Five Blogs For You To Enjoy - and a few more

It's always nice to be recognised for your efforts and so I'm very happy that Aaron Hunt of the Dulce et Decorum Est blog gave me the Liebster Blog Award. Especially for the kind words he used explaining his decision. That means a lot to me.

The further advantage of the Liebster Award is that I get to point you to other blogs that I enjoy reading. These are the rules of the Award:

• Copy and paste the award on your Blog linking it to the blogger who has given it to you.
• Pass the award to your top 5 favorite Blogs with fewer than 200 followers by leaving a comment on one of their posts to notify them that they have won the award
• List your nominations (complete with links) on your own Blog.

I think I can do that. I gave a short list of my favourite blog wrecks a few months ago of blogs that I would like to see resurface again. But this is a much tougher challenge. To make my job a bit easier, I won't give the award to blogs that I know have already received the Liebster and to those that I've discovered only recently as part of the Am I a Proper Wargamer discussion, as I haven't had time to take them all in.

Furthermore, I will try to pick the best entries in five categories. Because Liebster is primarily a miniature wargaming meme I will focus on that. And as the Frontline Gamer once put it so well: there's really three sides to (miniature) wargaming. There's the modelling and painting, the gaming and the background study. So these will make up my first three categories. But because I don´t see a big gap between miniature wargaming and board gaming there will be a boardgaming blog as fourth category and finally an extra category to keep my options open.

Front page of one of the Squadron Forward rules, available through Too Fat Lardies

The first section is that of those whose creativity is focused on the rules of the game. The first winner is Joe Legan, whose development of campaign settings for all sorts of miniature rules at Platoon Forward  I think is a fantastic service to gamers. Campaigns are the best way to enjoy gaming. Other contenders in this section are the reflections on Wargaming4GrownUps and David Crook of Wargaming Odysee has been steadfast pursuing his block rules.

Screenshot from Dark Age Wargaming

In the military history section, Dark Age Wargaming by Historian On The Edge comes out on top as it has some of the best articles on the subject and has been inspiring to my Dux Britanniarum endeavours.  Also highly recommended comes Midlist Writer by Sean McLachlan for exotic travel with a wargaming theme, like Iraq and Ethiopia.

Out of contention: Bob Cordery of Wargaming Miscellany and Big Lee Hadley often make me jealous of their trips to historical sites and museums. Jim Hale of Arlequins Worlds has these really deep backgrounds on many wars. Both Bob and Jim actually have a big part of rules development as well, so transcend the categories.

Pijlie's scratch built inn, as photographed by himself

The modelling and painting category goes to Jan-Willem van der Pijl's Pijlie's Wargame Blog. Excellent painting and modelling, especially his 17th century inn. Other Dutch blogs worthy of mention are René van den Assem's Paint-In and Michael Fisher's MiniStories which show the high quality of painting around here.

Other favourites like Analogue Hobbies (I love the WWI in Grayscale), Trouble at t´Mill and Sidney Roundwood are out of contention. Furthermore, Musings of A Frustrated Wargamer, Tales of a Tabletop Skirmisher and Frontline Gamer have been excellent in pointing me towards new miniature companies and kickstarters. Even though I haven't fallen for any of it, it's still great to enjoy the eye candy.

Jeremiah's excellent design of graveyard tiles for Zombicide

My award to Front Towards Enemy in the Extras category is based mainly on Jeremiah Terry's continued effort to produce new characters, counters, map and other gaming assessories for FFG's Tannhauser and Dust Tactics, as well as Zombicide. He really puts in a lot of skill and effort and I think all gaming companies should encourage fan contributions, especially of this high quality. Other extras are Savage Tales, for my dose of high quality pulp.

The selected boardgaming blog is Fortress: Ameritrash. This site hosts a collection of several high quality bloggers, like the legendary Michael Barnes of NoHighScores, Matt Thrower, Ken Bradford, Sagrilarius, Pete Ruth of Superfly Circus, Matt of Drake's Flames and Nate Owens of the Rumpus Room. All under the ever waking eye of Ubarose.


From a Liebster point of view this is a bit of a dead end, but it will keep you occupied for ages. Reviews but also a lot of reflection on design and popular culture and a kick ass attitude that you won't find on other boardgaming sites. I'm proud to have been following it from the beginning, to have supported it financially and unashamed of using it as an occassional soapbox.