Sojourn

I haven't actually been on holiday, s the title may suggest, but having missed posting last week it feels like I have been.

The truth of the matter was that I forgot to post and by Wednesday, when I realised I hadn't posted I decided that I wouldn't bother.  I had to report about two games of gladiator combat  that we'd played, though I only mnaged one photogrpah (on the right)  before my camera decided it needed its battery charging !  
This week's post was going to be about the "Battleground 2022" show in Stockton, but real life conspired against me getting there. 

This post, such as it is was meant to be done yesterday, but I forgot (again), probably due to the unwanted knowledge that I now have three additional Doctor, Clinic and hospital visits in December.
Unfortunately that's all I've got for this week. 

(The photograph is two Gladiators, representing two provocators after one has had their first move.

I'll try and get my players along again this week  after failing to do so last week,

That's it then for another week.

The Great Hall

Along with visiting Winchester cathedral, I also visited the great 13th century medieval Hall (pictured right), famous mostly because of the reproduction of the round table .

The great hall has been a royal residence, a stronghold and a courtroom as well as beind used for TV and films.
The round table was painted by Henry VIII around 1516 CE.

Here's the photos:

The city's medieval west gate, found en route to the Hall.

The 5.5m diameter round table, weighing 1200kg up on the wall

The other end of the Hall, opposite the table.

Close up of the above wall showing a myriad of genealogy

Stunning armourial bearing in the windows.

Picture (poor) of a model of early Winchester, Hall on the left and the West gate on the right.

I purposely didn't show these photographs last week as I wouldn't have had anything to post about this week. Last week I was occupied with a clinic visit to give blood and a hospital visit to scan my bones (being old etc.). The week was then topped of with a letter informing me of another hospital visit booked for December ! This week has already started with yet another covid booster jab (my 4th), but I am hoping to have some gladiator action this week, hoepfully,  that  I'll probably post about next week,

That's it then for this week, thanks for taking the time to visit and as always your comments are welcomed and appreciated.

Winchester

 

Not the famous western firearm, but rather the beautiful cathedral in the county of Hampshire, that was the main objective of our trip south (through horrendous storms). We only had a single day to explore both the cathedral and the Great Hall.

The photograph on the right shows the front of the cathedral's west wall, with the main window looking more like a modern day abstract mosaic as the original glass was shot through by parliamentarian soldiers in the Civil War.

Here's the photographs:

The North wall with four information stands showing the developement of the building.

One of the four information stands

Looking down to the east altar and quire and (imho) a ghastly modern 'star'

The view down the nave towards the west entrance

One style of window

Another style of window with 'cleaner' lines imo.

No caption necessary

This was about half the tiles that could be seen (note the modern replacements too)

Detail showing the many, wonderful tiles

The roof of one of the many chapels in the cathedral

Entrance to the crypt (I didn't take the tour)

Some of the many flags to be found in the cathedral

More flags, British Legion I think

Heraldic banner in one of the aisles (there were others)

One of th many epitaphs, around the cathedral, that caught my eye...

It was the palm tree in particular that drew me to this

Lieutenant Turner of the Bengal Native Infantry and commandant of the corps of guides.

A good model of the cathedral.

That's it for this week, I'm keeping the few photographs I have of the Great Hall, in reserve, until next week.

 

Thanks for taking the time to visit, sorry nothing to report on the hobby front, but  I'm still hopeful.

 

As always your comments are both welcomed and truly appreciated.

City Boards

 Another of the many 'treasures' I rescued from Bryan's (Vampifan's) collection, just about a year ago.

These boards have been lying quietly in a corner of the room where I orginally stored all of Bryan's rescued possessions and it was only when I'd finished cleaning off my games table that I thought about showing these boards.
The photograph on the right shows my table cleared off (for six foot at least), all ready to once more be used as a Xmas present wrapping startion - or maybe even a game !

I have fourteen of Bryan's 23" square boards, one being his skateboard park, which need a bit of TLC (but in the state I got it). There are another three boards, all of odd sizes: One car park board, 15" x 30"; one car park board, 22.5" x 30" and finally the base for his "Brummie's Burger" joint, 30" x 22.5". Why the change in boards sizes I don't know

Here's the photographs:

Six boards, a mix of off-centre roads and centred roads.

Another six boards, I think he must have loved his car-parks!

"Brummie's Burgers" base and the skateboard park board, plus more car parks

The single cross-roads board up against the burger joint boards

The disparity between one of the 23" square boards and Brunnie's Burger joint board.

The boards, are all made o the same standard of evrything else Bryan made; I think they;re all 5mm foam with the roas etc, printed onto card (or some quality paper), so they're not that heavy, but thy are a bit bulky. Unfortunately they do need a new home as they don't fit in with my own terrain boards = if anyone want them, please drop me an email (contact detail on my profile page).

That's it for another week, next week's post may not happen as I'm away for a long weekend to the deep South, visiting relatives in Wiltshire, with a quick diversion to Winchester.

Thanks for taking the time to visit and as always your comments are welcomed and appreciated.

More Gladiatorial Games

 Another week where I luckily managed three games in our gladiator campaign. Firstly a concluding game for the second Munus  and two games from the third munus. Because of  how the various competitions were drawn up and because we were a player short, I ended up having to play in all three games, the first game I had my high level retiarius (net man) and a lower class Secutor (heavy armed but slow).The secutor's (or pursuer's) sole objective was to get me into close combat whilst I tried to evade his grasp by hitting him at long range with my trident. 

