Well, I received a Stylish Blogger Award from mr. Zerloon. Thanks! What this means? This award is a way to spread knowledge of beautiful blogs, a different way to promote links. When you go along the chain of these links, you lost yourself among interesting blogs, too much to read them all. It is even a form to give approval and respect to other efforts beside you to give a written form to passions and hobbies. So mr. Zerloon chose my blog among others. It is an honour!

To receive an award there are four steps to follow:
1. Send a thank you and a link to the nominating blog.
2. Share seven things about yourself.
3. Pass the word on to 10 or so other deserving blogs.
4. Let them know of your nominating them for the award.

1. Send a thank you and a link to the nominating blog

Zerloon Place is made by Lorenzo (mix the letters and you get “zerloon”) who plays boardgames and 3D wargames. He plays a lot and with different games. Here you can his reports.

2. Share seven things about yourself
1) Moscarelli is the surname, not the name.
2) I’m not so fat as you can see on photos. It’s all a matter of lens distortions.
3) If I lost a game, the rules was wrong.
4) I don’t believe in superstition practices about dice throwing. I believe in cheating dices. But until now I don’t find them to buy. Damn it!
5) My friends make fun of me because I have got only a little number of lead soldiers (this is the pretext that I utilise when a new pack of little lead men arrive in my house).
6) If you have got Romans in 15mm, you have to build them even in 28mm, then you feel the need to compose a Roman army in 10mm, but a day you will have them in 6mm too.
7) My father paint almost all my miniatures under my supervision. My mother sew my uniforms under my supervision. My sister sometimes have something to do under my supervision. So I’m a very busy man.

3. Pass the word on to 10 or so other deserving blogs

Here I have mainly chose blogs that I support because they are made by people that I know. You can always find their links on the right bar of my blog. If I suggest them, then I can give them an award!

Anticamente is a ruleset by Fabio Farneti about battles with a terrain made by hexagons, using 10mm soldiers. It is very original and smart, fresh air if you are used to only DBX geometry.

Song of Drums and Shakos is a ruleset by Sergio Laliscia about skirmishing with Napoleonic troops. It made me discover the weird world of Napoleonic uniformology.

RoninClan is a blog about Paolo Blasi hobbies about boardgames and 3D wargaming, and obviously about Japan. And like a Japanese, he take a lot of photos.

Pippoweb’s Blog is a place where Filippo Simoncini put his realisations about 3D wargaming. Sadly only a few posts, but he has a lot of things to say and show.

Parte Ghibellina is the blog of Roberto Bagna, a good painter for his 3d wargames.

And now something different. Blogs that I follow most and I think are good to know:

The Angry Lurker is a man with a mission: constant presence on the world of wargaming blogs, and with something to say.

6 Mil Phil’s Adventures in Wargaming is full of great realisations for his wargames, and the best of the best is the propaganda truck of VBCW with a mp3 player inside!

BigLee’s Miniature Adventures is a giant involved in miniatures!

Giochi sul Nostro Tavolo is an interesting blog with boardgames reviews and impressions.

As number 10 I haven’t made a choice. I read other blogs but not on regular basis, so I leave this award for a future blog that I will follow every day. And maybe that can be your.

The third piece of my 12 inches soldier collection. Another Italian paratrooper of WWII. This one is the last of the Folgore incarnations. In the latest months of war, the paratroopers was reorganised under the Airforce autority, so the uniforms are blue-grey.

My father was in Airforce, I served in Airforce, so my first uniform as reneactor was an Airforce one. Here you can see me this year on the south extreme of the Nettuno front.

Under the camouflage there is the classic paratrooper, and then RSI, uniform without collar, more practical than other cuts. Collar badges are the newer ones, handmade by me. I changed a lot of things on this piece because I want a particular uniform, like mine.

This samurai is the economic and lighter version. Only 5 magazines against 12 magazines of the other version. I have got a real samurai of this kind, with real magazines with bullets, but all is deactivated, they now are only pieces of metal. Mine is a little different, it is a modern reproduction with modern measures, longer because now we are more tall and big than 65 years ago. It is difficult to find old uniforms that fits well, only bigger sizes are good. And my samurai is too much green, I have to put it on sun to decolourise it.

Here you can see a comparative view of the two kind of samurai.

This piece is ready to fight in Castel di Decima, the 4th June of 1944, a few kilometres under Rome, just before the Allied occupation of the city. A bunch of men stopped a Sherman column with the use of panzerfausts and heroism. They had to slow down the run towards Rome after the front collapse after the capture of Montecassino, so Germans could lose touch and recreate a front.

Sunday the 5th of June, this year, was celebrated a remember of the fallen ones of the defence of Rome. You can see some friends of mine historically dressed. Here the report of the day: https://digilander.libero.it/historiamilitaria2/verano.htm

This is the memorial tablet for this episode in the cemetery of Rome.

Back to vinyl. You can see German equipment as panzerfaust and bombs. There is even a Beretta pistol and the paratrooper dagger. Without his dagger a paratrooper is naked!

