Above is a pic of Lt. Colonel James Galbraith, Regimental Colour in hand, alongside Bobbie the regimental dog and some of the other "Last Eleven" survivors of the 66th (Berkshire) Regiment, making their last stand in one of the walled gardens just South of Khig village, a few miles West of the Afghan town of Maiwand.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

MAIWAND DAY @THE MUZEO of Anaheim

On Sunday December 18th, 2011, in conjunction with the ST. CRISPIN'S IRREGULARS gaming club, I will be bringing MAIWAND DAY down to the Kabel Gallery at the MUZEO museum in Anaheim, California.



This is being done in connection with an exhibit of Victorian British artwork, titled "The Queen's Gallery."


The doors open at 10:00am and close at 5:00pm and I expect to be there there all day. I'm going to try to set up the terrain boards and troops the night before, but that may not be possible, so if you are planning to attend, expect me to be setting up the table for at least an hour, until 11:00, at which point the game will kick off.

There is room for 8 Afghan and 3 British players, so any colonial-minded wargamers within reach of Southern California are heartily invited to attend. I know a few members of the St. Crispin's club will be volunteering their time to help me out -- for which I thank them in advance -- and hopefully they'll be able to play as well.

The main idea behind displaying and playing the game at the museum is to reach non-wargamers, giving them a surprise opportunity to enjoy the hobby, and possibly end up with a few new recruits to miniature wargaming. Since my game is so big, I doubt there will be 11 casual museum-goers who all want to participate at the same time -- and certainly not for the entire 6 hours -- so I'm confident I'll be able to give any gamers who show up to play, the opportunity to do so, probably for as long as they like.

Needless to say, there is an ENTIRE MUSEUM connected to the space where we'll be playing the game, so there will be a lot of other very cool things to see and do while visiting the Muzeo!

I look forward to meeting AT LEAST ONE PERSON AT THE EVENT who learned about it here on my blog. If you are that person, please let me know on the day!

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...