Welcome to Episode 86 of the Yarkshire Gamers Reet Big Wargames Podcast.

My guest today is Mr Barry Hilton, a rule writer, figure producer and a man, like myself who loves a Big Flag !

You will no doubt recognise the names of his rules, Beneath the Lily Banners, Donnybrook, From Republic to Empire, Mad for War and the soon to be released Dreadnoughts.

Barry specialises in the 1660 to 1720 period when a frilly collar was all the rage, its a fascinating time when armies become more professionalised, the pike disappears and the hats went from floppy to pointy. It was a joy to pick his brains on a period I'm not that familiar with.

We chat about Barry and his history in the hobby, look at his range of figures and chat about the future for The League of Augsberg.

Hope you enjoy it

Regards Ken

The Yarkshire Gamer

Hi all,

Its been a while since the last podcast but I couldn't miss a Summer Brews in the Binyard !

I'm joined by Alex Sotheran from Storm of Steel and Iain Mcdonald of Flags of War for our half yearly loo at the Wargaming World.

WARNING - This podcast contains naughty words and jokes about Wargaming, if you are of a nervous disposition I would turn off this podcast and go and do something more interesting instead !

We start the show with our usual catch up, a chat about Salute (Alex mentioned the award, not me) and Partizan before discussing if too much terrain and not enough figures is an issue on some tables.

Then its the draw and general chat about the 2026 World Cup of Historical Wargames Rules. I may mention my despair at the standard of replies in the Preliminary Round, once or twice.

With the draw done its onto Ask Our Nora when we get stuck into your questions. I have to admit I was absolutely overwhelmed with questions this time and had to close off the question posts 24 hours before the show. We didnt manage to get through all the questions, I have 7 A4 pages of 12 point text of questions we didnt get too.

Apologies if you are one of those, we will try and get to them at a later show.

Sit back and enjoy 

Until next time, Sithee

Regards Ken

The Yarkshire Gamer

Hi all,

I've been allocating most of my hobby time to painting over the last couple of months and its the Podcast which has taken a bit of a back seat, but with the upcoming Salute Wargames Show in that there London (which I have been busy painting figures for) only a couple of weeks away, I thought it would be a good idea to have a quick catch up with Martin and Phil from The South London Warlords to have a chin wag about the show.

In the hour of the show we catch up on everything that's new, everything that's the same and all the stuff in between. 

I will be at the show waving my banner for Big Old School Historical Wargaming, as you would expect, there will also be lots of other people waving their banners for their areas of the hobby, which is wonderful to see. I can guarantee that none of those banners will be as big as the ones on the front of a certain wargames magazine !

Now the Analogue Hobbies Winter Paint Challenge is over I hope to have a bit more time to put some more episodes together, so if I don't see you at Salute hopefully you can tune into the next episode of the Podcast.

Until next time, Sithee

Regards Ken

The Yarkshire Gamer

Hi all,

Welcome to the show and today I have a bit of a spontaneous episode (for me) with Joe and Aaron from Dads War Room over in Hull (or is it 'ull) in the East Riding of Yorkshire.

I saw what the lads were doing via the Yarkshire Gamer Facebook page and I knew I had to get them on and help to get their message out to the world.

Mens Mental Health has come a long way in my lifetime and Mens Sheds and the likes of Andys Man Club has made discussing how we feel more socially acceptable, so Joes idea of a Wargaming Club focusing on being not only a space for painting, building and gaming but also being a place where a shared hobby experience might help bring on the courage to share any personal challenges and receive likeminded support is a fantastic one.

Both Joe and Aaron are relatively new to the hobby so its a shorter more bespoke format to the episode as we get straight into the meat and tattes and talk about the setting up of the club, its first meeting and some great positive plans for the future.

Give these lads a like and a follow and if you can help in any way please do so, sharing this show link would be a great start !

Dads War Room is on Facebook, Tiktok and the Utubes, links below

https://www.youtube.com/@Dadswarroom

https://www.instagram.com/dads.warroom?igsh=MW1vNDVuYjhhZG1jeA%3D%3D

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1368023948184485/?ref=share

I'll be back next week for a birthday party to celebrate 5 years of the Podcast

Regards Ken

The Yarkshire Gamer

Welcome to 2026 and Happy New Year.

No mucking about this year as we are straight into the first episode of the year, only 10 days in.

My guest today is Paul Mackay, a name I am sure you will recognise if you read any of the Wargames Magazines, Paul is a regular contributor to those tomes with his painting tutorials, which cover a wide range of scales, periods and styles.

Paul is a lapsed Wargamer so there is a slightly different format to the show. We get to know a bit about the man himself in the first part, before we move onto a deep dive into many different aspects of the painting part of the hobby in part 2. We round off the show with some semi serious top tips.

