2026!

Christmas Presents

As we spend our Christmas in France every year, we only open our presents when we return home, by family tradition on New Year's Day. This year we decided to open them today, as the middle spring is away tomorrow in Bristol at a party. I was lucky enough to get some cracking wargaming presents this year including some 28mm Japanese MDF buildings from my son, who is keen to have a go at some samurai skirmish games this year, an Airfix Tiger tank kit from the other son, which will be useful for What a Tanker!, and the aforementioned double sided hex cloth for air wargaming from the other half. My daughter bought be a two year re-subscription to Wargames, Soldiers and Strategy, which is brilliant! To round it off, I bought myself in the sales a brand new copy of Thunderbolt Apache Leader, a game I've been after for years having really enjoyed Phantom Leader. All in all, a great haul of very nice presents, topped off with a Christmas brunch cooked by my daughter! 

Austro Hungarian Albatros Aces

One of my projects for next year will be to carry on promoting Algernon Pulls It Off! through the Facebook group and the blog, as well as the occasional article in the wargaming press, if I get the chance. To keep things fresh I'm going to focus in some new directions, primarily the French on the Western Front but also the Austro-Hungarian air service on the Italian Front. For the latter my book shelf is looking a bit thin, which means I can justify another second hand Osprey, in this case Austro-Hungarian Albatros Aces of World War 1. Together with Chris Stoeson's campaign supplement for the Italian Front and the new French 1/600th models from Tumbling Dice, I should have enough for some enjoyable games!

Balloon Busting Sorties in Algernon Pulls It Off!

I've been reading Marked for Death in old fashioned, non-digital hardback this holiday, albeit in occasional free moments, and it's really very good. I particularly enjoyed chapter four, Combat and Other Missions, which explained in detail the different sorties flown by the RFC during the war. One thing which I didn't appreciate was the use of dummy observation balloons, packed with explosives and detonated when attacked in error by scout aircraft. All very dangerous but an interesting twist for balloon busting sorties?

This gave me some more ideas for a sortie generator for Algy, initially just for the RFC, which would include a balloon busting attack. The idea would be to have a randomly generated number of observation balloons, probably with a D4+1 roll, a proportion of which could be dummies. These would be randomly distributed around the table, allocated anti-aircraft and defending aircraft protection, before being targeted by the RFC scouts. I think this would work very well but needs some more thought and, of course, some playtesting!

Albatros D.III (Oef)

I set up a painting challenge on the Algernon Pulls It Off! Facebook group this week and have decided to convert a Tumbling Dice Albatros D.V into an Albatros D.III (Oef). It needs some more trimming, sanding and fettling but it's looking like it will work. The aim is to paint up the end result into one of Godwin Von Brumovski's iconic red aircraft, complete with the skull insignia...if I can pull it off?

Algernon Pulls It Off! Albatros Art Attack

 

I thought it would be a good time to set up another painting challenge for the Algernon Pulls It Off! Facebook group, without making it too time consuming or complicated. This one is to paint a single model of an Albatros DIII or DV in a historical scheme of your choice and in any scale or material, so lots of scope for painting regardless of experience. There are literally hundreds of options from simple schemes to challenging things like lozenge pattern fabric, insignia and fuselage stripes, making it a really flexible challenge. I'm thinking of having a crack at something relatively simple but also a bit different!

2025 Review - Scribbling Stuff

It's been a very productive year as far as writing stuff goes and I'm very pleased to have gone some way to revive the long dormant Algernon Pulls It Off! rules. The highlight has been to get two articles into this year's Lard Mag and to have an article in the upcoming issue of Wargames, Soldiers and Strategy. I hope next year is as productive and rewarding, as I've really enjoyed the research, writing and play testing in 2025.

2025 Review - Painting Things

I painted quite a lot of very small things this year, most of which were 1/600th scale aircraft but there were some 1/2400th ships and 1/600th scale tanks as well. I've also refurbished the bases on two 1/3000th scale Cold War naval fleets for the Indonesian Confrontation, so have bundled them in as well. All in all, not a bad effort and quite a lot of the stuff has seen some table top action too, so a fairly productive year of painting things.

2025 Review - Rolling Dice

I set out at the start of the year with the objective to focus on the First World War and, to be fair to myself, I think I have achieved that goal, albeit only from the air. In fact, the vast majority of the games I've played this year have been solo play testing ones for Algernon Pulls It Off!, which has clearly been my principal focus from very early on. I have played a few club games, one Knights of the Sky WW1 air game, a multiplayer Napoleonic 10mm Waterloo game and a single game of Armoured Storm, but otherwise I've stayed away from the club and stuck to solo wargaming. I did also play a couple of try out games of Fly Fight Win: Honcho, which were good fun, but haven't revisited it since the summer. One big change has been the absence of any naval wargaming but this will return next year for sure, in some firm or other. Overall, I've enjoyed my year of wargaming, despite most of it being solo and limited in scope, so I'll be doing more solo wargaming in 2026.