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| Siege of Athlone 1691 - wonderful solo effort by Mark |
I decided to highlight the work of fellow gamers who I feel make a significant contribution to the popularity of the period 1660-1720. Mark Shearwood's output is both prodigious and high quality.
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| Meanwhile back in Brixham 1688 - Kidnapping King James |
Mark has produced imaginative and inspiring games which have appeared at various shows mostly in the Midlands. His Siege of Athlone 1691 was extremely popular at Partizan in 2016 and featured fantastic detail and a large number of troops.
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| This wonderful star fort has appeared in our 1693 campaign |
In August of 2017 he produced an interesting and innovative game set in October 1688 at Brixham. John Churchill is attempting to lure his benefactor King James into a trap, kidnap him and then hand him over to the enemy! Mark tells me this was based on a real plot which did not evolve to plan and resulted in the King having a nosebleed and retiring from the field.
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| Mark is a fan of hex bases too |
Mark also asserts than Marlborough was prepared to kill the King if he could capture him. I can feel the keyboards twitching already but don't accuse me of Marlphobia please direct the ire towards Mark in Derby!
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| King James.. a potential kidnap victim |
The table looked sumptuous and was busy all day. Stuart Parkin who can often be found gaming with Mark did his best to flummox me with Beneath the Lily Banners rules queries but I fended him off manfully.
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| Danish infantry with Quindia flags |
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| King James and his loyal Scots troops |
I know at least two Churchill fans who are followers of this blog and who were there n Sunday and I wonder what they both thought of Mark's game. Maybe you let us know P and R! I was not guilty!!
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| More of Athlone 1691 |
Mark has made some excellent contributions to digging up new information on the period and recently did me a tremendous favour when I become custodian of Alan Sapherson's research papers. Mark took the entire collection away and sorted it out by period and subject matter, He uncovered a lot of unpublished stuff that Alan had but didn't get round to sharing.
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| This was a mega effort and rightly admired by the crowd at Partizan |
So, Mark - You do a great job promoting our pet period. Thanks for the inspiration and imagination. I hope others get as much from your output as I do!
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| Who is changing sides? Units were monitored at Brixham |