Alex's even longer post thread.

[Alex]

Shame you don't do 5mm. I could have sent you a couple of sprues of French troops Warlord included as freebies for me.

I did see that Wargames Illustrated is including a 15mm tank next month, but I guess that isn't much use to you either.

I deliberately avoid Napoleonics simply because I get very bored painting the same uniform over and over. Doing it for my WW2 armies has been a real pain, and I know how a lot of the Napoleonic guys get when you don't paint everything 100% accurately. Hell, when I in two weeks painted an entire German army for an exhibition match in early war grey, I had one guy complaining that it wasn't accurate for a force resisting the D-Day landings because they weren't using those uniforms at that point in the war. Yeah, I've seen stocks of uniforms 20 years out of date still being kept in case of shortages and that was in peacetime, never mind when you are on the losing end of a war with a shortage of resources.

[Dr. Whom]

Yeah, I know the type. The kind of chap who will pick up a stand, look at it closely, put it back and say something like 'wrong kind of mud for Italy'
As for Napoleonics, there are those who painstakingly reconstruct the various regulations, and then you see contemporary sketches or pamphlets, and you realise that the soldier's kit depicted consists of the last three regulations jumbled together.
I tend to have both Horse and Musket and other stuff in production at the same time, so that depending on my mood I can go for uniforms or do more flamboyant things like landsknechts. Keeps me from going mad.

[Alex]

Yeah, I know the type. The kind of chap who will pick up a stand, look at it closely, put it back and say something like 'wrong kind of mud for Italy'

I have actually once heard someone say those very words.

So Iran and the US have a ceasefire in place. I can't imagine that Iran is actually expecting the US to hold to it since they did attack during negotiations previously, an action used by a villains in Star Trek. So far it is hard to see anything else but Iran as in the lead. Yeah, they've lost some senior figures, but they replaced them quickly and had some infrastructure damaged. The attacks have solidified the government's control over the country during a time when it was looking a bit shaky due to internal protests. They've paralysed the world by seizing control of the Strait of Hormuz. If they are able to gain total control over it in a theoretical peace treaty, then it is a huge win. PR wise. they've came out on top ever since the strikes took out a school full of kids. The US has had weaknesses in its military exposed and has been made to look weak in its supply lines in a way I can guarantee China is taking a very close interest in. They really need to quit looking at these super high-tech bits of kit that have very long production times. Long-term allies are stepping away from the US, turning away from buying its weapons and considering closing down its bases on its soil while Iran has been able to attract new allies and move closer to existing ones.

I am trying quite hard, but I am struggling to find any ways in which the US has come out on top in this conflict. Body count wise I guess? There is some arguement over wither or not Iran was developing a nuclear weapon, but I am pretty sure if they hadn't decided before they will now regardless of what treaty promises they might make. If they think having those is the only way they can guarantee their own regime safety then they'll have them sooner rather than later. Then again, they may just decide based on this experience that an isolated USA isn't that much of a threat. Not counting the total cost of the war, they've lost around 3.5 billion dollars of aircraft alone, much of that on a rescue mission that the official story on has more plot holes than the wildest action movie.

Doubtless trump will be crowing about how he has solved the whole oil crisis that he started. What I am watching is to see if countries start formally moving away from the petrodollar. If that happens, then life is going to get a lot harder for the average American. Oil transactions worldwide being carried out in dollars is an underpinning strength of the currency. If it loses that, it'll lose strength against other currencies and go down in value. This will, in turn, lead to inflation increasing domestically as the US tries to service its loans. Bearing in mind that the level of national debt has reached the point where the USA is now technically insolvent, it would all result in it being much harder to get more loans and more painful to pay the debt they already have.

Pretty much the economics you'd expect from a man who went bankrupt 6 times (so far).

Maybe the war will go hot again once the ceasefire expires (or maybe it'll be broken. I'd say its an even 50/50 either way) and change the facts on the ground.

