Tuesday, November 23, 2010

"Fighting France" by Edith Wharton

My brother and sister-in-law recently visited from their home in France, and brought me a delightful gift of a copy of the book "Fighting France" by Edith Wharton, including a superb Forward by Colm Toiban (an author I am becoming increasingly familiar with, and enchanted by). Wharton was an American writer of note who made her life in Paris.

This is a delightfu;l and extraordinary little book offering a fascinating view of life amidst the war in 1914/15, written by a wodnerful author. Wharton might be best known for her Pullitzer Prize winnning book 'The Age of Innocence'.

The full text is available on Google Books 'Fighting France'.

This is well worth the read, not only as an historical glimpse of life in Paris and at the front, but also for the simple beauty of the writing.

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Carnage tournament - HotT stuff

This year's Carnage fantasy tournament has been and gone. The tournament had 18 players playing 8th Edition WFB and 10 playing HotT (Hordes of the Things).

The 10 HotT players played across 4 rounds, using a slighlty different format where they were able to swap armies (an innovation that proved popular with almost all of the players).

The HotT players (well 9 of them, anyway).


Play in session.



This Roman testudo was an innovative Behemoth element constructed by Nick Grant for his EIR army.


Another of Nick's innovative elements: a sand God, for his Numidian army.



A quick dip into the WFB play ...



And back to HotT, spiders versus Indians.


The Ape God managed to turn up to every game today, but also decided to disappear quickly from 2 of the games just as quickly ... sigh!!!



A dead general.. not good when you have already lost more points than your opponent...


This was shaping up to be another dead general...




More WFB ...


... and of course more beautiful miniatures ...


























And back to the HotT battlefields ....





Nick G's latest Dragon, fielded with his EIR army ... beautiful paint job.



And some VSF forces: an airboat, a flyer and a behemoth (steam tank).




A VSF magician.. a special super duper electrical zap gun style thingy.. you get the idea anyway!!!



And this year's HotT Carnage winner: Frank Ansell... his first ever HotT tournament, and probably his first ever HotT games...well done!!!!


War of the Austrian Succession scenario ..

Adrian and I took the afternoon to play a War of the Austrian Succession game, using his 15mm armies and scenery...   it's too gorgeous ...