Partizan and other stuff.

Here we go again . Last of this somewhat hectic group of shows is Partizan at Kelham hall this coming Sunday. Since Triples was somewhat above recent avaerages- in fact the best for 3 or 4 years, I'm less than sanguine about Partizan. Only 30 or so miles and 1 week between 'em. I hope I wrong. Nevertheless it'll be up at an ungodly hour on Sunday van already loaded to the Gunnells. I'll hopefully be handing a bundle of stuff over to John the Mould so he can do the next burst of Jacdaw- Mostly Napoleonic Swedes but also another set of 18th century Civilian and the production masters for the Chasseurs de Fischer infantry. For my aircraft customer I'll have the Cessna Birddog in the same batch of releases. Another addition to our slowly growing range of post WW2 aircraft in 15mm- 1/100th . I'm very pleased with the whiole aircraft project. Since we started with just 3 or 4 WW2 sand a dozen WW1 we've expanded to around 60 models almost entirely in response to customer feedback of one soprt or another. The WW1 to be honest fell a bit by the wayside as the WW2 took ooffand later the post war helis and COIN light aircraft.

Above is an Italian CR32 in Spanish Nationalist colours

and at the other end of the technological spectrum a modern day Apache - as it appears in RAF colours over Afghanistan. and yes they are both to the same scale.

ECW units

Further to my previous post here are a couple of pics of some of the ECW units I was adding for the "Bridge called Crapridden" game now not to be played at the Durham Show. First more Roundhaed Artillery

and now some Royalist Cavalry -to be precise the Earl of Northamptons Regiment.

All the figures are Old Glory 25mm - or 28 if you prefer- though some of the cavalry are actually from the Eastern Rennaissence range and are sold as Imperialist Harquebusiers. Of course not all the horse on both sides wore English 3 barred pots. The Royalists especially had to import a fair bit of kit from abroard.

Game on.... or not

Now back at base ater the raid into darkest Yorkshire - indeed the capital of the the old peoples repbublic of South Yorkshire- the sometime Red Riding ! I'm aware that merely knowing this dates me somewhat but what the hell triples was a good weekend. Good beerand a laugh at the Lord Nelson. So a good time was had by all but somewaht marred in a minor way by what passed beforev we left. As readers will know I've been furiously painting up more ECW units for a game at the Durham show on June 9th. Well I recieved this from their secretary on the Friday morning. Hi Andy, Sadly we are going to have to cancel your demo game. We have had a glut of late enquires from traders wanting to come and after consultation with members it has been decided to have the traders at the expense of a game. We are all at the mercy of the mighty dollar! We really appreciate you putting on games for us and if it was at all possible to squeeze you in we would, alas we don’t have the room anymore. Hope you are not too disappointed. With best regards, Neil Upon a little further enquiry I was informed that mine was one of 3 games being cancelled and later found out from other sources that the show would have a grand total of 2 games this year - count 'em 1 2 finis. One would be the clubs own game the other by apparently the Too fat lardies who are of course commercial rules publishers so one assumes have an axe to grind. Now although this would have my our groups 5th consecutive year at the show we never attended as old glory but rather as TWATS so to speak. I've never traded at the show as franly its too small to cogver the costs of Vab hire and too small to get all my kit in- to be fair they wouldn't have room for me even if I wanted to attend as Old Glory UK. So the chaps and I decided that we'd support the club by doing a game. So in previous years we'd done 40mm ACW. 1/600th Russo Japanses War naval- run of course by Floating Jeff- 10mm 7YW run by Jim the painter and last year a sort of Fontenoy run by me. But alas our service record has been stamped SNLR so no Bridge called Crapridden. I'll doubtless run the game on one of our Saturdays at the pub. At least the pressure is off trying to finish those Roundhead Horse... .

Triples

Gawd Strewth !! I'm knackered ! I've managed to get one whole weekend off in the time since Salute in April . Off to Triples in Sheffield this weekend, then Partizan at Newark the weekend following. In the meantiime I've an order from the USA coming in- supposed to get here on Friday probably at the same time as I'm loading the Van for Triples so much carnage is likely to ensue. However you know what they say "If you can't take a joke you shouldn't have joined" so it'll be a case of shut up and soldier and get the job done. The Jacdaw Napoleonic Swedes progress, albeit more slowly than I'd like given all the other stuff to do , so given a little time I'll have the production moulds for the first 4 packs early in June. Then afrer a bit of fiddling about another 3 packs before the end of June or thereabouts. I hope to have a few painted examples before that. David has significantly upgraded the first test shots we showed earlier on the blog. Howevermy painting is currently dominated by 28mm ECW as I need a few extra items for the Durham show game on June 9th. This should be a scenario based very vaugley on the battle of Cropredy Bridge- or as one contempoary put it "A bridge called Crapridden" whichv phrase alone made me want to do a game of that battle! . Other news- I'll be adding another modern aircraft to the range- a Cessna Birddog much used in Vietnam. This shoud be out around about the same time as the first of the abovementione Swedes. After that there will be a couple more WW2 aircraft. A Hawker Tempest and a Beafighter.. There is a good bit of 15mm stuff in the pipeline both homegrown and stuff from Bluemoon in the USA.more news on that when its fit to print.

