Amusing Planet has a terrific series of photos on the miniature village of Bourton-on-the-Water in England. Imagine playing wargames with action figures in this one.
The best part of it is that, since the one of the houses in the actual village has the miniature village in its backyard, the model also contains a miniature village. And in that miniature village is a house with the miniature village. And in that miniature village …
It zooms down to 5x.
Wow.
Remember the old Rock-Paper-Scissors game? I’ve often thought that it would be an interesting basis for resolving combat in a miniatures game. But the three traditional hand gestures just wouldn’t provide enough variety.
But how about 15 different gestures — things like the Dragon, Tree and Wolf — with 1,307,674,368,000 permutations.
Wargames Journal was one of my favorite miniature wargaming publications of the past decade. You can find an archived pdf of the first issue of Wargames Journal here.
The Rex Factor Podcast focuses on the history of the monarchs of England. The producers write:
Welcome to Rex Factor, a fun and informative history podcast where we review all the kings and queens of England from Alfred the Great to Elizabeth II and now, in our second series, of Scotland from Kenneth MacAlpin to James VI.
In each episode we look at one monarch, going over their life and reign before reviewing them on a number of factors:
- Battleyness – how good they are in battle and warfare
- Scandal – their notoriety and tendency towards naughtiness
- Subjectivity – how well and justly they ruled (i.e. would you want to be their subject?)
- Longevity – how long they ruled for
- Dynasty – how many legitimate, surviving children they had
And then, finally, we considered whether or not they have that certain something, that lasting legacy, the star quality that we call the Rex Factor.