Re-united (or rather re-spawned) with a PC and Internet access :)

But the crash was a bad one.
Installations abound.
Nice to have data like this in the cloud!

Lost a lot of free wargamining stuff stored locally, but that is just another excuse to go down load it again if it is still their.

Luckily my blog has most of the links I need

PC Meltdown

PC hard disk crash 

Almost impossible to post using the Blogger App on the iPhone :(

Will be quiet for a while

Gone to the Wall .. Hadrian's that is ;)

Back from a family holiday up North to "The Wall" (but not that of Game of Thrones ilk with the army of the dead behind it) but the one that Uncle Hadrian built to keep the Pict tribes out (see below):

Don't let those smiling faces in the sunshine on the cover deceive you, at Birdoswald it was blooming cold and by the staff's confession not unusually so! I pity the Numidian auxiliary that got posted here! However I am pleased to report that it has stirred my blood to get back to painting that 28mm Warlord Games Imperial Roman Army starter set (plus the metal extras I bought, shush!). I also have a host of Roman history books to read. To remind me of this 'pledge to Rome' I bought a "cup" in the English Heritage sale (see below):

Amongst my holiday travels in Keswick I found a toy shop having a sale. I managed to pick this little GW Sci-Fi item up for £9.(see below, it was 'almost cheap' at half the recommended retail price):

I have always wanted to beef up the Space Marines on Space Crusade so an Ultra Marine Terminator (I knew I was going to get one someday) comes in handy. (See below, an 'old school' model, the skull with a bullet hole through it for the 'base' was a nice touch though): 

The Marine on Bike is just table dressing or paper weight as I don't do the full 40K tabletop thing, opting for more atmospheric 'deep space' Space Crusade RPG narrative! (see below, and the brush and paints were a bonus - the wife is amazed how I can sniff these shops out! Although the words "amazed" might be replaced by a more harsher alternative phrase):

There were some more 'sensible' items in the sale, so I picked up some 'modern' German Paratroopers and British Infantry (20mm) for five quid each. These will be perfect for my Modern Chain of Command games planned (see below):

Fun for the future!

Command Decision "Test of Battle" CD4 (or rather CD4.1)

I knew it existed but I had never bumped into it at a show or wargames show and by the time I tried to buy it on-line it seemed to have 'long gone'. So I kind of snapped it up when I saw it advertised on eBay. Reading the bumf I see that it is officially termed Command Decision 4.1 (dated as 2012) because it is a re-edit of the first production run. Good enough for me (see below):

Glimpsing through it says there is lots of extra stuff to download from the web-site (stats charts and scenarios). A few of the core mechanisms I was happily reading about in CD3 seem to have been surreptitiously dropped. In no particular order. Turn time seems to have gone from 15 to 30 minutes. Rather than number of hits to kill it seems better troops are harder to kill. Spotting goes deterministic. Artillery suppression rather than casualties is a "new" concept.

All I want to make sure I "play some games with it" rather than just add to my collection of  wargame rules ;)

Wargames Rules Modern (Post 1950): Digging up Old Rules and Dusting Them Off Continued (WRG Wargame Rules 1950-2000: Edition 1993)

Rules search update: 

It seems that the 1988 edition of the WWII rules will be far different from my 1973 version, hinted at and outlined from comments to my previous post (drat). By looking ahead at the 1950-2000 rules I acquired (which is an appropriate set for the Falklands, NATO v Warsaw Pact, Arab v Israeli, Iran v Iraq, the 1st and 2nd Gulf Wars and perhaps even Vietnam or Russians in Afghanistan) you can see that there are several new concepts which seem to follow from the Barker "troop definitions" (think DBA definitions), orders, modes, force posture, morale and combat skills, Tactical and Exigency Modes in small 1990's closely typed typescript. No evidence of the advent of the word processor home publishing revolution here. Oh for the sweet breath of fresh "comic sans" here! Looks like it will need some meticulous close scrutiny over a quiet weekend of two (see below): 

Hmm, so methinks I will need to get the 1988 WWII version of Armour and Infantry (eventually) to update my WWII part of the WRG rule set (see below, but it looks like costing me £20 via WRG)

However I do fancy a couple of nostalgic games with the 1973 WWII version first though!