Liebster Blog Award receipt and pass on

Having received two Liebster blog awards, I have decided that, even though they scream "chain letter!" at me, I cannot help myself and will submit to passing it on.  It is human nature after all.

A few words from the sponsor: when I started this blog, it was really because I was looking for some ancient rules and I really wanted to know, in detail, how the mechanisms worked before buying.  I could find very little on the internet to inform me.  So I decided to start with some of the rules I owned and post a replay in excruciating detail.  And use the dame battle for different rules to allow for some comparison.  When it starting, I thought I would be lucky to get more than 10 followers and a few thousand hits a year.  But here I am, 2.5 years later with 50 followers, nearly 50,000 hits and now running at about 100 day.

Getting a award reminds me of some comments form other people I have got over the years. Three quick stories on real life perceptions of this blog:

Mentioned to an acquantance, also a gamer, that I do a blog replaying ancient rules with the dame battle.  His response: "Yeah, I used to run a vanity website too, but gave up."  Made me think for a monent: is it vanity I do this.  Possibly a little, but really, I love this hobby and I feel I am filling a gap.  The number of hits vasty exceeds any expectations I ever thought.

Mentioned to a friend, not a gamer who runs a very well known wildlife sanctuary, that I have this blog.  He laughed and said "A niche of a niche blog, gotta love it." He then got a bit more serious and said "No, really, keep going.  Blogs like yours are the reason the internet make sense."

Lastly, my wife of 25 years when telling her a while ago I actually get hits, comments and followers replies with a very stunned "What? People actually read the shit you write!".  She is actually very supportive, but finds it hard to believe there are so many gaming geeks out there. 

Back the the Liebster Award:

The rules:

• Copy and paste the award on your blog, linking it to the blogger who has given it to you.
• Pass the award to your top five favorite blogs with fewer than 200 followers by leaving a comment on one of their blog posts to notify them that they have won the award and list them on your own blog.
• Sit back and bask in that warm fuzzy feeling that comes with knowing that you have just made someone's day.
• There is no obligation to pass this onto anyone else but it is nice if you do.

My nominations are all blogs where when I see a a blog update I will almost always read them.  There are in no particular order:

John's Wargame Page
John does great reviews of lots of ancient gaming rules, and has useful insights into other gaming mechanisms, and writes his own rules.

Dale's Wargames
Dale does reviews and replays of lots of rules and loves getting to the heart of the mechanisms that make rules tick.

Here's no great matter
Aaron is the Lost Battles king, and always has interesting posts about other games as well.

Solo Nexus
JF always has an interesting post about various solo games and solo snippets. And he introduced me to Rory's Story cubes that has been a hit with my children, and I've also starting using for solo Traveller.

Caliban-somewhen
I currently play one-off 15mm ancient battles on a 2'x2' table, Paul plays 28mm goodness on large tables using Phil Sabin's empire as framework to generate the battles.  The fun and excitement of all this comes through.  When I get back to playing on large table, I want to have as much fun as he does.