Remembrance Day

They shall not grow old,

As we who are left grow old.

Age shall not weary them,

Nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the Sun,

And in the morning,

We shall Remember Them. 

A Note of Caution

Several fellow bloggers report incidents of AIs pirating their materials. I just had an unnerving experience of AI-generated spamming in my previous post about 'Luigi.' The comment posted by 'Omar' (name, but no profile) is as below...

What a brilliant bit of recycling, A J. Rescuing a discarded Luigi figure from under a dying back hedge and turning him into a revolutionary with a red flag and a scratch-built bolt action rifle is exactly the kind of sideways thinking that makes this hobby fun. The orange juice canister lid base is a lovely touch too, and the two slogan photos really sell the joke. More of this sort of inventive conversion work is linked here: 

As you can see, it reads like an AI cribbed every salient detail from the post then spewed up a 'comment.' I didn't post the link included in the comment, as I'm pretty damn sure it leads to something unpleasant. So, fellow bloggers and gamers, please be wary!

Giving 'Luigi' an upgrade.

Our back hedge is dying back for the Autumn. On setting out to clear it up a bit I found one of these lying under it, looking like it was discarded by a child months ago.

Apparently it's an action figure of a character called 'Luigi' from some video game or other. I decided he needed an upgrade in keeping with the times we're living in...

Да здравствует революция!

Да здравствует Троцкий!

A bit of a clean up, a lick of craft paint, a base made from an orange juice canister lid, add the red flag and a scratch built bolt action rifle, and Bob's your auntie's live-in lover. 

Moai modification

This is not a gaming post, but it is modelling-related, sort of. 

A year ago my wife and I were at my brother-in-law's wedding, where his new wife gave out wedding favor items at the reception, amongst which were plastic moai phone rests/piggy banks.

As phone/tablet rests, they left a lot to be desired. I modified one by closing off the coin slot, adding an extended base made from a section of plastic flooring, some ground cover, and a paint job all topped by a coat of varnish.

Before and After

Moai at work

 

It turned out pretty well, I think.

More Blogger issues..?

I've not seen any updated blog entries for over a week. Is anyone else having issues?

Failed to comment..?

I tried posting a comment on the esteemed 28mm Victorian Warfare blog, but alas! It failed to post. Is anyone else having issues?

BE2c

A slight side-slip from my modelling bench. A scratch-built Middle Eastern theatre BE2c. Possibly for ground support should my Palestine/Mespot idea ever get off the ground (pun intended), or for the Too Fat Lardies' Algernon pulls it off rules.

Just the propeller to fit now. I'm thinking in terms of a disc of clear plastic.

The Middle East showed the difference in policies between the Entente and Central Powers. The British and French saw it as a sideshow, and sent aircraft considered obsolete by Western Front standards - the BE2c being a case in point. By contrast the Germans and Austro-Hungarians saw the theatre as being vital to their interests and dispatched top of the line aircraft, to the detriment of Entente pilots. 

Next up, another BE2c to make a flight, then possibly a DIII or IV or two for the Ottoman air force. We'll see.

Old Pierre

 Kings and tyrants come and go

I'll stand judged by what I know

A woodsman's life I'll ne'er gainsay,

Deep in the glades and far away...

The barons of England are in open defiance of King John. French and English armies march and counter-march across the land. Raiders strike at village and farm. Churches and manor houses are sacked. Deep in the woods Old Pierre plies his trade and keeps his own council...

 

A spare figure from the Blue Moon range provided the inspiration for this little vignette. The base is an old CD. Thoroughly dried twigs from our garden provide the logs and pollarded stump. Old Pierre's hut is a basic form made from 1mm cardboard. 

 

Copyright.

Along with many others I've noticed a dramatic uptick in hits on this blog, even for the most banal of posts. I'm given to understand it's down to AI bots data-mining it for material to pirate and sell for the greater glory of 'tech giant/and moral midget' corporate profits. 

I doubt anything will come of this, but here goes...

I reserve to myself the copyright of ALL content on this blog, especially with regard to original photographs and written material pertaining to my hobby, which remain my intellectual property. Any usage of such content without my express written consent will be met with a response under United States copyright law (chapters 1 through 8, and 10 through 12 of Title 17 of the United States Code) as stated by the Copyright Act of 1976.

© A J Matthews, 2026.

Stirrings and rustlings

My interest in gaming fell by the wayside a couple of years ago when real life intruded. Coupled with that a projected foray into the Palestine theatre of the Great War came to a crashing stop only a few weeks after I developed an interest in it, for obvious reasons. I turned instead to noodling with railway modelling, but gaming was never far from my thoughts.

Cut forward to earlier this month, and a find at the local library book sale...

1215: The Year of Magna Carta.

This neat little book by Danny Danziger and John Gillingham covers the sociopolitical, military and economic aspects of the decades immediately before and after the signing of Magna Carta. It doesn't go into great detail on everything - that'd take a much bigger work - but it does at least provide an overview of the era.

Enough to get some gaming ideas fermenting again. Perhaps a small, limited campaign set around a castle held by one faction or the other, which the opposing side needs to gain control of. It'd be a chance to dust off my First Barons War collection, and get my peasant rabble on the table at last. 

We'll see...