New Features for 2015

I have had a major tidy up over the winter and rationalised the use of labels here (which started out haphazard, then stopped altogether) ...

Now all the major themes have labels, as do the shows and events ...

so you might like DBA Armies ... or you might like to look back on, say, past Salute shows ...

The following historical battles get one or more mentions (click the link ... there will usually be at least a picture of a wargame, maybe even an entire scenario) ...

Battle of Al Qadisha, Battle of Arsuf, Battle of Bagradas, Battle of Bibracte, Battle of Bosworth, Battle of Bouvines, Battle of Callinicum, Battle of Chaeronea, Battle of Chalons, Battle of Cravant, Battle of Cunaxa, Battle of Cynoscephalae, Battle of Edgcote, Battle of Gabiene, Battle of Gaugamela, Battle of Hedgeley Moor, Battle of Illipa, Battle of Issus, Battle of Kadesh, Battle of Magnesia, Battle of Mantinea, Battle of Montaperti, Battle of Mortimer's Cross, Battle of Naseby, Battle of Nicopolis, Battle of Northampton, Battle of Plataea, Battle of Poitiers, Battle of Pydna, Battle of Raphia, Battle of Sellasia, Battle of Sentinum, Battle of St Albans, Battle of Tewkesbury, Battle of Thapsus, Battle of the Granicus, Battle of the Trebia 218 BC, Battle of Towton, Battle of Verneuil, Battle of Wakefield, Battle of Zama 

I will endeavour to keep this new system updated ... you can find all the labels in the panel at the foot of the page ...

January ... Winter Quarters ... 2014 retrospective

This is apparently AoM's 250th post since reporting the Society's Shows North season began on blogger in March 2008 (so a surprising 7th birthday coming up soon).

Despite the number of posts dropping slightly (due to the manifold disappointments of V2 of FoG, we have dropped out of a number of tournament events) monthly pageviews bobble around the 3,500 mark (which isn't too bad for a special interest blog posting on average 5 times every 2 months - 29 posts for 2014) ...

Shows North attended 10 wargame shows and 10 other wargame/heritage events ...

Shows (please click on the picture for more on the event) ... 

(as part of the Lance & Longbow Society team)

(incorporating the SoA DBA Northern Cup)

(with the Lance & Longbow Society)

(a Society of Ancients/Lance & Longbow Society/Northampton Battlefields Society venture)

(as the Northampton Battlefields Society/Wargame Developments)

(with the Northampton Battlefields Society)

Events

(including FoG-R, Armati, DBA and Basic Impetus)

(as the Northampton Battlefields Society)

(with The Battlefields Trust and Northampton Battlefields Society)

(with the Battlefields Trust)

What a high content year!

This shift towards history/heritage reflects my personal interests as much as it does the health of historical wargaming and/or the Society of Ancients ...  That said, the drift towards 'history lite', 'minis gaming'  and Space Marines in hollywood historical outfits ('historicals' as the minis gamers call them) seems unstoppable.

On the credit side, my Montaperti game got 'best game' at the BattleDay, my flats got featured in the BFFS magazine, I took the runner up position in the English DBA Open and the Northampton Battlefields Society won a community award.  I was voted a trustee of the Naseby Battlefield Project and I got to explain the Battle of Bosworth to cricket hero Freddie Flintoff for a TV clip.

My actual wargaming has only tallied to around 80 games in 2014 (call it 3 games per fortnight) ... that's probably the lowest in 3 decades but has a lot to do with the collapse of interest in FoG/DBM ... (so far fewer 4 game weekends than in past years - and, really, I haven't missed them much) - that said, DBA V3 may encourage a pick up in interest.  Armati, for me, is now just for old times' sake and I expect my 'mainstream' ancient/medieval wargaming in 2015 to be mostly DBA, Basic Impetus and Neil Thomas's AMW ...