ETMW Games Day, October 2025

Aerodrome WW2

I ran the sixth East TN Miniature Wargaming Games Day last Saturday. The full schedule can be found here. Tracking attendance is a bit rough, since there is no registration and it takes place in a store, but I counted 40 people who at least showed up just to interact with the event. There were eleven games played, including an ad hoc Necropolis 28 game late in the day. That definitely makes it our largest event so far, and people travelled from Morristown, Chattanooga, North Carolina, and Kentucky. Incredibly, after two years of this, I'm still meeting pockets of uncontacted miniature gamers. I feel like an anthropologist!

Fistful of Lead

Fistful of Lead core rule book
from Wiley Games

Fistful of Lead (FFoL) has been on my radar for a while now. I'm not sure exactly when it started, but my first game of it seems to have been a Revolt in Austria run by Jon Lundberg at Historicon 2023. Number One Son and I played in that game and had a lot of fun, although I don't think I was quite convinced about it at the time.

Since then, I've run several public games for unexpectedly large numbers of players. This got me thinking more about which rules were suitable for large numbers of players in games like this, as well as convention games. I ran I Ain't Been Shot Mum for six players, which felt like I was stretching it, and I ran Blood Red Skies for nine players, which it handled well. Thinking back to FFoL, I decided I wanted to try it again, with the idea of me running it in mind.

Thus it was Number One Son and I returned to FFoL at Historicon 2025, playing in Never Easy for Easy Company by Ed Watts.

Wargaming Podcasts

There are more miniature wargaming podcasts than I have time to listen to! Here's a list of ones I'm currently subscribed to. There's a wide variety here and I'm sure you can find something interesting in them.

Any podcast that hasn't published in the last year, I've left off this list. Otherwise, if I've missed any interesting ones, let me know!

The links I've used are a bit all over the place, but you should be able to find these in any podcast app.

Mann Tracht, Un Gott Lacht

Plenty to do, no space to do it in...

"Man plans, and God laughs"

I see that I kept a public queue of my 2013 projects! I thought it might be fun to go through those and see what has happened to them over the last twelve years...

Operation Vengeance: the Assassination of Admiral Yamamoto

Yamamoto escapes at Nashcon

This is my Blood Red Skies (BRS) scenario I ran several times this year (Siege of Augusta, Rocky Top Gaming Convention, and Nashcon, as well as a couple of times locally), based on Operation Vengeance, the assassination of Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto.

I have had many players new to BRS play in this scenario, and they have a good time, so it seems like a good way to learn the game. And BRS is a blast to play and very suitable for convention play. I have run games with as many as nine players, mostly new to the game, just fine.

Return to Blogging

Yours truly running a game at Nashcon 2025

What have been doing the past 12 years? Why return to blogging now?

I mostly stopped blogging because of the friction of posting, compared to the ease of posting on Instagram. However, I've stopped posting there, too. And I keep finding myself going back to my blog, to reference past projects, remind myself of what I've done, etc... So, I'm taking a stab at blogging again. No guarantees I'll keep at it.

The History of England Podcast

King John

I have been fairly busy the last month-- more so than even usual with three kids all in extracurricular activities-- and one of the more interesting things to occupy my spare time has been the  History of  England Podcast. And I thought the History of Rome Podcast was long! The History of England has run over a hundred episodes so far, and has just reached the beginning of the Hundred Years' War! It has obviously entertained me, and I dare say educated me, or I would not have listened so long. It occasionally gives episodic updates on what else is going on in Europe, and obviously a lot of English history post-1066 is intertwined with France's history, so you're getting a somewhat wider view than you might think. Combined with Norman Centuries and 12 Byzantine Rulers and you're getting a much wider view of the Dark and Middle Ages, especially. Can't wait to fill it out with the History of France in English, maybe the Medieval Archives and the British History Podcast, and even the History of English Podcast...and I can't wait for somebody to start a Holy Roman Empire podcast! Real opportunity there, people!!

FoB2: The Battle of Morunnin

Battle of Morunnin, a photo by The Gonk.

We played our randomly generated Field of Battle scenario described here Friday night. It went well for the French, with Marshal Dalé's plan working perfectly-- the Russian hordes did, indeed, crash and break against the French rock.

We were a bit short on command stands, which played a bit to the French's setup advantages. Essentially, the Russians were forced to set up first, and the French responded by setting up entirely on the right half of the table. They placed the imaginary town of Morunnin on their left flank, and the entire left half of their line was able to anchor on a forest edge. On their right, they placed a grand battery-esque concentration of four artillery batteries.

Synchronicity

Vikings, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.

Right now, I have just finished the first two books of Bernard Cornwell's the Saxon Stories/Tales/Chronicles, whatever it is. They are awesome! The primary protagonists of the series so fare are Halfdan, Ivar the Boneless, and Ubba-- the historical leaders of the Great Heathen Army of Danes which conquered almost all of England, leaving only a toehold of swamp for Alfred the Great to stage his great come back from. All three of them were the sons of Ragnar Lothbrook, the star of the History Channel's Vikings. I can't believe the "Ancient Nazi Aliens" of the History Channel put out something this good and something this historical-- or, if not historical, at least consistent with the legends. It's not perfect-- of course, the hero Ragnar is at both the Lindisfarne and Portland Bay raids, which were six years apart but are represented closely together, in the wrong place, and in the wrong order in the show. But it is still awesome!! I can't wait to watch some more...and get some more Anglo-Saxons painted and run some Dux Britanniarum games!!

