One of the advantages of being a senior citizen is that you are hard to buy presents for. If you are a collector or have a hobby this means friends and family are more likely to think of buying you something that is associated with this rather than the “socks and jocks” alternative. The advantage is that you are more likely to receive something you like. Yippee!!

This birthday also fell on our normal gaming night which meant the guys not only came around early for dinner but stayed for a game as well (Battle Report tomorrow). You would think that they would let you win on your birthday wouldn’t you, but…… nah!! Anyway back to more important things like the prezzies.

The Wizkids Viking Hall was something that my son knew I was interested in. He gave me a pile of Dark Age Wizkids scenery that he didn’t want some time ago and this will make an excellent addition to those.

Back in February I put together a Viking Hall which was actually a distraction from another project. This prezzie will mean I need to re-visit it and decorate the inside to accomodate the Jarl and his retinue from this set.

Now for the books. I will do a full book review on them in due course but here are some comments from a cursory glance. The topics cover areas that I am reasonably familiar with.

With my sojurn into “Test of Honour” this was a great get. I am familiar with the folk lore from Hollywood but was also not surprised to find out that these guys were not quite the heroes depicted in the cinema so I am looking forward to finishing this one.

The next two books have the same things in common. Dunsterforce which is a very interesting, little known, WW1 campaign; and Stan Savige, Gallipoli veteran, WW2 General, and founder of the “Legacy” charity for returned soldiers. He is also the Great Uncle of a good friend and wargaming colleague.

The biogaraphy is written by Roland Perry who has authored a number of similar titles. He has the happy knack of being historically accurate as well as providing footnotes, excellent index, and an extensive bibliography to assist any further research that you may want to do on your own. his style is very readable.

The “Secret Army” is a book about the Dunsterforce campaign. All were hand picked volunteers from across various nationalities and armed forces. During this campaign Stan Savige was also awarded the DSO.

The author is a journalist and like all journos doesn’t seem to like revealing his sources! The book seems very readable but has no referencing and very little in the way of Bibliography. From someone who knows this campaign very well, at first glance, there appear to be some minor errors in the sequence of events, but I will look in to this further.

All in all all, the four gifts were great birthday gets.