New Perth Musuem opening

Perth is my hometown. I went along to the new Museum on the opening weekend. The new Museum used to be the City Hall and in addition to museum exhibits, the building now houses the Stone of Destiny (aka the Stone of Scone, the wee magic stane, etc.). 

Cannot help but recall Terry Pratchett here and his homage, The Scone of Stone. 

Entrance is free, though you do have to book a time-slot to see the stone. If there are temporary 'side' exhibitions in some rooms, you may have to pay to see them. 

Here are some more pictures that caught my eye. 

First, bronze age swords recovered from the river Tay. The accompanying text mentioned a  possible religious significance of placing swords in water, which made me thing of tales of the Lady of the Lake and Excalibur and if there's a folk memory of such things. 

Also couldn't help but think of "Listen, strange women lying in ponds, distributing swords, is no basis for a system of government".

A standing stone inscribed with Celtic designs. There is a light display that highlights each element of the designs in different colours over a period of a few seconds.

A picture of the basic standing stone. 

Sword remnants from the Viking era. 

                            

A buff coat and armour from 1650-ish. From the time when Cromwell visited. It's interesting to see these things for real.  

Some French Revolution and Napoleonic stuff. This is a barrel of a ships cannon, set on a display carriage. The text says a small battery of similar guns was set up on a hill outside Perth at the time, no doubt to deter the French from sailing up the river Tay. 

This is a militia sergeant's uniform c. 1810. The sabre and sword are of the time but the shako is post-1815. The red of the uniform is quite bright and I can only assume it was kept inside and not exposed to the elements. Also noteworthy here is how dark the blue facings are. 

And the militia standard. As with official standards, it is about 6 foot square, though material seems quite thin. 

Some pieces from the Great War. The rifle is German and the gas mask and face protector look very uncomfortable. 

Last bit. The picture is of Mary Cathcart, wife of Sir Thomas Graham of Balgowan, later Lord Lyndoch. She died while they were on a grand tour in the 1790s. 

The accompanying text is a bit too brief, for me. I wish that they had added that after French Revolutionary customs officials broke open her coffin, an angry Thomas Graham went home to Perth and raised a regiment of foot at his own expense and from men he could recruit locally. This regiment became the 90th (Perthshire) regiment of foot and served in the Mediterranean during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. 

Thomas Graham himself served in the Peninsula under Wellington and commanded the army in the victory at Barossa. That's why we have a Barossa Street and Barossa Place in Perth and a statue to Graham on the north inch.   

Note: the inches is the name for the open parklands on the north and south sides of Perth. North Inch and South Inch. 

Anyway, I'll visit the museum again and a bit more slowly to see other exhibits more closely. There is more on ancient bronze age items, a colonial section and more modern displays. 

A bit of a refresh of some 15mm ECW figures

 These 15mm Essex chaps have been in a box for a bit. Some were painted and others half-painted, so I decided to give them a finish and refresh the flock on the bases. 

This is what they look like. 

Cavalry next, though I have been slightly distracted by some Seven Years War figures again.  

More for Star Wars Legion

 A few more squads for Star Wars Legion. Pride of place in any Republic force will be Captain Rex and Ahsoka's commandos (at back left with orange / white helmet markings).  

Cowgirls painted for a friend.

One of things I do is sometimes paint figures for friends at the club. I don't paint on demand and I have to want to do the topic, but when the interest is there, I quite enjoy painting something different. 

In return, friends agree to make a donation to charity.

Here were some fairly recent figures. These are plastic cowgirl figures for Dead Man's Hand. 

As with a lot of figures, I like to choose a theme, or a colour idea for figures. Originally I thought, the Pink Ladies, the Deadly Vipers or perhaps Country and Western singers for these. I settles on the Pink Ladies, with the idea that every figure has pink on her somewhere, even if only pistol handles. My usual painting is what I call, basic but tidy. 

And then with flock added to bases. 

Black Watch Museum exhibit 2023

In case it's of interest, the Black Watch Museum in Perth is hosting a display called The Hauntings. This is a six metre tall figure of a soldier made from scrap metal. It will be on display from 1st July to 12th November, to commemorate The Battle of the Somme. 

Here are some pics and a link.  

Home - theblackwatch.co.uk

The Hauntings - theblackwatch.co.uk  

Anniversary games in June and July

One of the things I try to do is have a game on the anniversary of a battle. It's just to give a bit of a focus because at the club and outside, we play a variety of games that can be played anytime. Playing a game of a battle as near to the date as possible adds a little poignancy to the game.

Here are some of the games we played. First is Breakout: Normandy, played over two evenings in early June. This is my double-sized home produced version of the Avalon Hill game. 

After the Allies are ashore, they secured the Ranville area. Germans trying to wall them off. 

At the British beaches, a very successful bombardment and landing was strengthened by follow-up forces. 

Germans driving for the coast to block the Allies. The German couners are flipped and scattered due to the effect of Allied airpower. 

Omaha was not so severe this time, following very good Allied bombardments. 

This time, though, it was Utah that stalled a bit. A couple of mistakes by the Allied player led to the bridgehead being sealed off for now. 

By the end of the first week it was an Allied victory. 

Then in mid-June, our by now traditional game on the 1815 campaign. This time it was double sized version of Napoleon's Last Battles. Another oldie but goldie. 

Here the French have pushed back the Allies to the Bois de Bossu and the Materne pond while Allied reinforcements march to the rescue. 

On the Ligny side, the Prussian player tried to outflank on both sides and bring D'Erlon in to help. However, it was relatively easy for my Prussians to block these moves because I was moving on interior lines. 

An Allied victory in this game.

A special biggie for me in July were two games on Kursk for the 80th anniversary of the battle. First was another of my home-made double sized versions, this time the SPI Kursk game from the 1980's. It's a very complex game, so to make it easy we only fought the southern side of the batle. The map still fitted on 1 6' x 4' table though. 

Here is the set up for the first turns. The strengths of the Russian artillery and anti-tank are hidden from the German player. 

Both sides took massive losses  and the German attack stalled at the Psel river line due to lack of strong reserves. Much of the German strength was burned up breaking through the Russian lines and dealing with the Russian reinforcements. A Russian victory. 

And then the following week, just to give a seal to it all, we played the vintage classic Panzerblitz. This was the Kursk scenario from the game. The Germans have to move on to the bottom board and get to the top board as well as knocking out lots of Russian units. 

And here are things as both sides approach the middle board for the armoured clash. The game was heading for a German victory when we called a halt. 

 

Panzerblitz is still a great game, considering it was released in 1970. And the others too, are 1970's or 1980's vintage and still great games. 

As a side note; I understand Panzerblitz may have sold over 100,000 copies in it's lifetime and may even have reached the 250,000 mark. I have at least two other games of a similar vintage, Squad Leader and The Russian Campaign, which have apparently sold in similar numbers.  

On a final reflection, new games and rules are published seemingly all the time, and are often very glossy, but sometimes don't merit several replays. For me, these oldies are still worth playing time after time.