Portuguese Dragoons

A French Carabiner, who will soon

be impersonating a Portuguese Heavy Dragoon.

There's been quite a to-do in the Kinch household of late - some family issues and yet more anxious waiting on the Mortgage people. All of which has very sadly impinged on my very limited gaming time.

My latest project is a play by email game with Donogh. We're playing his "Black Mamba Down"* a science fiction game using Ambush Alley's Games Tomorrows War system. I was given the choice of sides and had to pick between Communist Chinese and plucky (but apparently no-less Communist) rebels. Maintaining the tradition of the service of always picking the lesser of two weevils, I naturally picked rebels. This will be something of a departure for me and I suspect one that does not bode well for the chaps under my command...

The big news of course, is that we've been given "approval in principle" for our mortgage - which given the current circumstances is a minor miracle. And to think it took only eight to nine weeks of relentless bullying to get a straight answer out of the lender.

This is very exciting news, not least because it means that we will be returning to the heart of Dublin which will make having a social existence that doesn't have to be planned with military precision. I understand that putting an establishment in order is a big job (I forsee making shelves, lots of shelves) it will also mean that I will be able to do a little more gaming.

This will of course, severely circumscribe the war chest for a few years and has certainly knocked any new projects on the head for a while. Napoleonics will be the priority for the next while, ensuring that I have the full complement of chaps for Command & Colours: Napoleonics should keep me busy for the next six months. Eagle eyed readers will no doubt have spotted the gallant Latin chap bestride a horse at the top of this post, he is a French Carabinier from Newline Designs. I'm happy that he's a close enough match for a Portuguese Heavy Dragoon. Once Mark has got the current crop out of the way, it'll be time to send this fellow and the 5th Dragoon Guards off to wreck havoc on the French hordes.

In a moment of madness, I was toying with some ideas for a new period - one of which was a small Falklands War collection. This was mainly inspired by some articles in a TwoFatLardies special and this rather magnificent blog. I've always been interested in the Falklands as one of my officers in the Army reserve had served there and I once took part in a campaign game set there**. I was planning to use a modified version of Memoir '44 to game the conflict, which would have allowed me to collect from Cold War era British, who could shoot Donogh's Soviets when they weren't off putting small islands in the South Atlantic to rights.

Realistically however, I don't think it'll be an option.

*Note to gentlewomen of a sensitive disposition, do not type this as a search term into google. You will not find Donogh's scenario.

**Readers of the Classic Wargamers Journal will find the full story in the next issue.