cold War (US and West German), and Modern (USA in Somalia and Afghanistan, USMC in Iraq), plus aerial dogfighting, sailing ships, PT Boats, Revolutionary War, Vikings, and Romans stuff, and he plays all of it, whenever he wants!

He used to make fun of me for sticking with one campaign for so long, and I made fun of him for constantly jumping around to different eras, settings, and troops. But I must say, I'm coming around to his style of play. I have a lot of different things I want to do, and want to be able to capitalize when the inspiration strikes, rather than feel bummed because it seems like too big a pain in the ass.

From my perspective, the key to his method seems to be playing with relatively small forces on relatively small tables, all in one scale, so that it doesn't seem like such a chore to put away one "collection" (say 28mm jungle terrain and Vietnam-era troops) in order to bring out another "collection" (say 6mm winter terrain and WWII-era troops). So while I've sort of lost my mind collecting all these different forces, this is what I'm working towards. It probably sounds nuts, but I have a 8' x 6' table permanently set up in a ‘toy room' in my house and I've been looking at figuring out a way that I could essentially have three 4' x 3' playing areas set up: one temperate/jungle, one desert, and one winter, with space nearby for the associated terrain (buildings, rivers, trees, walls, etc…), and all the troops are already fairly handily stored in those plastic stackable boxes I use (visible at the top of the very first picture in this post). Then I could get pretty much anything onto the table in a matter of minutes. One can dream ;)

YA – Yeah man, I'm with you! Wargaming is awesome, and incredibly aggravating/frustrating! I'd never be this irrational in other aspects of my life! How many times have I wondered how much more time and money I would have if I'd gone with video games instead…. I'm green with envy! I've stared at that Hexon terrain for countless hours, but have always talked myself out of it because of all the money I've sunk into terrain and mats already. And I might be rich if I could get back all the money I've spent on projects I thought would work that didn't turn out! Too funny, we have quite a bit in common!

And I hope using your 15mm terrain with your 10mm troops works out. It worked for me for years, then one day it just didn't.

I swear if I had it all to do over again I would do 10mm (WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Cold War, Modern, ACW, AWI, and Napoleonics), a SMALL 28mm setup for some skirmish games, and 1/200 for air. As opposed to all the variations of eras, some in multiples (I.e., WWII land in four different scales), in 3mm, 6mm, 10mm, 15mm, and 20mm… And air in 1/1200, 1/600, 1/300, and 1/200…

V/R,
Jack

Jack and Craig, this thread has been so inspiring!

As I read these last two postings by you guys, it almost sounds like I'm thinking out loud as you make your points.

To hear how Joe Legan cycles though his presentations is the way I'm heading now.

Since most of my gaming is at some public venue or a friend's house, I'll be aiming at pulling the troops out of their nifty containers and keeping them matched within the carriers I often use for transporting a scenario's materiel (the figs, terrain, rules, dice, rulers, etc. will all stay together now as a package, and not be separated out post-presentation).

For years I've advised new gamers or guys getting into a different period to collect and paint for the scenario first, not the collection. I'll be following through on this as much as I can now, tasking myself to begin organizing my carriers to have the minis, terrain, and mats all pre-arranged together as complete units – the scenario prepared will be the organizing principle for my storage focus, and forces detailed for each particular action will stay organized together, ready for the next time the containing case is pulled out of the shelves, everything ready for play.

When I look at my hobby shelves now, I don't want to see collections…..but games!

And I hope using your 15mm terrain with your 10mm troops works out. It worked for me for years, then one day it just didn't.

I totally get how that happens. Tastes change, values evolve, and exposure to nice-looking stuff in other peoples' games sometimes poisons the well that always seemed potable before.

To be clear, I'm not just throwing my 1/144 collection into 15mm-scaled terrain – a lot of my buildings and trees are underscale for 15mm on purpose, so should still look okay with 12-13mm tall figures. Some of my terrain will be rejected as "looks wrong" for one scale or the other, so I'll probably wind up with 3 new categories (e.g. "15mm only", "12mm only" and "12mm/15mm"). Because some 1/144 tanks are still a lot taller than 15mm figures, I may actually have a lot of trees that look too short.