After the 5 hours of the Xmas Special, this 2 hour 45 episode is officially a Yarkshire Gamer short !

I hope you enjoy the episode and please take time to leave a like, a comment and subscribe to the show wherever you listen to it, it helps it to grow, after all it is free !

I'll be back in 3 weeks time with a new episode.

Regards Ken

The Yarkshire Gamer

Hello all, and welcome to the Christmas 2025 edition of the Podcast and as always I spend the festive celebrations with the Brews in the Binyard crew, tonight its a full house.

I'm joined by Alex Sotheran from Storm of Steel and Iain McDonald of Flags of War as usual but there is also a return for the "voice of reason" Sean Clark.

If you haven't listened to a Brews before it contains a lot of opinions and a bit of swearing and its best not played in front of your kids ! We tackle some weighty topics in our usual irreverent way so if you are a delicate flower I'd stay in your compost.

Tune in to hear Alex attempt to break the world record for the loudest ever typing at a keyboard during a podcast, a new and definitely true conspiracy theory about Santas reindeer. There's a couple of quality rants by yours truly after an interesting year of magazine mags and a swarm of Mediaeval Skirmish Games. We also introduce a new Space Marine Chapter.

Its a long one but its got to last you all Xmas so take it slow.

As always please, like, subscribe and comment to help the show grow, lots more coming in 2026

Until then, Sithee

Regards Ken

The Yarkshire Gamer

Welcome to the show and today my guest is another Yorkshire resident Mr John Savage.

John is well known on the show and Lardy Day circuit for putting on high quality, fun participation games and we spend the final section of the show talking about those games and getting some tips for putting them on ourselves.

Before that there is all the usual mayhem of a "normal" episode. John has been seen doing some Big Game Napoleonics recently so we use the Big Game section of the show to discuss that and also add a new meaning to the phrase "Full Leipzig"

The next episode could be anything ! But the main thing is there will be one and it will be free ! 

Until next time Sithee

Regards Ken

The Yarkshire Gamer

A change in Programming Schedule as the difficult birthing of the Wargames Time Machine episode continues.

I took the opportunity to take a ginormous microphone down to that there Newark and the T'Other Partizan show where I spoke to the organisers and a variety of people including former guests and potential new ones, here is the full running order

Running Order Live at T'Other Partizan 

Something a bit different, hope you enjoy it, please like subscribe and leave a comment where you can thank you.

Hopefully back soon with the Time Machine finally working !

Regards Ken 

The Yarkshire Gamer 

Hi everyone, welcome once again to Yarkshire Gamers Reet Big Wargames Podcast.

Today sees a continuation of our round the world trip with a visit to New Zealand and my guest Mark Strachan.

Marks Blog 1866 and all that has been a popular stop off point for many wargamers over the years, it covers many things but specialises in the Franco Prussian War and other similar wars around that time.

https://stracmark.blogspot.com/

We look at Marks personal hobby as well as his time working in the wargames industry and the hobby in general in New Zealand. Hope you enjoy it.

Episode 79 will be a new show format for Yarkshire Gamer as I take you all back in time to 1983 and the first ever edition of Miniature Wargames. I've got some great guests and an item from the magazine (kindly donated by its current owner) which I hope to raise a few quid for the Bradford Burns Unit by auctioning it off.

So until next time,

Sithee

Regards Ken

The Yarkshire Gamer

Earlier this year one of the early Wargaming Pioneers Charlie Wesencraft passed away at the age of 97. 

I thought it would be a fitting tribute to get some of my former guests together and have them tell Charlies story and there memories of him. 

In between the various interview sections I read passages from his first book, written in 1974, Practical Wargaming. See if you can spot any phrases from those readings that still resonate today.

Charlies first book can still be obtained via amazon

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Charlie-Wesencrafts-Practical-Wargaming-Wesencraft-ebook/dp/B01H2UK96U?ie=UTF8&tag=mh0a9-21&hvadid=&hvpos=&hvexid={aceid}&hvnetw=o&hvrand=&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=b&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_7dy1f5hemb_e

Here is a link to Robbie Roddis' piece on his blog about Charlie

https://independentwargamesgroup.blogspot.com/2025/04/charlie-wesencraft-author-wargamer-and.html

And here is the piece about Pete Berry from Baccus6mm and his tribute to Charlie which has a link to the Blenheim Project

https://www.baccus6mm.com/news/28-06-2025/CharlesFWesencraft/

Thanks for listening and as always, please like subscribe and comment wherever you get this podcast to help the listenership grow.

My next guest will hopefully be Mark Strachan from New Zealand who runs the 1866 and all that blog, so I best get the Yarkshire Airline Pidgeon fed up for the trip.

Regards Ken

The Yarkshire Gamer