Postie has been busy!

No not Ray and Fran's Postie, mine. Today I received Festung Budapest which is the final Christmas present from last year. It's been some time coming but that's OK, now though I want to have a play. But this is just the latest in a nice stream of items as most of my Birthday stash has arrived this way and as much of it was ordered by me post Birthday it's been fair game at the letterbox. here is a quick run down in the order of last past the post.

Far less of interest to most of the followers of this general wargames blog that probably the rest but certainly the most expensive. I paid £100 for this in the UK rather than pre-order it from MMP. The result was I got it exactly 7 days after a friend who ordered direct and for £20 less than if I had pre-ordered, such is the effect of cost of post to the UK and the extra levy for collecting the Tax. If Duncan had received this weeks ago then the extra £20 would seem worth the cost but in Duncan's case I can see him being a bit miffed. Well for the none ASL player, what you get is a typical book case sized box but just over 3" tall and fully packed with 'stuff'. You get 9 sheets of counters and whilst you need Beyond Valour and the Rule Book to play this, that is all you need. Most Historical Mods require counters from two or three core mods but MMP decided due to the difficulty of getting the Axis Minors that they would include all these in the box. Fantastic for the guy without the counters, for me the guy with everything not such a great deal but going through the countersheets only a couple will be left unpunched. 17 Scenarios and three campaign games means you get a lot of ASL for your money. MMP will also release yet more scenarios for the maps in the future so plenty to look forward to. I have yet to dive in fully but that is for tonight, Ian is a happy Carrot.

Two days before this dropped through the letterbox from Amazon. £16 if I remember right and new . Osprey are not the only supplier found to be selling their own product cheaper via a third party than by their own website. If they think this does not piss off other stockists then they are wrong. But from a customer point of view, great. I could have spent £3 less and got a second hand copy but hell live a little. I have yet to read all the way through but so far it's totally FoG core with added flavour. Even most of the tips (that I hate so much) are exactly the same ones from the original rule set. This has the great advantage of being able to jump from one to the other and as I like FoG I assume this will be a good thing. However the proof will be in the playing which will not be for a few weeks or more as I have to re-base the figures and have yet to decide if I will do a quickie or a proper job based on need to play. One thing is already clear the rules really have ECW as a base of period and the rest seems to be worked round it, again good for me. However in grates that one class of Troop is Cavalier, I wonder if the rule writers know this was a term of insult? I can see it now, I charge your CAVALIERS with my Fatherless Sons. Maybe it could start a trend?

Ordered at the same time but coming from the States is the supplement that also covers the ECW, this is second hand and a snip at just under £4 with less than £2 post!!! Again Amazon is my friend. Obviously this has yet to land but again no hurry, all is fair in Figures and War.

Next up is some tufts I ordered about a week before.These can be bought in the UK from http://www.antenocitisworkshop.com where I nabbed the pictures from. I wanted to buy from these guys but they were out of stock so I went direct to the supplier in the end. Two days after ordering I got an e-mail from the UK supplier stating they would be back in stock in a few days. Oh well, but as it turned out ordering direct was slightly cheaper than buying from the UK (oh the Happy Whisk would be so proud of me). Anyways these arrived at the start of the week. I ordered the 6mm tufts for the 28 and 15mm figures whilst also getting a pack of 2mm for my 6mm and 15mm figures. I hope the mix will really work well. Rather than getting the small packs I went large. Antenocitis Workshop really bang on about certain OTHER suppliers getting the sheets, cutting them down and ramping up the price. I assume they mean The Army Painter who charge £4 for a little box. Well it is their small sheet I measured against the big sheet I ordered and I would have to buy 8 Army Painter packs for £32 opposed to the £12 from MiniNatur Direst or £13 odd from the UK (note the post to the UK from MiniNatur was lower than buying in the UK!!!) so quite a saving to be had. Even buying the small sheets works out far cheaper than going to The Army Painter.

Another selling point was the extra strong packaging supplied with the original opposed to the OTHER supplier. Well that I don't agree, bot my boxes were twisted and do not close well, what's more the delivery box was stout and undamaged so any damage was pre packing. The box itself is fairly low grad plastic packaging that is not meant to withstand heavy knocks whilst the Army Painter little box is far more durable. So if you want the best packaging pay near on 3 times the price? Ah maybe not then. Overall I am chuffed to bits with them and will soon put them to good use. Meanwhile I am cracking on with my 6mm French.