Edg-ing towards fame.

The internet and social media is a wonderful thing. True, it is also a terrible thing but it does mean things happen that might otherwise might not. This is a post about one of those things.

I am a habitue of Facebook groups that have an interest in the Wars of the Roses and the medieval period both as history and for wargamers. This is mostly to do with my role in the Northamptonshire Battlefields Society. It is helpful to keep up with the latest trends and thoughts on the period, but mostly it is to keep an eye on the misinformation that keeps resurfacing. My main subject is obviously the Battle of Edgcote, its name, date and location, but I will take up arms about Towton (it isn't the biggest and bloodiest battle in English history), Northampton in 1460 (it isn't fought by the river) and several other of the battles in the Wars and also general rubbish spouted about how battles were fought.

It was on one of these trawls I came across a refight of Edgcote using Test of Resolve. I don't play ToR - our group, as regular readers will know, has a member who has his own rules and is/has refought most or all of the battles in the period - but I am sure the scenario for Edgcote is a good one as I know David Knight used my book when writing it.

Any how, someone was running the scenario at a US convention, using minimal terrain. I remarked simply that the absence of any hills at all was a surprise to me, but shortly afterwards I got a reply asking if I was "that" Graham Evans who wrote the book on the battle. Well, yes, I am. The guy concerned, Mark Fastoso, then said he was going to run the game properly and film it for Little Wars TV, and would I mind commenting on the game as part of the video?

Well, why not? Their YouTube channel has 64,000+ subscribers, and there's a chance we might sell some books to some of them. 

And I do like talking about Edgcote. And it's a chance to plug my own rules too.

So this last Friday afternoon at a mutually agreeable time - Mark is in Washington DC - we sat down for a Zoom chat. I wasn't sure what Mark wanted to talk about exactly, nor for how long (30 minutes I told Mrs E), so in order to get my message across about mine and the Society's publications I prepared a special virtual backdrop. This was also to conceal that I haven't done any tidying up in the study for a while.

In the end we recorded two hours of material, starting with why I haven't written any rules for the period (I have, but I don't want to publish them in the form they are in), why the period is great, why Edgcote is important, why people keep fighting in Northamptonshire and what I thought of the game outcome. It was a really enjoyable chat.

I don't know when the video is due out, but Mark has got some editing to do to get the game and our chat down to sub 25 minutes. Especially as everything I said was gold dust. Anyway, when it is done I will be sure to share the link.