Six dice  determine your various actions (attack, defence, recover fatigue etc.) and losing one or more is very restricting. The photograph on the right shows the situation in turn two; the secutor (on the right) having already temporarily lost a die on turn one from his own attack has been entangled by  a net-throw (timed when he had no dice to defend against it.) It was a bad entanglement and he temporarily had to lose another three dice ! It was many turns before he would regain the lost dice (needing sixes on his two dice).

I had the advantage of initiation every turn, a long range attack and retire, tiring the secutor out

With barely a scratch between the two of us, the secutor surrendered to the mercy of the crowd

With the first game out of the way, the second game saw my light spear-armed, but experienced  Hoplomachus take on my friend's heavily armoured and equally experienced Murmillo, My tactics of hit and retire had to be revisited as the Murmillo would be a killing maching at close range. I got a lucky blow in early on, giving him a bleeding wound. He returned the 'favour' later on, but the damage was done and he had to retire through fatigue.

Starting position with pools of blood

My route of retreat from the start, with murmillo in pursuit

The end and the Murmillo (top) is finally exhausted (he survived his appeal to the crowds)

The Murmillos sheet showing his slight nick on his head and his exhaustion

My Hoplomachus hadn't escaped injury - a deep wound to his arm (late in the game thankfully)

The final game of the evening was a reverse of the above gmae, My inexperienced Murmillo against a very deadly Hoplomachus, two levels above him.

The arena had stakes as well as those slippery blood pools about and my game had to change to being the pursuer of the deadly Hoplomachus.

The game ran along the line of the previos one - the two gladiator are far from the start point.

I closed with my foe  but was unable to hurt him...

....eventually falling foul of his spear, but I did narrowly survive the appeal to the crowd        (obligatory blurry picture) 

Each game lasted about 45 minutes to an hour, including drink breaks and general banter between bouts but I was well and truly done in by the end, exhausted but elated.

Unfortunately there are no immediate plans for further games for the next couple of weeks for all manner of reasons, but of course I'll be returning to the 'games' asap.

So that's it then for another week, thanks for taking the time to visit and of course your comments are welcomed and trult appreciated.

The Big Tidy-up

In a week where an anticipated game never happened, I managed to do an hour or two on tidying up my games table.

The photograph on the right shows that the table still has boxes and such on it, but only because I haven't had the opporunity to store them. My difficulty storing them is that they must go on top of a wardrobe for which I'll need the help of #1 son.

The four boxes on the table all contain parts of my western collection as do all the photographs below:

One of the two desk drawers that hold the larger western buildings

A three-high stack of vegetable trays containg western stuff

The second desk drawer atop three plastic storage bins, with the remainder of my buildings.

This concludes all my hobby -related endeavours over the last week, one clear of hospital, clinic or doctor's appointments ("yay").

And that's it for another week, who know I may get a game in this week.

 

Thanks for taking the time to visit and of course your comments are bothe welcomed and appreciated

Blood and Pallas

So this last week saw myself, #1 Son and two mutual friends continued our Gladiator games' Munus. This would be the second set of four games in the second munus, but using the entirety of the rules. We'd previously been getting to grips with the game's rules rather than the entirety of the campaign rules, so this would be the first time we'd tackled the extra campaign rules, in addition to the jump from the previous versionof the rules, to the current version(v1.4). Knowing there was a possibility of obstacles in the game I had to make some, rather than use other things.

The photograph to the right shows the six 'pallas' I'd made and were necessary for the first bout,.

Pallas were the great lumps of wood gladiators practised on and these were needed in the very first game! (A hoplomachus versus a Murmillo -though it's a secutor in the photos!)

The Secutor, representing a Murmillo on the left v the Hoplomachus

The post didn't significantly affect the game though as they were easily avoided by the gladiators.

Making the posts took little time.

I dug out a scrap of 1cm square wood (a rocket stick iirc)and cut it into six 6cm long pieces.

I hot-glued the posts to 4cm square bases made from credit card type bits.

Next cheap filler was added to the bases,

PVa glue was spread over the bases and fine sand was sprinkled onto them

First base with sand added, other bases in the rear, just with filler,

All six post's bases done

The same colour scheme was used as both my arena floor and gladiaotr bases were, dark brown covered all the base; a sand colour was heailt drybrushed over the basethen a final drybrushing of magnolia was applied.

Post with dark brown base and sand colour

The six finished posts,(with bases cut down to fit my hexes)

I didn't paint the posts as wood, as they are wood ! (He's just lazy - Ed.)

Whilst  these pieces could represent both the Pallas and spikey pallas that are needed I really would like to have some braziers for when they are necessary. There's plenty choice to get 3D printed and I'll be looking for someone to make me some in due time, unless I can scratch-bild some myself.
However I also needed some blood pools- though just the four of them.

Some cellophane type sheet I had was cut into four blob shapes then some red paint was added  (my Tamiya clear red, ideal for blood, had sadly dried up) so a mix of acrylics was used.

Four blobs of 'blood'

So with three games played (I won my one - first time in half a dozen games) and another one I have to play tomorrow it has been a very good week.
In other news, my games room is looking a lot clearer than it has been in well over a year and this week should see the table ready to be played over again.

WIth just a single visit to the doctor's to get a flu jab and not another apppointment for a few weeks, things are looking good and I'm in a much more positive mood than I've been in ages. 

That's it then for another week, thanks for visiting and of course, your comments are both welcomed and truly appreciated.