A picture from the rear. This mode to put the MAB on the shoulder is the correct one because is more stable. I learned this with the real MAB, the Italian machine gun made by Beretta.

The three paratroopers that guards one library of mine. Folgore viewed in its incarnations: Africa, Army, Airforce.

The 4th of June Mr. Luca Blasi and Miss Abigail Hole celebrated their marry in Anguillara Sabazia (north of Rome). Here a brief report.

Do you remember Luca? He is a member of our Legio Palatina wargame group. Now he lives in London. The last time we saw him was just in London, when he guested us for a week. He is the guy with the bald head in the front of a man with a band coloured like our national flag (the Mayor). On the left there is Aby and again the witness, the Luca’s little sister with her first two children. The other witness was from Moscow. Other people went from Germany or other parts of Europe.

A large delegation of English people were present. You can see the lake of Bracciano and strange hats that English people, especially female ones, use in holidays. The official language used was Italian but a 90% of guests only speak English.

After the civil rite a series of photos to immortalise the moment. Here you can see how beautiful is the bride.

Rice rain!

We ate a lot. Before a series of starters in the open, after the rest of the lunch on a big hall. At the end the classic: the cutting of the cake! Near the bride two little children: Gabriel and Jack Romano.

Traditional sensual folk music and dances from the South of Italy accompanied the day. Luca is not from Rome, he birthed in Puglia, but he lived in Rome a lot. And when you are in Rome and you act like a Roman, you are a Roman.

Me and Narciso, another Legio Palatina member. I’m the only guy with a sky shirt. The official shirt colour was white. I’m out of fashion!

Paolo (Ronin Clan and brother of Luca) and I.

After the lunch more wedding time near the lake under the restaurant. This is the lake of Martignano, a small lake in a natural park. These mad English took away their dresses and swim in the lake! Mummy always tell me to not take a shower after a meal and these people from northern lands take their swim suites! Children (more than 10 I think) had a lot of fun in the water. There was a babysitting service for children during the day.

More relax and free fruit juices and cocktails around the lake. English bought beers in industrial rating at the bar, it’s more strong than them. Here you can see Diego, other Legio Palatina member.

More music and dances, with fun dance fertility games! More children on arrival?

The evening went on, with deejay music from London and a dinner, until late night. Diego was tired and today he have to play a battle with tons of little men made of lead. We leave at 20.30. Great day!
This one in the picture is a special gift that we gave to the couple.

At last! After my heroic first position in the Italian championship of 2010 here we have the chance to show in 2011 that I don’t know how to play Anticamente and the ruleset. Indeed, I can say in the first instance that I played with an obsolete version of the rules, but it was the same because quickly I found what was new. Subordinately this time I found competitive players that studied and tried the rules very well. We are all DBA tournament players so with Anticamente we have found some fresh air and a new way to throw dices against our faces.

This time I lost. But I have fun, I hit and received strokes, in a balanced way. Games were interesting, so this was a beautiful day.
Here you can see the development moment, with screen to hide troops. And you can even see my face with a strange red tone. The day before I take my first sun of summer on the Ostia seaside, but confident with the fact that now is May, I and my fiancée scalded ourselves on all our bodies. So during the tournament I suffered by manifest symptoms of sunstroke…

This man win always all. He is the Italian champion of wargames in 2010. And this time he had his personal dice thrower (children are dangerous) and a support from gigantic martial arts gods. I fought well against well balanced forces, I lost only at the last move.

We played Sunday in a comic shop in Arezzo, and for launch there was a restaurant on the other side of the street. With a cook from Montecatini, even if we don’t understand why he say us he was from Montecatini. Mad Tuscans, they are still get in medieval wars city against city…

Another beautiful piece of plastic with cloth over. In 1/6 scale. This is the second piece of my collection. An Italian paratrooper collection, inspired by my friend who was a paratrooper in the army and that brought me in the reneactor thing.

After El Alamein battle and the heroic defeat of Folgore, the Italian Army wanted to recreate this elite combat group. While drilling went on, the Savoia royal family betrayed Mussolini’s regime and suddenly, the 8th of September 1943, the King and the Italian hierarchy betrayed one’s country, fled in the hands of Allies leaving with no orders our entire Army, that surrendered to Germany Army. So two States were created, one in the north and one in the south of Italy, the former with Mussolini, the latter with monarchists.

This piece represent a Nembo paratrooper, RSI Army. You can see his dress with camouflage, the first camouflage issued on regular basis to troops in the world. This kind of mimetic colours will be used in Italian Army until recent years. Now we use a great new scheme, the “vegetata” one, that seems digital but it is a design, with a net wire on the cloth, invisible to human eyes, to blind digital spotters. Sometimes Italians do it better.

He wears a “samurai”, the bodice to transport magazines for MAB. A paratrooper has to transport independently a large amount of munitions, because he is very mobile, on enemy ground and without the possibility to supply himself. This samurai is the larger one, with the possibility to transport 12 (!) magazines and 6 bombs.

