u/KeeperofQueensCorgis

Even sticking to historical accuracy and being something of a rivet counter, I find it absolutely amazing how creative you can get with this hobby in so many ways and I find it remarkable how multifaceted it is.

One of my favourite things is finding a historical TO&E and then adapting it into a list for Bolt Action in a way that is viable to the game but still pretty true to history. In the course of that, the historical research aspect of the hobby also provides loads of fun and inspiration for building your list and your individual soldiers from the Warlord kits. From reading primary sources such as battalion war diaries, you can also get inspiration for different scenarios too. Plus, reading military history in general is just something I like to do personally.

Collecting is another thing I enjoy: I love being able to mix and match from different manufacturers to make my army my own. I find painting pretty straightforward but basing to be another area where the creative juices get flowing. I haven't really done much playing but I consider it to be the cherry on top!

I was inspired to ask this question after coming across that awesome analysis on the value of sniper teams undertaken by one of our mods here.

So which units, inexperienced, regular, and veteran, are almost definitely not worth taking?

I just want to get a sense of how much people play and collect armies from the Pacific Theatre, Burma, China, basically anything to do with fighting the Japanese. With the release of new Warlord boxes and also upcoming releases such as the Chindits next year, have you seen a real uptick in interest in this area of the Second World War?

For those who absolutely aren’t interested like I was in the beginning, I’m just curious why? This kind of leads on to my other question: how did you personally decide which armies to play and collect? I collected British airborne in the beginning cause I liked the look and they historically had very interesting organisation and equipment. But after reading about the Burma campaign in more detail, I was really drawn to collecting a British and/or Japanese army as well.

I am thinking of making a British force for Burma. I'd like to collect a historically accurate under-strength British company fighting in Burma from 1943-44.

I want a diversity of poses so I'd probably need to mix and match. Would the Warlord Chindits boxes work? I was also thinking of using heads from the 8th Army and the British Commonwealth sprue and putting them on the bodies from the upcoming Gurkha box. I see Assault Group have some 28mm figures too, but will they look nice with Warlord?

I want to use my entire 2k point army but I realise that might result in too huge of a game. Does anyone have fun scenarios ideas in which I can play two games but they're interconnected, if that makes sense? As in what happens in the first game might affect what the next scenario would be with the other half of the army. I would like recreate a company level kind of action and get a good narrative from these two games. What scenarios might go well together?

My army is all elite infantry, mortars, anti-tank guns, MMG etc while my opponent has more of a mix of infantry and vehicles.

I'm quite new to cycling and I want a traditional-looking step through bike for leisurely rides down country roads and the city. I most likely won't be doing more than a few km each outing but I'd like to be able to ride longer distances too, perhaps from village to village. Maybe every so often I'd want to use the bike to carry groceries and run errands but I'm mostly gonna ride just for fun. My area might be somewhat hilly at some points but I'd say its generally flat. I think I want at least 8 speed preferably more.

I already have a few Pashley and Gazelle bikes in mind; they seem like exactly what I'm looking for in terms of looks and specifications. However, I've been told that they are rather expensive for what they are and that they are not really comfortable when riding longer distances. Should I look at something else first? And if I want to ride longer distances, what kind of bike would you recommend that fits most of my criteria?

Has anyone ever sent a bike to Canada or the US or some similar long distance? I am considering moving and I would like to take my rather expensive Dutch-style city bike with me.

There are bicycle shops near that would disassemble the bike for me. Would it be better to disassemble as far as possible, take as much as I can on a flight, and ship what I can't? Bikeflights apparently isn't shipping to within Canada/USA right now.

I usually do calligraphy with dip pens but is there maybe a kind of pencil that works almost as well for practice purposes and just for everyday cursive writing?

By work well, I mean a pencil that is good at giving some line variation with differences in pressure. A mechanical pencil would be great if possible.