Ummagumma

The Horse & Musket series from Hollandspeil, so far.  Volume III was published in late 2018. Hollandspeil’s Horse & Musket series is an on-going collection of modular games, featuring an abstract, yet realistic, and fast-playing system that slowly evolves with the chronology of the battles being gamed.  This series is defined in the common rulebook as: “…a tactical system that covers the development of musket warfare from Vienna in 1683 and Sedgemoor in 1685 to Appomattox in 1865 and Koniggratz in 1866.  After the American Civil War and the triumph of Prussian tactics at Koniggratz warfare moved from muzzle loaded weapons to breechloaders.”  To date, three volumes have been produced.  Dawn of an Era , published in 2017, is the base module, a prerequisite for all future modules.  Sport of Kings , published in 2018, is the second volume, covering battles from 1721-1748.  Crucible of War is the most recent module, also from 2018, and features the Seven Years War.   E

With the end of the Space Shuttle program and the rather routine nature of International Space Station missions, most Americans have forgotten about the human exploration of space. Images from the Hubble Space Telescope no longer captivate mainstream humanity as they did in the 1990's. The fantastic  discovery of exoplanets has become ordinary and the average person has difficulty relating to what difference it makes that these other worlds even exist, we can’t optically see them, can't visit them and can only infer a few things about them. Talk about the return of humans to the Moon or of the colonization of Mars seems far-fetched in these times of soaring public deficits. The “ space race ” zeitgeist of the 1960’s is long-dead and little about space holds the attention of the public at large. We seem to be in a space malaise.  Yet there is an astonishing amount of space exploration activity going on right now, some of it remarkable for its juxtaposition.  The New