One of the most often dilemmas I find other gamers having is finding inspiration for their games. 

While this can happen to all of us, it is not hard to cure if you just look around you.  Here are some of my suggestions for gaming inspiration:

• Movies.  This is an obvious choice but if you are lacking inspiration maybe you haven't watched a good movie lately. 
• Comic Books.  Like movies, when was the last time you read a good comic book or comic book series. Currently there are many good independent comics running covering topics from the Iliad and the Odyssey to WWII and operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.
• Board Games.  There is a plethora of board games that can give us inspiration.  In fact many games like Memoir '44 and Tide of Iron and Runebound contain scenarios or rules that can be played as is with miniatures. 
• Magazines.  Of course reading a good article in Military History or other magazines is probably one of the quickest and best ways to gain inspiration.  Some magazines like Armchair General even cover miniature gaming now.
• Paperbook Books.  This is one of my best kept secrets for gaming inspiration.  Besides reading some of the great series (Game of Thrones) that are available simply reading the back jacket text or story synopsis can not only inspire a game but gaming a whole new period or genre a la Harry Turtledove.

So the next time you lack inspiration - just look around you and I'm sure you will find something near to give you that spark!

In other news, I recently picked up a copy of Donald Featherstone's "Wargames through the Ages:  3,000 B.C. to 1500 A.D."  When I ordered the book I had no idea that I had actually poured over this book when I was younger in my local library taking in the information, sketches and tables.  For those of you who do not own the book, Mr. Featherstone covers the different historical armies/soldiers of the periods from 3,000 B.C. to 1500 A.D.  However he does it in what could probably be called the first Army List format.  Each chapter covers a new army/nation like say the Saxons.  He then describes the army, its fighting methods, its strengths, its weaknesses and even better he summarizes it at the end of each chapter under several common categories like organization, command, etc.  So if you want to compare the organization of an early New Egyptian army to that of a Greek City State you can do that and determine which should be comparatively more organized.  Just to clarify these are not "wargame" stats for any particular game they are simply "rankings" which allows you to then extrapolate and use them when "stating" out the various armies/nations yourself.

This book was the basis for a wargame I later made when I was younger called the Joint Kingdoms based on a world where armies/nations from different great periods in Earth's history all fought at the same time in the same world, so you could have Ceasar's Romans v Alexander's Macedonians.  King Richard's Knights v Darius of Persia.  In fact my game included summary tables similar to Mr. Featherstone's but wtih different categories and more of them. 

It sure brought back a lot of memories though holding this book again and I definitely intend to work it into a podcast.

It's good to be back!