Society of Ancients Committee Meeting

On Thursday Roy and I took the train to That London for a committee meeting. While not perhaps the most riveting of reasons to pass through as little of the nation's capital as we could manage, it nevertheless had its highlights. Some swag:

And:

Both are available from the Society of Ancients webshop here: http://soa.org.uk/joomla/

Until now, my activities have mostly taken the form of editing the journal, which means a lot of email traffic. Not so much in the way of face to face communication, though, because time is tight. Cheltenham is a good location, and now that things are settling down at least a little I am hoping to be more able to take advantage - hence the trip to London. It was a good opportunity to meet people with whom I had only corresponded previously, and this is something I'm hoping to do a little more often. Now I just need to cover all of the playing pieces in Gladiolus with clear plastic and unleash my kids...

Slingshot

I have recently started as editor of Slingshot, the journal of the Society of Ancients.  I started gaming with tanks while I was still at school, because tanks are cool, but I spent more and more time in the hobby when I encountered ancients thanks to an old friend who was leaving school.  He sold me his 25mm Byzantine army, and that got me hooked on ancients/medievals and that figure scale.  I played a lot of 6th edition WRG while I was an undergrad, and I was well aware of the existence of the Society and Slingshot.  I didn't become more involved at that point, though, because I was going off ahistorical match-ups and the interminable debates in the journal about Ghaznavid super troops

Well, that's how it seemed to me at the time.  More recently, though, ancients gaming has massively diversified and there are loads of great rulesets and figures out there.  Plus I've been in a steady club group for years now, and we have enough figures between us to make mostly historically plausible games the norm - hence our ongoing campaign.  I joined the Society properly a few years ago and started to put on large display games at some of the Scottish shows.  I then joined the Society's committee and then, a couple of months ago, took the plunge with Slingshot.  Because of my day job (don't worry, I won't bore you with the details), dealing with large amounts of text doesn't bother me very much.  So why not?

Anyway, I thought I should start to include some of this on t'blog here, since it is now taking up some more of my gaming time, and that's what the blogging thing is for.  So if you're reading this, why not have a look at the Society's website and maybe join?  Slingshot is free to members.  There are six issues a year, and it contains a whole range of ancients and medievals historical and gaming material.  It isn't as glossy as some of the others out there, but then it isn't a commercial enterprise.  Joining the Society gets you the journal, plus access to the discussion forum with some very knowledgeable folks, and DISCOUNTS.  WITH MANUFACTURERS.  Did I mention the DISCOUNTS by the way?

And yes, this is a call for papers!  Getting published doesn't pay, but then you will be in very good company, and many contributors just like to see their musings in print.  So why not go for it?  Oh, and the Society has negotiated discounts with many manufacturers...