Kristi had to go up to Aberdeen yesterday for a biopsy. Got a couple of weeks to wait before we get the results from that and her chemo treatment is suspended until we have them. Since she was only due to have one more treatment in this set I am not sure that makes sense, but whatever. She'd to leave early in the morning and didn't get back home until after 22:00 last night. We'd taken Ash trainspotting in Edinburgh for the day before that. He was dancing from one side of the bridge he watches from and got super excited when he saw the Royal Scot, a train that a ticket on, costs around £9000 each. Even if I did have that money spare, I wouldn't be spending it on a train trip. Anyway, the accumulated excitement did get a bit much for him and we had the inevitable meltdown today. Dealt with it, and he is happily playing with his trains just now.

[Dr. Whom]

I wonder if somewhere along the line, that rescue operation will be turned into a movie.

[Alex]

I suspect the screenplay is already being written. It just has something very... off about the narrative. I am not going to say it was an aborted ground invasion (which I don't think it was), or that is was an attempt to steal nuclear materials (more possible than the invasion angle), but something ain't right there. Might just have been a horrifically ballsed up operation.

[Alex]

Managed to get two games of Bolt Action in this week. The first was a three player with two Soviet armies racing to take Berlin (first one to take the Reichstag). We had two narrow roads (wide enough for two tanks to go side by side, barely) and lots of barricades manned by a mixture of desperate fanatics, veterans and hurriedly conscripted boys plus old men. Our armoured tanks smashed through the defences and we managed to pin down or outright destroy the defenders.

The other was a much smaller affair set during the North African campaign with a small detachment of British troops holding a village which comes under attack from an advance element. The British side is reinforced by a recce patrol. Anyway, the Germans mostly got gunned down in that one, even losing an armoured vehicle despite the defenders lacking any anti-armour weapons.

Things have reached an impasse with Kristi's treatment. The original cancer has been dealt with. The secondary cancer is either gone or more than 99% of the way gone, and they are going to keep giving her the lowest possible dosage of chemo going onwards. On her last scan they found a lump beside her stoma that has been identified as cancerous. Where is it, they don't want to use chemo or radiation therapy to treat it, and surgeons don't want to operate to remove it. It hasn't grown any between the previous two scans, so for the moment they are going to leave it, keep doing scans regularly to see if it starts changing and then take it from there. Kind of feels like she is being left in limbo there, but it is still better than the alternative. I spend a lot of time being very grateful that we aren't under the US health system or something similar. I'd hate to have to rely on a GoFundMe for someone's healthcare, or be at risk of bankruptcy thanks to an illness, although we've not heard anything from either the healthcare company, the debt collector or the insurance company for the treatment Kristi did get over there for some weeks or months now.

[Trevor]

Managed to get two games of Bolt Action in this week. The first was a three player with two Soviet armies racing to take Berlin (first one to take the Reichstag). We had two narrow roads (wide enough for two tanks to go side by side, barely) and lots of barricades manned by a mixture of desperate fanatics, veterans and hurriedly conscripted boys plus old men. Our armoured tanks smashed through the defences and we managed to pin down or outright destroy the defenders.

The other was a much smaller affair set during the North African campaign with a small detachment of British troops holding a village which comes under attack from an advance element. The British side is reinforced by a recce patrol. Anyway, the Germans mostly got gunned down in that one, even losing an armoured vehicle despite the defenders lacking any anti-armour weapons.

Things have reached an impasse with Kristi's treatment. The original cancer has been dealt with. The secondary cancer is either gone or more than 99% of the way gone, and they are going to keep giving her the lowest possible dosage of chemo going onwards. On her last scan they found a lump beside her stoma that has been identified as cancerous. Where is it, they don't want to use chemo or radiation therapy to treat it, and surgeons don't want to operate to remove it. It hasn't grown any between the previous two scans, so for the moment they are going to leave it, keep doing scans regularly to see if it starts changing and then take it from there. Kind of feels like she is being left in limbo there, but it is still better than the alternative. I spend a lot of time being very grateful that we aren't under the US health system or something similar. I'd hate to have to rely on a GoFundMe for someone's healthcare, or be at risk of bankruptcy thanks to an illness, although we've not heard anything from either the healthcare company, the debt collector or the insurance company for the treatment Kristi did get over there for some weeks or months now.

