Garibaldi and the Siege of Rome by Ralph Weaver

This arrived this morning. 

I first learned about Garibaldi when I was about eight or nine and my mother, who disapproved of my interest in military history, got me a picture book about Garibaldi and his red shirts. Garibaldi may have been a soldier, but he was at least ideologically pure.  I didn't think much of it at the time, but I rediscovered Garibaldi in my mid twenties when I read Trevelyn's book on his defence of the Roman Republic. 

"Garibaldi and the Siege of Rome"  by Ralph Weaver is in the style of his previous work on the Hungarian Army of the 1948 revolution.  Ralph Weaver has never disappointed and I am really looking forward to getting a proper read of this.   What you get is an A5 sized perfect bound softback, stuffed with uniform plates covering the army of the Roman Republic* and its opponents. There are chaps here that I've never seen before and that I've never even heard of.  

I had heard rumbling that this book would be available at Salute in April as the Continental Wars Society are doing a 28mm participation game set during the Siege of Rome, which sounds really something.  

No details as to what rules will be used, but Ralph Weaver has written. 

"The part of the siege that we are going to portray at Salute will be the attempt by Garibaldi to recapture the villa Corsini on the 3rd June 1849.  Trevelyan gives a very spirited account in 'Garibaldi's Defence of the Roman Republic 1848-9'.  We shall have a model of the villa on the table held by French infantry and artillery and another model of the St Pancras Gate.  Participants will command various small Roman units and lead them in assaults on the villa.  They will have to negotiate the open road, the villa entrance gates, the Corsini garden and the double staircase before arriving at the door of the villa itself, no mean feat!  We shall have various Roman units on the table including the mounted lancers (which are sitting on my desk in the process of being painted) and I am sure Garibaldi himself will make an appearance." 

Something hexagonal this way comes 

In other news, I received a parcel with some more MDF bases from Jim at Products for Wargamers.  Jim has always comes up trumps, but this time, in addition to the excellent supply of bases Jim ran these up for Capability Savage. These are hex rosettes for a pirates board game that Capability Savage has been working on for a while now. The hexes were cut to a fine degree of accuracy and were also laser etched to show the smaller hexes within the larger rosettes. This will hopefully save Savage a considerable amount of time as he had made his own from card and it had taken an age. 

Artists impression of the kind of pirate that plays Savage's game. 

That said, I think Capability Savage is beginning to lose his edge. This pirates game has been in existence for nearly two years now and there is no sign of a drinking game to accompany it. I for one am appalled. 

But be that as it may, the laser etched rosettes are very nifty and I can't help thinking that there must be other ways of using this facility.  A solution in search of a problem perhaps, but still interesting. 

*No doubt I should say Second Roman Republic lest I be beaten by an enraged Classicist. 

To them I say, "Ite, et venire, si tibi satis durus es."