Reveille 2018

Today was the last day of the wargaming show season, at least as far as my involvement and visits are concerned, as I went to the Reveille show at Lincombe Barn in Bristol. Not the largest of shows by any means but one of the friendliest. I didn't have much tome to spend at the show due to family reasons but I did get to catch up with some good friends and played my first game of "What a Tanker", so I at last have had a chance to see what all the fuss has been about :) A fun game, I got to drive a Crusader II around and victimise a PanzerJager 1 for several turns before finally KOing it. A fun game, I'm not sure it has all that much to do with actual tank warfare but I guess a lot of the "oddness" that was apparent in the game can be put down to "friction" and the fog of war. And the main thing was that it was fun! Well, for everyone apart from the poor guy with the PanzerJager who found himself stuck on 1 activation dice for pretty much the whole game before I killed him.

Alas no photos from the show, as I said it was a flying visit and I only realised I'd not taken any snaps after I was on my way home.

I also picked up a couple of copies of the latest Wargames Illustrated with the freebie "Cruel Seas" MTBs and S Boats included.I got one set of each, so I now have a chance to give thema  closer examination. More on these next time.....

Warfare 2018

I spent today at Warfare at the Rivermead Centre in Reading, helping out on the Sails of Glory game. As usual a good time was spent chatting with friends, many of whom I hadn't seen for a long time. I also got to take a look at the forthcoming "Cruel Seas" 1/300 coastal forces game from Warlord - an interesting game on which I will share my thoughts in due course.

I also took along the new BSG game to show to my Wings of Glory chums. VERY impressed they were.

Forget "Galactica 1980", we had "Galactica 1918" :)

A goodly selection of games on offer, I snapped a few (the playmobile Vikings game was clearly my favourite!)

Game of the day :)

An excellent participation game of the siege of Bristol

Our own "Sails of Glory" game, wherein we introduced a number of new players to the game

Shopping was a bit of a bust - there were a few specific things I was after but none of the traders that covered them were there. I did get a new blue hex mat from Magister Militum double sided with two hex sizes, and smaller hexes than my current mat), a dice bag from young Katie who always has her craft stall at the show - and that was about it.

Blast Tastic 2017

This morning I popped down to Michael Stockin's "Blast Tastic" Sci Fi wargames show in Filton, Bristol. This was the 4th year of the show and alas the last, as Mike has decided to draw stumps on the show for now. That is a pity as the show always has the promise to be the successor to the SFSFW's "Ragnarok" show but it was not to be.

Anyway, the show was a small but happy and fun affair, with a number of games on display. I ended up paying in Gary Mitchell's "Tripods" participation game, set in the UK in the 1980s and based on the background of the old BBC "Tripods" TV series. An alien vessel has crashed into a farm in deepest Somerset and a strange tripod machine stands motionless above the barn. As the local British Army commander I had to  (a) establish contact with the aliens (playing Beethoven from speakers mounted on a Challenger tank was one option), find and rescue two children of prominent government ministers who were known to be hiking in the area, obtain video and scientific data by helicopter and a few other things. Oh, and another government minister and the BBC were on hand too.

In the end my troops found the children, obtained the data and video, evacuated the children in the helicopter, attempted to make contact, then, when the aliens decided to let rip with a heat ray, put up a stout defence that ended quickly when my Challys put a couple of APDS rounds through the alien shields, completely destroying the tripod in a single salvo. Having given Johnny Alien a damned good thrashing I retired from the field  of battle with a nice cup of tea

The British Army's finest advance on the silent tripod

"How do these rules work again?"

Milan team in place, scorpions on overwatch, the Royal Greenjackets escort the rescued children away from the farm

"Get to da choppah!"

Milan team ready to fire

I grabbed a few snaps of the other games on show and then had to high tail it back to Gloucestershire, so only a flying visit. It was a fun morning, and sad to think there won't be another next year.

Mad Wet Max Wins Thornbury IPMS Best Parti Game, 2017

Today was the 5th IPMS modelling show at Thornbury that has included wargaming, and I'm back with the "Best Participation Game" award for the 5th year in a row! This year's game was "Mad Wet Max", my combative post apocalyptic variant of Dave Schueler's popular "Thunderboats" powerboat racing game. The game has been under development since Christmas and today saw all the elements together for the first time in public. 

So, we had the parascender take to the air for  the first time (although he didn't last long as his boat took an engine hit which caused the boat to lose speed and caused him to be dumped him in the sea - where the following boat promptly ran him over! And for the first time the "spectators" made their presence felt, shooting up boats that came a bit too close (they killed two boats out of the eight racers in game #3!)

Everyone that played it seeemd to have a good time, and I had a succession of visitors telling me they liked the game and especially the models. I guess they must have been right as the game won :)

I'm probably not going to run one of my own games next year - I guess it will be a "Wings of Glory" day instead - August 5th is the provisional date for anyone who is interested in coming along.

Attack 2017

The "Attack" show in Devizes is one of my favourite shows of the UK circuit. Its not too far from home and I usually get to meet many of my wargaming friends from Wiltshire and other places ar-flung from God's Own County of Gloucestershire. This year was no exception and I managed to catch up with quite a few old (and some new) friends. I also had a good time helping out with the Wings of Glory participation game - this time managing 4 "kills" over the day which is rather better than usual :)

This show was also notable since it was the first show I've ever been to where I could feed a guinea pig!

Anyway, here's a few shots from the show. Alas I didn't have time to take more.

Annie the Dice Bag Lady had brought her poorly guinea pig Nadia to the show, since she needs regular attention and feeding whilst she recovers from an operation

Cuuuute!!!

Warfare 2016

I spent yesterday at the Warfare show in Reading, one of my favourite shows of the year. This time I felt some of the "fizz" of he event was missing (along with some of the traders that I'd expected to see there), and there was little on the trade stands that excited me (with one exception, but that'll have to remain a secret for a few weeks yet). The B&B was good though and i picked up a set of Waddington's "Formula 1" game which for me is a trip down memory lane - it was one of our regular family Sunday afternoon games and, whilst this one was a reprint and not the original, it still feaures the lovely car dashboards and plastic racing cars; I'll probably merge this set wit our very battered original copy at some point.

Where Warfare did a grand job was in the games. As usual I was fronting up with the Wings of Glory aerodrome where we got in several games and had a great deal of interest from the public - just a shame that no-one at the show was selling the game. Anyway we played through three games (or was it 4?) and I managed to shoot down 4 enemies of the Queen whilst only being shot down once myself.

 Of the other games on display there were many lovely examples. the high spots for me were the lovely 28mm "Chain of Command" game set in the winter of 1944, the "Minions" racing agme and the Tring wargamers "Schweinfurt" bomber game.

A selection of photos from those games and others below: