May I have the envelope please (updated Dec 6)

Its share your favorite sites season again apparently, this time in the form of the Liebster Blog accolade.  Thank you  to Tim from Megablitz and so much more and to Murdoch  and his Marauders for their nominations.  and also to AlFront and  WQ Robb

My first reaction to these sorts of things tends to be "I don't do chain letters"  but its well meant and while I do on occasion take time to browse other blog's lists of favorites this is a good way to share some that I enjoy and I've just been checking other people's nominees.

The rules appear to be to something like post the picture, say thanks and list 5 blogs I really like that have less than 200 followers and let the nominated ones know via a comment. Presumably those with more folowers, such as Bob Cordery's, are already well known. It also seems counter productive to point back to those who nominated me thereby forming a closed loop..

There is no other criteria for what makes a blog noteworthy so rather than any attempt at objectivity, I'm going to list five of the blogs that I follow where I almost always stop and go read new posts when they blip on my screen. This is not to say that there aren't others that I either "follow" or just periodically pop into  that aren't worthy or interesting and I have been hard put to identify why these ones ended up amongst the top favorites once the push and shoving was done. One theme seems to be that they tend to be amongst the gamers who are aware of what goes on in the hobby but who break their own path to some degree. (Any one who has trekked any distance through knee deep snow  can appreciate this.)  I think the hobby benefits from all those who spend hard earned cash supporting the companies and people who buy the latest models and buy and play the latest rules and so on but I think it also benefits from those who keep the old individualist spirit of the pioneers alive as well. (Hopefully I haven't just offended any of the people I'm about to nominate or any of those who were number 6 or higher on the list and didn't get mentioned.)

I have also favoured those who blog relatively regularly and those whose interests align most closely with my own, mostly, well sometimes in obscure ways.

Without further ado here are five of my favorites:

Corporal Trim's Castles of Tin blog. One of few where I go especially for the pictures and one of very few where looking at them gives me an urge to fix my painting setup, rearrange my schedule and make more time for painting.

Littlejohn's Lead Gardens  http://littlejohnslead.blogspot.ca/  A willingness to try new stuff, improvise and experiment, a lot of ingenuity, some great looking terrain figures and battle reports.

Matt's  Airfix ACW Project (and its sister blog In the Grand Manner). One of the reasons I gave in to the urge to resurrect my own.

Mosstrooper's Tin Soldiering On. Real toy solidiers. 'Nuff said.

MS Foy's Prometheus in Aspic.  OK so a 25mm Napoleonic Peninsular campaign is not as obviously a common interest but trust me on this.

Enjoy!