My fences are mostly 19th C. rural American and probably way overscale for 12mm tall men, plus there's also the new problem of sizing fence bits to the Hexon grid (it would just be dumb luck if I had already made anything in appropriate lengths). That's a bummer, but I'm starting my tank gaming in Russia and then moving to Africa before I ever get around to Italy or France, so maybe I can put off making a whole new set of fences for a few years. Or indefinitely.

- Ix

For years I've advised new gamers or guys getting into a different period to collect and paint for the scenario first, not the collection.

Excellent advice.

The only catch here is that quite a bit of miniatures collecting is driven by desire, not utility. Sometimes the miniatures come first, then the game to put them in. I had zero interest in ACW naval gaming until I saw Thoroughbred 1/600 ironclads, and then I had about a dozen ships painted and the search for rules began.

I'll be following through on this as much as I can now, tasking myself to begin organizing my carriers to have the minis, terrain, and mats all pre-arranged together as complete units – the scenario prepared will be the organizing principle for my storage focus, and forces detailed for each particular action will stay organized together, ready for the next time the containing case is pulled out of the shelves, everything ready for play.

I've found two huge impediments to this approach:

• It can be impossible to get the same group of gamers to play the same scenario twice. I usually get to run any particular scenario 3 times before I have to shelve it for years – once at a club, once at a near convention, once at a far convention.
  
• Even the most well-meaning players cannot organize your miniatures to your satisfaction. Personally, I can't even seem to get them to put casualties back in the same box they came out of, as they come off the table, but that might just be a local problem.

Also: I inevitably end up with items shared between two (or more!) scenarios. These just have to be packaged separately, and then I need a checklist for each game. On the bright side, taking 2-3 games to a con that all share some units or terrain saves on packing space.

- Ix

Yup, pretty cool stuff, and good to know I'm not alone with my wargaming illness ;)

I'm lucky (or not, depending upon your viewpoint) that most of my gaming is solo, so 1) I'm playing at home and 2) I don't have to worry about making anyone happy but myself, but even so, and even with a permanent table set up, it's a drag when I've got a desert mat laid out and a bunch of desert terrain drug out and all over the place and all of a sudden I'm in the mood to play a winter or jungle fight, so I'm looking at ways to defray the cost of aggravation by creating dedicated spaces, though I understand you guys' concepts of having specific 'travel' containers for specific usage.

Dave, I see the term 'scenario,' but when you're saying that, do you mean that as one specific fight (i.e., the Battle of Arracourt), or more of a campaign (i.e., everyting you need to play a series of fights between US and Germans in Normandy)? I'm definitely the latter type, where I'm focused on the exploits of certain characters, i.e., following a US Rifle Company (with the CO, XO, and platoon leaders as 'named' characters with personalities; sometimes, well, too often, I get too involved, naming every squad leader and vehicle commander) through a series of fights in Normandy. And that's what I'm getting at with my wargaming conundrum; I'll play three or four fights with that US Rifle Company in Normandy, and then I'm like "man, I'd like to play some games following a British Parachute Rifle Company in Arnhem, or some games following a French Foreign Legion Rifle Company in IndoChina, and I need to be able to quickly shift back and forth somehow, in order to capitalize on the inspiration ;) But yes, no collections, games, or in my case, casts of characters ready to campaign!

YA – Gotcha regarding terrain. All of my terrain, from the get-go, was 15mm, which really made the (unwanted) transition to 15mm easier. And again, no judgement here, absolutely do whatever makes you happy, my stuff just started to bother me. At some point we may need to talk about 10mm gear; I've still got quite a bit of painted 10mm troops laying around, unused. I've got early war Germans (gray) and Soviets, various infantry, guns, and vehicles, some Brits and Germans for NW Europe, some US and Japanese, some US and NVA for Vietnam, a smattering of US, British, French, Israeli, Russian, and insurgents for modern fights, and then a bunch of French IndoChina, WWII US and German Afrika Korps (was looking at Tunisia), and winter WWII Eastern Front troops laying around unpainted. Even a bunch of trees I bought off Ebay that are good looking but too short for 15mm!