Hope you had a great birthday 😊🎂🎉🎁🐢

[Alex]

Kept Ash off school on Friday and took him down to Ayrshire to see his gran for a couple of days. The trains were overly hot in both directions, but he had a fun time. Once my mum is gone, I doubt I'll ever visit that part of the country again. I simply have no reason outside of that family to go anywhere near it. We went into Saltcoats, took Ash to a small funfair which he and my sister Elizabeth both loved. We went for a meal in what is desperately trying to be a more upmarket eatery, but suffers from the fact that the staff are locals and even when you put them in a suit and get them to speak politely you can still tell that they grew up in a very rough area. Our waiter would not have looked out of place mugging someone on a dark night with a knife, but he was very polite and I did tip him (because they are paid at the least, a living wage tipping is different in the UK to the US. I was pretty shocked when I was told many serving staff are unpaid, making their living soley from tips. Sounds like volunteer slavery to me, but whatever).

Elizabeth and my mum spoiled Ash, and bought me a tee shirt that had Pennywise and Chucky on it. I don't overly care for either character, but she was excited about it, so I let her get it for me and wore it. Ash mostly got trains out of it. He did decide that he wanted to buy a tee shirt for his mum, and when I asked which one he thought she'd like grabbed a Freddy Krueger one which did make me chuckle. Pretty sure Kristi has never watched a single one of those movies.

Its a Bank Holiday tomorrow, so we are playing a large game of Bolt Action. I am going to give my Italians a runout, alongside another Italian player against a combined British and US force.

Platoon 1: Rifle Platoon.
Normally I prefer having more infantry in my army than this, but I have so many untried "toys" in my collections to test out.
1* Veteran Officer + 4 men, all equiped with SMGs.
Short range high volume firepower. Italians don't get a lot of SMGs to play with and this is one of the few ways I can get a unit of them. Since they are my only short-range unit, they will more be for intercepting enemy attackers than launching thrusts into enemy territory on their own.
2* 11-man Bersagliari units with 2 LMGs. My fire base. I'll have to advance them on foot up the table to take any objectives, but my hope is that my opponents are more concerned with my plethora of armoured vehicles than my infantry. During the war, Bersagliari were elite light infantry.
1* 11-man squad of Blackshirts. Untrained militia who might become fanatical, or might panic and flee the first time they are shot at. More brought along for s**ts n giggles than really expecting them to achieve anything.
1* Regular Medic.
Had a few points to spend, so thought what the hell.
1* Veteran Solothurn Anti-tank rifle.
A rapid-firing anti-tank rifle that I am more thinking about using on enemy veteran troops to kill them easier.

Platoon 2. Armoured Platoon.
A full-strength armoured platoon of vehicles, although with Italians this is less impressive than it would be with almost any other nation (with the exception of Japan who has even worse tanks).

1* Regular M15/42 Medium tank.
With poor armour and a light anti-tank gun this is actually the command vehicle of my section, possibly because only light vehicles will consider it a threat. If anyone gets a side (or gods forbid, a rear shot), they are going to go through it like the proverbial hot knife through butter).

2* Regular Lanciaflamme tankettes.
Even lighter than my M15/42 (these things would be seriously intimidated by a Sherman), but each carrying a flamethrower and I do love my flamethrowers in BA.

1* Regular Lancia Armoured Car.
Light tank with rapid firing machine guns. Light rapid fire is a feature of this army list.

1* Autoblinda Armoured Car.
A light autocannon on this one for even more suppressive firepower.

Platoon 3. Heavy Weapons Platoon.

1* Regular Officer.
Because every platoon needs one and I didn't have the spare points to turn him into another SMG squad.
1* Regular Medium Mortar.
For the pounding of enemy entrenched positions to encourage them to move.
1* Veteran MMG.
Because I like my MMGs and it is more light, but rapid firing firepower.
1* Veteran Solothurn Anti-tank rifle.
Because 2 Solothurns are better than 1 and I really want something that can chew up tough elite infantry.
1* Veteran Light Automatic Cannon.
Also good for chewing up tough, elite infantry and shooting down enemy aircraft.

I have no big guns to deal with any late war tanks, although my flamethrowers are always in with a shot of panicking a vehicle crew, causing them to abandon it. My army would actually fare best against a mainly infantry force, or another army made up of lots of lighter vehicles similiar to what I've taken. I am expecting to lose a tank a turn, but I have so many that it will take most of the game to get rid of them all.