Bluemoon Napoleonics

Despite not really being a 15mm man. I am continually impressed by the Bluemoon stuff I carry. Now I hear you cry "Of course you would say that you are trying to flog the stuff. Well yes but I wouldn't be trying to flog it if it was crap ,I'd have turned it down so here is a pic of a British Napoleonic unit- the 33rd at Waterloo. Painted by John Reidy

Reading Steve Earley's coumn in the June issuec of MW regarding sizes and scales I find I mostly agree with him- a minor miracle in itself Size is very personal choice but I do find many wargamers quite narrow in their interpretation os size/scale- do they I ask know the difference some certainly do not averring that 15mm is a scale when its a size or as I am coming around to thinking more of a genre. The patheticarguments between 15mm and 18mm or 25mm and 28mm are at best mind numbing at worst divisve and nasty. If you want all your toys exactly the same advsancing forward like mindless perryclones then fine (now who's being nasty - yep its me !!) but sorry dudes there is more out there than that variety being the spice and all that. If I was a normal punter I'd have troops from several makers in the same army- Oh Yes I do !! Even within OGUK there is a breadth of styles Old Glory25mm Sash and Saber 25mm Old Glory 2nd Edition, Jacdaw- all different but all more or less compatible in terms of size- at least where appropriate I'd have 'em all in the same army if not the same unit. If I were a more committed 15mm chap I'd mix Fantassin and Eureka in any Napoleonic force I did along with Bluemoon as in terms of size they are all pretty close.

Off to Carronade.

Not to put too fine a point on it almst a van hire cock up -we are changing hire outfits as the current chap is shutting up shop at the end of this month. So yesterday I phoned as usual to confirmmy already booked van and there it wasn't. Some kind of diary error "Oh dear" says I- or words to that effect anyhow. So off I goes to my new hire company who step into the breach at very short notice. So picking up with this new outfit in about 40 minutes to load up for Falkirk and a dammed early start tomorrow.

Wargames shows- a very personal view.

Recently my mate Robbie on his Independent Wargames Group blog has been holding forth on his views regarding shows. This sparked of a little conversation between us where we mostly but not completly agreed. Now my views on shows are a little different from his as I sit on both sides of the fence so to speak both as a user and a pusherand not to put too fine a point on it shows just don't signify as much as they used to. In the olden tymes of which Robbie is much enamoured you went to a show to both see and buy your toys other than a few shops there was only letter mail order then wonder of wonders telephone mail order. Petrol was (relativly) cheap and shows plentiful- at least in the UK those unhinged enough could do a show almost every weekend. I know of traders from those far off times who did over 30 gigs a year. My own poor best was a mere 26 which was quite enough. This year I'll do a grand total of 12 - including Durham where I don't take the trade stand but put on a gameas a sort of busmans holiday. This year it will be ECW - in 28mm as we are now supposed to call it. However as for show the multitude did not breed quality. I've been to shows where the traders outnumbered the punters and the only thing missing from the ghost town image were tumbleweeds. I wonder if those two little old ladies ever did find the cake stall! . Like Robbie some events stick in the memory for good reasons- the Early Napoeonic Fairs simply for the fact that they were not purely wargaming and those of us with broarder military interests could find other stuff to amuse us. Alcaholic Warcon for obvious reasons for those who were there. Harrogate at the Royal baths- the day after Claymore so a packed weekend- with Jim the Painter supposedly on the staff- lying under the stand with a monumental hangover afer the birth of his daughter- "wet the baby's head" !! Aye well how wet??? Historicon in the USA- I've attended 4 I think over the yearsand enjoyed each one for its differences to the UK show scene. There is no doubt that many shows have simply become same old same old- you even see the same games at many of them and its not ALWAYS about the money even as a trader Wartorn last year was never going to be my most commercially successful show but it was a new event with my strike range, organised by lads I knew and trusted so I gave it a shot. This year it should be much much bigger so will be worth anothetr go. Scarborough I found out, is a nice town. Many clubs use "their" show as their maibn money spinner- nothing wrong with that but sometimes I wonder about stand charges. I know from experience that venues can be fearsomly exspensive but sometimes a sharp intake of breath has been heard at the finace directors desk especially when Hotels and van hire have been added. Shelling out a grand plus to do a show is not at all unusual and no show in my calender come in at under a monkey (£500)- actually 1 might but its only 40 miles away.. Also all of these are up front costs- front end loading. Now I'm not complaing here I'm in the trenches there is bound to be a bit of incoming -part of the game. I say this merely to illustrate that shows have other sides to them as well as Robbies rose coloured view. I still intend to attend shows but Robbie is right the zing has definitly gone from some of them. Salute actually got a bit of its old Zing back this year but the forced move may have done irreperable harm to Triples which is very sad- it was once one of my favourites. I hope I'm wrong. As for the others We are moving Border Reiver this year to what may prove to be a better venue. I'm off to Carronade in Falkirk this Saturday at quarter to first sparrow fart in the AM and I've always enjoyed that show though its far from the largest I do. Size isn't everything as they say.