"The only catch here is that quite a bit of miniatures collecting is driven by desire, not utility."
Amen to that! Half the crap I have doesn't make sense, I could easily 'proxy' it with something else but I got it because… I wanted it ;) Once something inflames the passion, I have no control. It used to be that I could sleep on it and often it would go away, but no longer, I have completely lost all discipline…

V/R,
Jack

Half the crap I have doesn't make sense

I own a few things that have no gaming purpose to me whatsoever:

• A stand of camels dressed as war elephants (a Cyropaedic era tactical ruse, I think)
  
• Baba Yaga's hut in roughly 15mm scale
  
• A 1/144 model of Porco Rosso's seaplane (with a pig-headed pilot)
  
• A 1/300 WWII Soviet Tu-2 bomber painted in desert pink (yes… just because I wanted to make the "pink tu-tu" joke. Seriously.)
  
• The entire fleet of ironclads that bombarded Alexandria in 1882, in 1/1250 scale
  
• A pre-painted 1/1250 model of HMS Dreadnought (a very nice Navis model, actually, quite expensive)

And so on…

A good number of my gaming projects started because I loved the miniatures and wanted to own some. I never had any interest in ACW naval gaming until I saw Thoroughbred miniatures, and then I had a bunch painted and I needed rules. Same for 1/72 Napoleonics, 1/1250 WWII naval, Cruel Seas (hate the game, but had to have the ships), and now 1/144 tanks.

<shrug>

I'm not too flustered about it. The reverse is actually a bigger problem. Many years ago I decided the inner voice saying "I want one" wasn't the problem, it was the prime mover of the hobby. Without it, the projects languish and collect dust and guilt. There are projects and even whole periods I've walked away from because I realized I just didn't like the miniatures, and was never going to "get around" to them while prettier projects kept distracting me with passionate interest. Arguments about practicality, simulation value, better money value, compatibility with existing projects, none of that matters as much as "I really want these". From that view, Jack, I'd say your move from 10mm to 15mm was probably the right one. If the 15mm gear is what you really wanted, it's probably the right scale to work with. The rapid proliferation of troops and gear in that scale is your proof.

I never felt any passion for 10mm miniatures myself – too small, too blobby, too bland – so I rejected them off hand and ignored them for many years. Unfortunately for my focus and finances, the pre-painted 1/144 miniatures are a different thing altogether, and people like FlyXwire and machinehead posting really nice pictures of them for over a decade primed me. When a box of them landed in my lap (from a departed friend's estate), I couldn't stop thinking about how I might use them. Last month I had an epiphany about how I want to play with them, and it was like removing the key log in a log jam – first a steady flow of research, then a few purchases, then some terrain-making experiments, then shopping for storage, then looking for rules, test games, more shopping, a big terrain purchase, making room in the shed…. This project is in full flood now. The dam is all but washed away.

- Ix

"A 1/144 model of Porco Rosso's seaplane (with a pig-headed pilot)"

THAT is pretty damn eclectic. Respect for that. But, have you used this model in a wargame? Then, even more respect.

JUST JACK is the ultimate gentleman, gamer and dude here. All the best with your projects for 2023 man. In the past you've been nothing but positive about my projects and you have kept me on the level. Thank you for that man.

Merry Christmas to all.

Yellow Admiral – I know exactly what you mean about not being able to get players to even put casualties back into trays/boxes….even if the undersides of figure bases and the cells in the carry cases are numbered the process seems ti be beyond wargamers.

Every time I run an AWI game, I have a giant sorting project afterward – each unit has a specific uniform. Labeling the base bottoms and boxes is mostly a help to me, since nobody else even seems to notice. It's one of the chores that makes it just a bit harder to run the next game.

Early this year, while I was cleaning up terrain and other detritus post-game, one of my players sat down and voluntarily did the sort for me. I was so grateful I hugged him.

- Ix

MILSPEX,

A gentleman??? Not sure who's been lying to you! ;)

In any case, I appreciate the well wishes, hope everything is going great for you. Here's hoping to see more of your 6th Marines' invasion of Cuba!

V/R,
Jack

Yellow Admiral -- we run big 28mm WW2 and Vietnam games. Each company has it's own K&R box and each tray takes one platoon, clearly marked on bases, trays and boxes…..you'd have thought, would n't you….?

Comments
What a great thread! Looks like I missed a lot while I was gone. : )

Joe

Indeed. I hope you're proud of all the havoc you've wrought in my (wargaming) life ;)

V/R,
Jack