Monday 19 September 2022

1,000,000 hits, thank you




Thanks to one and all (and of course especially the Bots - this would not be possible without you!) for getting the blog to the dizzy heights of 1 Million hits.


There have been a couple of wobbly bits along the way, but I am still here and that is largely due due to blog followers and those that comment, giving the encouragement that is sometimes needed to keep the e-ink spilling - thank you.


The blog started in 2014 and has meandered through various moments of favourite things, with different emphasis given to various themes during that journey, but overall, it remains true to its original concept of covering ‘wargaming for small spaces’, so the kitchen / dining table and even the smaller type setting …. ‘Pinboard Wars’ still gets a fairly frequent outing!


As the writing continues to take twists and turns, of late, it is reflecting my own gaming evolution towards collecting rule series systems, so that more battles can be played, but with fewer different rulebooks needed. This is particularly an issue on the boardgame side of things, where the number of single titles to tickle the fancy, just seem to exponentially rise yearly in their hungry occupation of shelf space!


As a milestone celebration, I was going to do a give-away, but not wanting to burden any of the ‘Dear Readers’ by increasing the weight on your shelves :-) I have decided instead to make a donation to The Battlefields Trust, which is a registered charity and has broad enough aims that I think will be appreciated by the followers of this blog. 


LINK if anyone wants to know more;


https://www.battlefieldstrust.com


Just to make things a little interesting and personal and to give a ‘moment in time’ snapshot of what we are up to, if you do comment on this post, please consider mentioning the ‘thing’ that is interesting you most at the moment, whether period, scale, rules, modelling, painting or reading - or even if you feel like you are just standing still, waiting to be be re-enthused.


At the moment, my plate is filled with Wars of the Roses imaginations games (28mm), re-visiting my own home-brew figure rules and an interest in Napoleonics via the Jours de Gloire boardgame series. I am about to embark on a mini blog series that takes a One Hour Wargame scenario and sets it against various rules and periods, using small armies on a small table, exactly what underpins this blog - the next post will likely see part one ….. the fight for Jacob’s Hill!


Anyway, thanks all for tuning in. We share a fantastic hobby and are enriched by the community of bloggers / vloggers, forums, wargame show organisers, magazine editors and cheery traders etc, they are the glue that binds us and it all just adds an extra level of enjoyment to our endeavours - all good!



46 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. Congrats Norm! Outstanding milestone! And of course thanks to the bots! Where would we be without them???

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    1. Probably at fifty thousand hits 😀

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    2. Your blog is showing up in its rightful place in my feed now also. Perhaps the glitch was fixed?

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  3. Congratulations! Here’s to the next million!

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  4. Hi Bob, thanks, though I will never catch up with you, even with Bot help :-)

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  5. Congratulations! I noticed that you were getting up there but I leave for a week and BAM!

    As we have discussed privately, my hunch is that the blogger issue is driven by an underlying RSS feed problem that shows up in the Blogs Followed gadget and Reading List. That could explain loading sluggishness too as the webpage attempts to load RSS feeds that it cannot find, recognize, or parse. I have thought about deleting my Blogs Followed gadget on my blog to see if that resolves response time issues but that seems a rather drastic move

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    1. You know, maybe you hitting one million pageviews broke the sytem???

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    2. Yours is the only blog that I can find this new post on in the feed!

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    3. I had to rejigger your RSS feed to get your update to appear.

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    4. Just checked Norm and you are showing on my page 👍

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    5. Thanks for looking Matt, it looks like Google have corrected something and the blog world is good again! :-)

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  6. On My Chromebook, my task bar and all drop down menu's have gone from white to black, so something is changing. I might go for the drastic 'reset', but before I do, i will try to dig deeper!

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  7. Replies
    1. Thanks and I am looking forward to more coming from you at the (new) Shed! :-)

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  8. Firstly, congratulations on the milestone, it really is quite an achievement. To be honest I'm not surprised as you work so hard at this blog filling it with interesting and informative reader friendly content. My personal favourite recently has most certainly been 'Piggy Longton', you have created something quite special there Norm that really draws me in.

    The feeds seem to back to normal this morning, I had certainly noticed the same issues over the weekend.
    All the best,
    Lee.

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    1. Thanks Lee, I do enjoy the Piggy Longton moments. Also good to hear that the feeds are back to normal and that you were also seeing it, so it must have been quite widespread.

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    2. Lee, I have just done a quick check around and indeed order in the ‘Blogger’ world does appear restored. :-)

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  9. Congratulations Norm, as other people have said, you put loads of work into this blog and it is always a good read.

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  10. Congratulations on getting to this milestone.

