Auckland Wargaming Club

AWC Member Ben Hill reports in from Oxford, UK, on the local wargaming scene there:

Herro AWC,

In March this year, my wife and I moved to Oxford in the UK. We will be here for a several years while my wife does genius things that I do not understand, similar situation to my wargaming.

I miss the AWC and its excellent members not to mention my Romans and newly painted ACW army. However, with England being the home of toy soldiers I have an excellent opportunity to buy buy buy. With that in mind, I visited the Foundry in Nottingham on July 23 for their open day with Sean (who was visiting the UK). Firstly, Nottingham has very few trees, no men in tights, no sheriff, and maid Marion had no teeth but she knew where St Mark’s road was luckily.

Combat Tanks Collection Magazine from the UK is now available here in NZ - you can subscribe on line or pick it up from Whitcoulls or similar book stores. Each issue includes a 1/72nd Scale Die-Cast Model similar to those produced by Dragon Armor; Forces of Valor; and similar. The magazine covers World War II and more Modern Vehicles. This is a great way to get some good quality models for Wargaming World War II & Modern conflicts in 1/72nd (20mm) scale. Issues cost NZ$19.95 each so you get the model for half or less what a Dragon Armor or FoV model would cost; albeit the models aren't quite the same quality as the latter 2 manufacturers (e.g. no weathering effects). The publication has been running for about 24 months in the UK and over 12 months in Australia with 2 issues normally coming out each month. The following is an approximate list of what models have in been each issue in the UK...

Saints & Soldiers - Ardennes/Battle of the Bulge – Based on Historical Events – Story of 4 U.S. GI’s whose unit surrenders when cut off on the very first day or two of the German Offensive, but who then escape – in their efforts to elude the Germans and get back to friendly lines they encounter a shot down British reconnaissance pilot, who got a glimpse of the size of the German forces that were advancing before the weather closed in – he is desperate to get back to an HQ somewhere to report as no one may realise how large this attack is, etc… The G.I.’s agree to help him and with just 1 German 98K Rifle with a few bullets and the RAF Pilot’s Revolver (and little food) they strike out for the closest U.S. unit.

I made mention recently of Conn Iggulden's "Genghis" trilogy (Wolf of the Plains, Lords of the Bow, Bones of the Hills) in a recent club discussion about the movie “Mongol”. I've also recently read a few books by Stephen Pressfield. One is "Gates of Fire", a retelling of Thermopylae in 480BC, which I grabbed from the library having listened to an audio lecture series given by Garret Fagan in which he referred to this book as being quite evocative in exploring the nature of hoplite warfare...