We have been visited by an old alumnus of Oxford Wargames Society: Professor Nicholas Murray of the US Naval War College.
Last year I noted the publication of Nick's book, "The Rocky Road to the Great War". The genesis of this book dates back to when I was a teenager and my dad bought me Hozier's "Russo-Turkish War", starting my obsession with C19 European continental wars which led to the creation of "Bloody Big Battles!". When Nick and I started wargaming together, we played some 1877 Russo-Turkish War games and I got Nick interested in the siege of Plevna, which led to his D.Phil. focusing on field fortification. In the course of his researches, he and I had a memorable trip to Plevna (modern-day Pleven, in NW Bulgaria), replete with gangsters, hookers, pickpockets, gypsies, the "er*tic banana" ...
But I digress. To return to the point: in honour of Nick's visit I set up the Plevna battlefield and took the afternoon off work, so that we could fight both the Second and Third Battle of Plevna in a day, using the scenarios from "Bloody Big European Battles!". Some of the other guys were also around so we had four players for both games. We had an epic day. With this AAR I will attempt to convey some of its epicness. There are a few more photos in Flickr here.