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    1. Hi Peter, I’m just pleased that the blogs seem to be holding their own in the rise of migration to FaceBook.

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  11. The Bots be praised ;)! Well done Norm and your posts I always enjoy as they do give me food for thought. i just checked any my Blog which is 11 years old now only has a paltry 275K hits, give or take. A lot of those were from Russia at one point, but even they have got bored of my random posts and musings!

    Currently the various Jacobite Risings are floating my boat, after Sundays game. On the painting front I'm busy beaverign away getting stuff ready for the Cotswold Wargaming Day on Sunday. So if you're in that neck of the woods ...

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  12. Hi Steve, I had a certain set of home grown rules with a certain title and I’m sure that used to trigger ‘bot interest’. I have since changed their name :-)

    I thought the table in you last post was sensational. Would love to do Cotswolds again this year, but a current distraction unfortunately prevents that. Enjoy your day.

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  13. Well done Norm! 1 million hits is a significant milestone. As of today I have 11,828 😊 - after 9 years.
    You have an excellent blog and no surprise to me that you have so many followers and views.
    Currently I am painting a Dutch Napoleonic army, battling away in France after the third apocalypse and buying shuttles for my 40k Space Ranger army. So as always, all over the place. 😁

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    1. Hi Ben, ‘all over the place’ is good :-)

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  14. Congratulations and glad to be able to comment on your posts which are always entertaining! I'm painting and prepping 28mm Napoleonics, but I am sneaking in a bit of terrain as a break!
    Best Iain

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    1. Hi Iain, always impressed by the amount of cavalry that you put out …. I save them until last :-)

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  15. Bots? No bots looking at my blog! (he said while looking up at the ceiling and whistling...) :)

    Congratulations on the milestone!

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    1. Thanks Ross, your bots are ‘set’ to look for joyous photos :-)

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  16. Hello there Norm,

    Many congratulations on this incredible milestone and here’s to the next 1,000,000! Seriously though, I always enjoy your posts and am quite taken with the mix of board and figure based gaming. Many thanks for sharing your adventures old chap!

    All the best,

    DC

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    1. Thanks David and thanks for the thumbs up, more of the same to come hopefully.

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  17. Congrats Norm…..what is my butterfly mind pondering at the moment ? Well Dark ages, the Russian civil war as I am Reading Beevor’s excellent new book. As far as painting some AWI, Persians, SYW and some Seljuk cavalry, but I really want to make some Dark age figures, no hope for me 😀

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  18. Thanks Matt, a full plate indeed! Victrix have just announced a 20% sale on their dark age plastics .... just trying to help :-)

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  19. Congratulations Norm on your 1,000,000 milestone! Still enjoying Into Battle as a small-footprint board game - I'm currently dabbling with making counters (using Junior General artwork) to expand my East Front order of battle so I can play through all the scenarios that you've provided!

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    1. Hi Paul, thanks and pleased that the game is still giving :-)

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  20. Congratulations. 1 million is a high number. You’re blog has been around a Long time and I’m glad that I’m helping you get some enjoyment out of it. 😀

    As for a snapshot in time; I’m wading into dark ages still pretty heavily gearing up for some hopefully great mass battles.

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  21. Thanks Stew, you are adding to my enjoyment :-)

    Your dark age armies look great, the beached longboat is a great centre piece on the table.

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  22. Hello Norm

    Congratulations on such a tremendous milestone! It has been an enjoyable time all the way, I think I have been following your blog from the start, or close to it anyway. Anything you play on a small table are my favourite posts of yours but then I am biased. From the recents posts, the Pocket Armies is a fav.

    At the moment I am in a bit of a wargaming lull. I am playing here and there but not blog posting. Testing out some new 12x12 grid ancient rules of mine but seem to be spending most of my time with playtesting some fast play solo SF RPGing loosely devived from the Two Hour Wargames Larger than Life games.

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  23. Thanks Shaun, I think our gaming journey meanders over time, exploring the new and returning to the old, as long as we are still rolling dice, we are still doing it.

    Your 12 x 12 Ancients sounds interesting … reminiscent of Bill Bank’s Ancients, though he used hexes, you end up with a DBA style representation of the battle, but with the grid bringing flanks, frontages and maneouvre for positional advantage into focus.

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  24. One million? Wow! That’s incredible! Well done Norm, that’s really impressive and a testament to the quality of your blog. A donation to the Battlefields Trust sounds like a super idea! Congrats!

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  25. Hi Mike, thanks, our blog world is a kindly space.

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  26. Well done indeed on this amazing milestone Norm - here's to hitting the 2m mark in a couple of years' time!

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  27. Thanks Keith, I love an optimist :-)

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Thanks for taking the time to comment