Greater Blue-Eared Starling Bird Nature's living gem: sparkling sapphire feathers and bright eyes

Second playtest: Things  were flowing well until King Stephen was captured by Norwegian raiders in a big battle near York. The most eventful part of the war has  a lot of cards in play This means things do not happen in the historical order which injects a nice dose of (possible) alt-hist.

Anarchy: I'm oscillating between a smaller number of Regions and less activations or the reverse. It all comes down to what fits  the storyboard in terms of running hot or cold. I'll try the smaller version solitaire this weekend.

Tudor naval project: have decided that the Solent scenario is going to need some shore batteries. Not necessarily to fire, but for the French to sensibly avoid.

Viz 355

RUSI just released an excellent paper on ‘Emergent Approaches to Combined Arms Manoeuvre in Ukraine’. I wanted to test if Battlegroup Clash: Baltics could model the new approach. The answer was a conditional yes. Read about it here: www.sapperstudio.com/post/testing...

Still one of the best exchanges in any medium.

Map, Meeples, Cards, Rules we are good to go on The Anarchy. Is it a game yet? Is it even representative broad-brush history? I have no idea

Second game of this yin. Rules playing out well - still just a bit long for us while we hunt for the rules. Drone and EW both covered well, Nice one. @sapperstudio.bsky.social

Hi - announcing that I've put a new boardgame prototype, Digvijaya: Religious Rivalry in Medieval India, up on my fieldofmars.com website. It's designed for three players, but also has an AI to allow one- or two-player games. Thanks again to Tor Andersson for the use of his Rally the Troops system.

Portrait of Giovanna degli Albizzi Tornabuoni, 1489-1490 by Domenico Ghirlandaio

Legit. True. Damn right.

Marc Morris' response. If you're thinking of telling your students tomorrow about how King Harold sailed his army to Hastings, maybe make it a lesson in source criticism. www.marcmorris.org.uk/2026/03/did-...

Today’s development: update to the board for what is now likely to be called “The Emperor’s Choice”, a 2-player game about the fraught Japanese cabinet discussions on August 9 1945, leading up to surrender and then the attempted coup.

You could say that Rock n Roll was born 111 years ago today in Arkansas, but probably not where you'd think. Before there was a Chuck Berry or Little Richard, there was those who wanted to be like her. Rosetta Nubin better known as Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the godmother of Rock was born on this day

Brigadune

'The New American Gothic', Oil on Canvas by Criselda Vásquez

Fairly good win on that Cloth of Gold, doing well WITH the gold. As always there are 2 or 3 options each go, each with consequences further down the line that can help your opponent.

Hello Gaius my old friend

Playing around with some visual prompt help cards for current version of mid-Tudor Naval project.

I don’t repeat play many games in any year, so I prefer to list by playtime… here’s my 2015 - quite a high proportion of wargames!

Clever idea

The other is the Robey-Peters Gun Carrier, a World War One plane that Chris discovered. Two large recoilless guns mounted in nacelles on the top wing, a pilot who can't see, and a dangerously poor center of gravity all combine for wargaming fun. Find them here: site.wargamevault.com/browse/pub/1...

Ushibori in the Rain, 1929, by Hasui Kawase.

I'll be at SquareBASH near Gatwick on Sunday, demonstrating my new game "Wolfe Tone's Rebellion"about the Irish 1798 rebellion.

This is a big Vae Victis Special with very smart looking cards. The rules are a bit Exception City (though it was a wild old topic) and the annual turn will be a long one (12 cards?) with Events seeming to predominate. I'm not persuaded that I'd want to play the full game.

A mockup of Operation Overlord by Clem. Files went to the printer these days. More info should be available soon.

Played Rivoli as our second visit, corking game. Thanks @fredserval.bsky.social

‘Extraordinary’ iron age war trumpet find in Britain may have Boudicca links. Bronze instrument or carnyx dug up in Norfolk in area inhabited by Celtic tribe led by warrior who fought Romans. www.theguardian.com/science/2026...

Dernière lecture de 2025 : Gaelle Audéon remet à leur juste place les souveraines et les aristocrates qui de 1137 à 1226 participent du pouvoir politique. Trop longtemps invisibilisées dans l’historiographie. Soumises à beaucoup de violences elles gouvernent pourtant leurs fiefs

Just cut this one out, it covers the 1792-1797 and uses sticks and boxes (and has some nice cards). A lot of the range is in the commanders (this is really an Austrian-French affair) and the range of other states. All the time a young Corsican is getting bolder.

An excellent book on the opening part of the wars up to Towton. Grummitt prefers to work from contemporary sources and sometimes to reach no hard conclusion at all. His discussion of Towton is especially useful possibly being split into three battles all closely attached.

Today’s movie:

Ahmed al Ahmed, the man who tackled one of the Bondi killers, became an Australian citizen 3 years ago. His deed was "his way of conveying his gratitude for staying in Australia, for being granted citizenship." He took 5 bullets, and fears he'll lose his left arm. www.smh.com.au/national/nsw...

Second outing. French have a Near calm sea with the hint of a Southerly breeze. Main English sail trio are far off, but the Red Galley is returning from the Brittany coast and is in the way.

Art of the day Two girls racing sheep on a farm in Cornwall, England (colorization), 1969 - by John Drysdale (1925 - 2016), English

Coming next spring! ”The Business of War in the Early Modern Baltic Sea Region 1530–1765” Description in comments @profmurdoch.bsky.social @anulah.bsky.social

Two more of the over sized Napoleonic battles by Hourtoulle. They may be big but they are beautiful with amazing illustrations inside. 📚 🇫🇷 #histbookchat

For anyone interested in vikings: a symposium on the impact of the viking Great Army, to be held at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge on 24 April 2026.

You know you’re getting a little too into the 18th century Habsburg when you start to buy books on Maria Theresia’s government and economic policy! But I really do want to know how you finance a war against Frederick the Great (especially once the UK is no longer on side). 📚 #histbookchat

Plaque for Scottish Holocaust victim to be unveiled in Edinburgh. Outside St Stephen's Church in Stockbridge, where a service was held for Jane Haining before she travelled to Budapest to work as a matron. Later murdered by the Nazis in Auschwitz in 1944. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

3/3 I got a very detailed rundown of the upcoming game set in 1942 in the Mediterranean directly from the designer @javier-romero.bsky.social Lots of interesting things to look forward to. Thanks Javier! Coming soon from @vucasimulations.bsky.social

#dnd #funfact Gygax often claimed that Tolkien and his books had just a "superficial" influence on D&D. According to him, such authors as Anderson, Sprague de Camp and Pratt, Leiber, Lovecraft, Merritt, Moorcock, Vance, and Zelazny were used as inspiration more than Tolkien. #ttrpg #mtg #gamedev

Marisol (Escobar) with Dinner Date, 1963 by John D. Schiff

"Race to Rabaul 1943" is a forthcoming addition to the "Race to the Rhine" series by PHALANX. Volko Ruhnke made an excellent game where players have to wrestle with the push and pull of logistics in the Pacific theater. The adversarial gameplay is great. #wargaming @volko.bsky.social