Field of Battle 2 Random Scenario

FOB 2cover, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.

The year is 1807. The Prussians have been humiliated, and the late arriving Russian Army, now under Bennigsen, is trying to surprise the French in a sweeping movement through Prussia.

In the van is Major General Barclay de Tommey (Tom G.), leading his corps on the Prussian town of Morunnin, where Marshal Francois Dalé's (K. Dale) French corps is assembling to halt the Russian advance.

Joey...you like blog posts about Gladiators?

2013-08-11 18.44.55, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.

So I picked up a bunch of Crusader Gladiators at Historicon 2012-- woof, no, make that 2011!! Wow, how time flies, I swear I thought these hadn't been sitting around that long. Anyway, over the years, I also grabbed a few different rules to try out with Number One Son, who-- at twelve-- knows more Roman history than I do. I finally got around to painting up enough gladiators to play some games, as well as a few animals. And Number One Son and I sat down and finally played our first game!

Historicon 2013: Saturday

2013-07-20 08.53.19, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.

Stayed up late again, got up early again. Still, no real plan. I wandered around looking at the games, and fortunately was able to hop into one of the best looking games at Historicon-- a speculative game of the Battle of Fort DeRussy, an ACW Brother Against Brother game.

Historicon 2013: Friday

Towards Devil's Den

On to Friday! I suppose technically Friday began Thursday night, as I stayed up late drinking Yuengling and just hanging out. I then work up early and hit the ground running again, in a hurry to do nothing. I may not have had any plans, but I can sleep at home! I cruised around, taking in the sites, strolling through the vendor hall, and hit the flea market. And in that flea market, I found...more Russians! For some very great prices, I picked up (if I recall correctly) sixteen stands of guns, two and a half regiments of cavalry, and another twelve battalions of foot!! At this point, I'm thinking this is about three, possibly four, divisions of Russians. That's more than I was planning on in the first place!

Historicon 2013: Thursday

Little Round Top

I traveled to Fredericksburg, VA, again this year for Historicon. I honestly have yet to have had a bad Historicon, so if I tell you, yet again, that I had a blast, I'm not sure how you should take it! I will say that I had concerns this year. I typically hunt for games with interesting rules I haven't gotten a chance to see in the flesh and try to get in those. However, this year, every set I could think of that fell into that category-- notably Maurice and Dux Britanniarum-- wasn't being run. In fact, I only preregistered for two games, and wasn't particularly enthusiastic about either (and, in fact, played in neither). There were a few things I was definitely interested in, though. Of primary interest was the Vauban's Wars playtest, an unofficial game.

D-Day AAR

D-Day Game, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.

So this is a very late game report, but we did actually manage to run our first big D-Day game! This was 2,375 points of Americans run by two players, and 1,345 points of Germans run by me. This still was not a lot of Germans, and I felt fairly thin across my front. However, I probably would have put up a much better fight had my artillery not gotten pinned down in the preliminary bombardment, and refused to unpin for six turns in a row!!

4% of the Sand on Omaha Beach? Fragments from D-Day.

Just ran across this interesting note about the sand composition on Omaha Beach:

"University of Texas geologist Earle McBride analyzed samples from the beach...Further testing revealed the shards to be magnetic shrapnel from the Allied invasion....He and his colleagues also identified iron and glass beads formed by the intense heat of explosions. Up to 4 percent of the sand is made up of this shrapnel, the researchers report...

D-Day Maps and Groundscale Questions

Ed: Fixed links. Not a lot has been going on in my D-Day preparations this week. My brother-in-law has been in town visiting, and I have been covered up with work. Number One Son and I managed to progress one single turn in our game, although it is still set up to be finished! Anyway, I was poking around the web looking for D-Day stuff and ran across some nicely detailed 1:7920 maps of Omaha beach. I don't anticipate doing bluffs for a while, but I made sure and saved copies of this for when I do.

Lincoln

I bet this movie will be very good! Daniel Day Lewis is an amazing actor, and I'm sorry to see somebody as distinctive as Tommy Lee Jones or even Hal Holbrook in it as well to pull me out of my suspension of disbelief. I will no doubt be hauling Son and Daughter Number Ones to the theater to watch this with me!

SITREP: D-Day

D-Day, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.

Got the German 10.5cm battery done. That was, I think, the worst painting experience from any Flames of War figures I've done! It came with nicely sculpted resin bases, with recesses for the crew. That sounds like a good idea, as hiding figure bases is always an issue. However, getting the gun AND the crew onto a base is a bit of an art. The recesses actually messed with that. I wasn't free to locate the figures in such a way that I could get the gun back on the base after I had completely finished painting and flocking it. So, I had to paint the figure bases separately, trim their bases so they actually fit in the recesses, glue them onto the base with the gun now in the way of everything, then go back and try to fill in and hide the gaps around the figure bases. It actually tacked on a couple of nights to the entire process and started to really irritate me.

One step forward, one step back.

P-47, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.

I am getting stuff painted for my D-Day game, but I don't actually seem to be getting any closer to running it! But I had a good weekend otherwise...