There are occasions when I hear someone on another podcast and think “gosh, if only they’d asked them x, y or z!” and now, with this podcast, I have the chance to rectify that.
Sidney (not his real name, which I can’t reveal or there would be potentially lethal consequences) has been around on the wargaming and blogging scene for a long time, but has risen to the top tier of wargame celebrity in recent years because of his well-known association with that powerhouse of the hobby, TooFatLardies, and he can be found in the great hall of Lard Towers interviewing Nick Skinner and Rich Clarke on a regular basis with his highbrow Oddcast.
Now, however, a case of claret proved a sufficient bribe to lure him into the Loftwaffe, albeit in a virtual sense, to talk about a whole range of subjects for which we share a passion, and for me to grill him on, and come away feeling educated about, some others. Our discussions ranged from the usual revelations about how Sid came into the hobby and his favourite wargaming periods, before we launched headlong into an in-depth survey of 17th century wargaming.
This era of the 30 Years War, English Civil War, the Dutch Wars and the Wars of the Grand Alliance are the beating heart of this conversation, and I’m not ashamed to confess that I am a relative wargaming virgin in this period—something I shall be correcting after being infected by Sid’s wonderful enthusiasm that shines through this dialogue. We even spent some dime discussing specific rulesets and reference works, including period paintings.
As well as covering a wide variety of aspects of his favourite era, we of course also discussed Sid’s collaboration with Mark Backhouse (see Battlechat 16) in the arena of 2mm nano-scale gaming and the tremendous possibilities it offers, especially in the sphere of grand tactical and campaign gaming, and the wargame as a moving battle painting.
Not done yet, we soldiered on to cover the subject of ‘alt-historical’ wargaming and its niche between historical and imagi-nations gaming, before moving on to share our enthusiasm for keeping notebooks as a record of our hobby, and our love of maps.
There are nearly three hours of jaw-jaw here, but I hope you’ll agree that listening to Sidney is worth every minute of your attention. So make yourself a brew, get out those paintbrushes and be ready to paint an entire battalion of 28mm, or army of 2mm, as I present one of my most in-depth and passion-filled podcasts yet.
Henry
Pieter Snayers battle paintings
Sebastian Franks battle paintings
David Teniers the Younger battle paintings
Pieter Meulener battle paintings
17th Century military history on Amazon.co.uk
Helion’s “Century of the Soldier” series
Osprey Publishing 17th Century titles
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