After a couple of posts about the building of an arena for your gladiators, now an update about the building of my new home. Refurbishing works are started. My mate Narciso designed a new house plan, even if we bumped in some snags. After I solved part of bureaucratic and financial problems with a lot of strive. So we passed to brick work.

Old partition walls were destroyed and new ones were traced.

Now we can imagine which will be the final spaces of the house. In the meantime old house features are overlapping with new ones in a weird mix of old and new. There is still a lot of works to do and money to spend. Who knows me say that now I am only speaking about money loss for all this. The goal is to have something fit to live in before Christmas. And we are still in Spring…

Before blogs there were other ways to speak about himself and passions. No instant messages, photos and videos, but typing, photocopies, glue and stamps. My first fanzine was published in 1989, I think. This one was in 1995. Obviously no wargaming issues but hardcore music, straight edge music exactly. All in English, but with the help of a friend of mine. At that time I knew English worse than now!

Some days ago a Belgian contacted me about a music festival in 1994. It was during the half of August. With two friends of mine I travelled in Germany, Denmark, Netherlands and Belgium. Backpacks, hostels and one Interrail ticket, a free pass for trains in Europe. The 15th of August we were at Legoland in Denmark. A crucial stop over was at Vort’n Vis (Rotten Fish), a squat in Ieper, place famous for WWI battles. Three days of hardcore music and meeting with other people like us all around Europe. A life ago, but still some memories are vivid in my mind.

This chap is drawing up a complete historical review of all concerts in that place. He found my address and I scanned my materials about that period. Now these are published in his blog:
https://90svortnvis.wordpress.com/2015/04/24/94-08-192021-hardcore-festival-italian-impressions/
You can even see a photo of mine with an injured foot due not to stagediving or pogo but football in that narrow alley. After I continued my European travel despite bandages. I was younger, slimmer and with more hair.

In this beginning of the year something is changed. As I say before, I needed a new mobile, so these below are photos took with my Sony Z3c. No more blurred photos I hope. And now I can surf the web and use services by Android apps as public transports infos or To Do organisers. Glorious days with my Samsung Wave are ended. I bought it at the start of this blog and it was together with me in all the past events documented on these pages.

Another thing in my life is this new house where to put my miniatures. I bought it at the end of February and now I’m thinking how to refurbish it. So less time for miniature related things and a lot on home building problems.

I found wallpaper even in the kitchen and bathroom. As you can see, ghosts of lost pictures are on the walls.

In the corner even a ghost of a CRT television.

All structures are old, tubes are almost rotten, wallpaper smells of cigarette smoke. So I must demolish all, walls too, and start again with a modern house. However the terrace is open on a large square. On the left, behind trees, the Istituto Luce, headquarters of news services of the years before TV. At the end the volcanic hills where Latin started.

This is new step in my life. More news in the future.

Every year we try to meet with members of our club Legio Palatina who live outside Rome. Festivities brought Luca from London and Paolo from Switzerland, together with Narciso from nearer Canino. This time we officially accepted new members: Gabriel and Jack are our younger generation. Locals are me and Diego.

Stuffed with panettone, butter biscuits and chocolate, we played an Afghanistan scenario with rules by Narciso, previously used during Lucca Games. Our table was too small for the huge quantity of polystyrene houses crafted by Narciso, so we kept another equivalent city in the boxes. Real house provided by Diego, instead.

Infidels were taken by white hair, Talibans by children. Sugar and fat excess in blood and juvenile impetuousness made a confused play. More a cavalry charge with automatic weapons than an urban fight. Moreover I killed my troops with an hasty advance, but some lucky throws hit my enemies.

At the end a draw and pizza for all. To the next year.

Do you know I have got another blog? Legio Palatina is the name of my gaming club. We play DBA at most, but we were playing at tournaments with SDS and Anticamente. Well, after a lot of years without a proper website, but a lot of mini websites for tournaments organized by us, some time ago I created a space for our activities, in a blog form. Or better, for our past activities: I was writing posts about our history, starting from 2002! I have got photos and remembers to fill up the posts. It’s a strange blog, it is speaking only about the past at moment. I have put in it materials until the end of 2004, and I wanted to slowly proceeding towards the following years. But I had other things to think as Ferrum et Gloria. So I postponed the duty. However it is beautiful to think about what you did. We appear a bit younger and slimmer in those moments. I think I will appear younger on the pictures of this month of 2014 when I watch them in 2024 or so.

The Legio Palatina blog is in Italian language, my mother tongue, to show our things better than my maccaroni English. There are a lot of pictures, maybe you can have fun even if you can’t read the words. And there is always Google translator…
For the blog, look here.

Another year! Toward the future, looking back to the past. 6th year of blogging about miniatures and life. Like every year I read the last year statements and I found what I was thinking about new targets. Something is waiting to see the light since a lot of years, and more ideas and projects are born in the meantime. However in the 2014 I published my gladiatorial rules, Ferrum et Gloria. And this is a great thing. Now I’m working to the English translation (out in March?) and to book 2 and 3 of the rules. I hope to obtain the Italian version of book 2 for Lucca 2015. I have to produce more things as OGAM supplements and other Ganesha Games rules. My work is mainly to playtest things and support Andrea to publish them. I hope to see Song of Spear and Shield ready because we are working on it since 3/4 years. In January we will run our first Kickstarter and I put a lot of efforts in it. And in 2015 we have to achieve three new books for Osprey, ready for 2016. My new Viking rules have to wait 2016 or more.
In 2015 I wish to participate to wargame conventions in Italy (Milano, Agliana, Macerata, Roma, Empoli, Lucca,…) and England (Salute). Instead DBA tournaments are not my priority. As holidays another visit in Umbria. And a lot of long train trips to visit my fiancée.
My lead mountain is smaller than last year due to big efforts to paint what lied in the dust. A new smartphone with a new camera in January, so better photos in the blog. Maybe in 2015 I will buy a personal house. But I will be alone or together with another person in it? Only time will tell. Happy New Year!

Holidays are an heavy duty so less news on the blog. However I promised to myself that this year I had to spend less time on the blog because I need time to write rules for Ferrum et Gloria. Well, this year I published 86 posts instead of 88. Target achieved…
Some brief news. In a month I visited my fiancée, spent a lot of money in a couple of fairs in Rome (books and food), walked around a lot, ate like a pig during Christmas, worked at my bureaucratic job, wrote an article for Dadi & Piombo about gladiators (out in April). And I took this photo at another playtest for Song of Spear and Shield. The rules are still blurred as this photo. Every time Andrea is not happy enough with the rules, but even this time he think that he found the right way. Instead for my photos I’m thinking about a new camera at the start of 2015.

I’m back from the official presentation of Ferrum et Gloria. I was in Lucca, you know. I’m tired, very tired. So a full report only in the next weeks. In the meantime I present you the Ferrum et Gloria website, the resource to understand better what are these wargame rules. The website is in English language but the rules are in Italian. The translation will be ready and sold for Christmas, I hope. Ask Andrea to be quick!

Ferrum et Gloria, the website