COLONIAL BARRACKS

First, to any and all followers of this blog, I want to apologize for taking so long to put up a post re: my somewhat epic trek there-and-back-again to New Orleans. Colonial Barracks -- the world's first-ever all-TSATF convention -- was a tremendous success, IMHO and also according to all the various other reports posted on TMP and individual wargamer's blogs. I'm very happy I was able to participate, and I'm proud of being awarded a "BC" by the Brom family hosts (it stands for "British Colonial" &/or "Brom and Carr -- as in Larry BROM and George CARR, sr., originators of the rules).

The Maiwand game played at the con was one of the best ever! It pitted 8 Afghan players against 3 British players, played for about 6-hours (approx. 10:00am to 6:00pm -- with a 1-hour lunch break and 1/2-hour convention group photo break), and resulted in a narrow Afghan victory. The British were able to withdraw all 6 of their guns from harm's way, as well as their baggage train and hospital, and ended the day ensconcing themselves in the villages of Khig and Mundabad. But they took serious casualties, relinquished possession of the field, and did not "defeat" Ayub Khan's army -- though they did inflict severe casualties on his Tribal irregular and Ghazi fanatic forces, virtually wiping them all out, leaving only the vast array of Afghan regular infantry, cavalry, and artillery intact.

I will post more details about the game, along with tons of high-quality photos, as soon as humanly possible!

I returned home from New Orleans just in time to sell my family's lovely home, so we can move to another lovely home we are now in the process of buying. Needless to say, at the moment there is not much time available for the hobby. The downside of this move is that we are not moving to a "dream-house" complete with game-room or game-shed (we looked at a couple of hose but for one reason or another they just didn't work out). The upside is I believe the garage is roughly equal in size to our current one, so hopefully I'll have about the same amount of space to devote to the hobby as I do now, though of course you can never be certain about such things.

For any followers or occasional visitors to this blog who reside in Southern California, or within easy reach thereof, please pay special attention to the next post, where I'll be discussing a forthcoming visit by MAIWAND DAY to the MUZEO museum of Anaheim, in Orange County, on Sunday, December 18th, 2011...