Nembo fought in Nettuno area, stopping for months the Allied forces on the beaches under Rome together with a larger number of German troops. A lot of scholars never speak about Italians in war because they think that our soldiers they were only a bunch of cowards that cry for mummy. They are racists and idiots. Italian soldiers were great in war, and paratroopers were among the best, but highest rank generals were shit, they lost the war, not the Italian soldier!

The uniform is grey-green, the particular colour that identify the Italian Army. His collar badges are with gladi, the RSI military symbol that replace the stars, the military Savoia symbol.

The 12 inches is a Dragon limited piece create for a convention. I modified it with the samurai and other minor things. I throw away the box, but real collectors never put a model outside his box…

It is dedicated to Nino Arena who fought on Anzio-Nettuno front. After he became a writer on military matters, especially on RSI topics. Here I photographed him two years ago during a conference held for the commemoration of the paratroopers fight in Castel Decima in 1944. You can see that the face is the same, even if there are some years between the two aspects…

I’m involved in Ganesha Games’ Song of Spear and Shield development, so I found a day off to go to Terni for a playtest of the latest version of the game. We had an urgency because three days after there will was the convention Dadi.com in San Marino (the free and little State inside Italy, beside with City of Vatican; Monte Carlo instead is for a few km inside French territory), the emigrated version of the biggest wargame convention of Italy, originally located in Crema and directed by Lorenzo Sartori.

After the playtest of Agliana a lot of things were developed, and in the right direction I think. If I was sceptical about the idea of cd trackers for light troops, now I’m sure that they work finely. Now I’m happy with the game mechanics, even if Andrea has still to do a lot of work. We played a extenuate game at the last man standing, to prove situations that we could forgot to think about. Always Romans against barbarian from the North. I’m on the Roman side, obviously! We made some rule changes and now, when I have metabolised this long day, I’m thinking about other upgrades. I’m waiting to hear Andrea on skype for a discussion about these adjustments. In the meantime there will be the playtest in San Marino and other feedback on the game. Maybe in June I could find time for another trip to Terni…

The playtest was in refurbished Andrea’s house. If you want to see more photos of our battle you can go here

A new appointment on Monte Soratte. Inside this mountain there are the WWII bunkers of the Roma front, a little north from the city. They were dug at the start of the war by Italian Army and after they were used by Germans to defend themselves from the invaders. During the Cold War this was the site of the anti-nuclear refuge for the government. Nowadays a bunch of boys and girls from Sant’Oreste have thought to open this underground space to public.
I stayed here last year for the first opening. A year after I return, always with our Folgore paratroopers reneactment group. In the meantime some works went on and the structure is more easy to visit. A lot of people went from Roma. And a lot of reneactors were here to show their vehicles and arms.

This little girl was a perfect paratrooper ready to use this AA gun. Maybe a little small for the duty…
On the left, Sant’Oreste.

When Kesserling was here he used this type of German tractor to visit the troops. This one is full operative!

The lunch of champions… This is part of our group, there were Germans and Americans reneactors too. We voraciously ate bread and mortadella (or salame or prosciutto) with wafers as dessert, but… but… in Sant’Oreste there was a sagra on fettuccine (long pasta made with eggs) with wild asparaguses! We didn’t know it! Damn!

The entry of the bunkers for the organised visit. A volunteer guide show to this group the map of the underground section. Inside you are 200 metres under the mountain rocks. A lot of bunkers are all around this external part of the mountain, along a way with barracks (and a lot of dust). But there is another part developed more deeply inside. It is a huge space, full of bats, stalactites and debris. The only clean section is that with the secret Cold War bunkers, one is ready as building structures, the other one is frozen in time with iron bars that wait to arm concrete.

Inside is dark, very dark. We can see the ground only with lights from mobiles. I made some photos but my camera was not so sensible like my eyes. Here the light at the end of the tunnels. A one hour and half visit I think.

Some airplanes flighted on our heads (one of them only 10 metres over us, damn it!). A replicated Storch with German beam crosses show us as this great vehicle could remain almost motionless in the air. And a photoshop work can create a photo from the past.

Here the link to visit the site: www.bunkersoratte.it
Next appointment in September.

Another issue of Dadi & Piombo magazine is out. And even this time there is something written by me. Do you remember the post on this blog about scales in wargame compared to train modelling scales? Well, now it is rewritten for this magazine on a bigger scale. A translation in English language, better than my English, is present, because all the magazine is bilingual. Here can see my pages. Beautiful photos of giant robots are by Paolo (see Ronin Clan blog on the links) and his MEKA game.

The guy that make Dadi & Piombo magazine organise even Dadi.com convention, but due to problems with the financial support by local administration, he shift it from Crema to San Marino. Sorry chaps, now it is late to participate to it, that was last Saturday and Sunday.

More on this number and how to have it to www.dadiepiombo.com/dp45prev.html