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Monday, 25 May 2009

Taking a break from gardening

With the threat of rain looming, I got down to finishing the gardening that I started yesterday as early as was reasonable this morning … after all, it is a Bank Holiday!

Having finished, my wife decided that we needed to do some shopping at the local garden centre. Unfortunately they did not have what we needed – a new cat flap for the kitchen door – and so we had to go to one of the smaller out-of-town retail parks nearby. Luckily there is a Hobbycraft store almost next door to the pet store, and I managed to sneak in and buy a couple of AIRFIX Bren Gun Carrier sets. I have a sneaky feeling they might well end up being ‘converted’ into self-propelled anti-tank guns as part of my current wargaming nostalgia trip but you never know …

We also went to the local shopping mall, and again I managed to get some time to myself, which I used to visit WH Smith to buy the latest copy of MINIATURE WARGAMES (No.314).

Since WARGAMES ILLUSTRATED and MINIATURE WARGAMES changed ownership both have gone through a bit of a metamorphosis. The layout of the magazines has improved, and they seem to have regained a bit of lost vitality. I suspect that this is due to the new owners wanting to ‘make their mark’ and because they have some ground to make up on WARGAMES SOLDIERS & STRATEGY. Time will tell as to which of the three will end up as ‘top dog’, but in the meantime I shall continue to buy all three.

4 comments:

  1. And what about BATTLEGAMES Magazine? It is the only one that I subscribe to?


    -- Jeff

    ReplyDelete
  2. Jeff,

    It is one that I tend to buy when I see it, which is generally at a show … and from what I can remember it is usually from Caliver Books.

    It is a good magazine, but restricted storage space means that I have to be quite brutal when it comes to subscribing to magazines. Therefore I tend to buy what I can look at first; hence I have returned to buying WARGAMES ILLUSTRATED and MINIATURE WARGAMES for the time being because I can scan through them in WH Smith’s and then make a decision as to whether or not to buy a particular issue. The revived versions of these magazines are – in my opinion – worth supporting as long as they are covering things that I find interesting.

    The only magazines that I subscribe to are THE NUGGET (not surprisingly as I am the membership secretary and treasurer of Wargame Developments) and SOLDIERS OF THE QUEEN.

    All the best,

    Bob

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  3. The problem is buying a magazine when the it is covered in film. I bought the latest WSS even though it was covered in film (with a free 15mm figure) as I thought their dossier approach for Blenheim would be useful. It was useless, and put me off buying another copy unseen,

    ReplyDelete
  4. Fire at Will,

    It is a major problem when a magazine gives away a 'freebie' and has to be 'shrink-wrapped' as a result. MW, WI, and WSS have all done this recently, and it does make it difficult to browse before buying. However, the branch of WH Smith that I usually use often has an unwrapped copy on the stand (usually as a result of someone wanting to see what is inside before buying!) and this has meant that I have been able to peruse the contents before making my decision whether to buy or not to buy. That said, like you I did have to buy the Blenheim issue of WSS unseen … and was also somewhat disappointed.

    Bob

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