2016 wrap Part One - Wargamer in Halesowen

Assembling my review of the year in advance of 2017s first shows at Hammerhead and Alumwell, I stumbled on a 'lost wargames show' - a fully edited album of pictures from Wargamer in Halesowen that never made it to the blog.

Apologies to the organisers - it was a great day out and continues to be an excellent local show:

Plenty to do as you can see ...

I gave the Tony Bath Hyboria game a final outing ... it stimulated quite a lot of interest so thanks to everyone who came over and shared in the nostalgia ...

TONY BATH'S ANCIENT WARGAME AT HALESOWEN

(Society of Ancients nostalgia: 1960s flats originally by Phil Barker and Tony Bath)

(Hyboria at Wargamer 2016)

(Phil Steele's Tony Bath game for the Society of Ancients)

(the Tony Bath Hyboria wargame)

There was also a very nice ancients game put on in the modern idiom by slingshot Stalwart Ade G - in glorious 6mm (well worth some pictures):

Excellent ... beautiful massed effects ...

Elsewhere at Wargamer 2016 (yes there was more):

... and the December weather was good too - cold but not wintry ... such a gem of a show I assume it is weather worries that explain its relatively low turn out.

See you there next year, though ... hey, showgoers?

30th November, Halesowen

WARGAMER 2014

The Society of Ancients combined with the Northampton Battlefields Society to run a stand at Wargamer in its bright new venue in Halesowen.

We took along the wargame model of the 1460 Battle of Northampton (which is only an hour down the road from Birmingham) in a display format - as Wargamer isn't one of those shows where we usually pick up volunteers for full multiplayer participation game.

I set the battle up as the Yorkist lords move their forces forward

(uncle Fauconberg at the Battle of Northampton)

There was plenty to talk about as only 2 evenings previously the NBS had picked up a Community Star award from the local residents' association in Northampton's Far Cotton and Delapre where the battlefield lies.

The award recognises the Society - and particularly its chairman, Mike Ingram (he of the excellent Bosworth book) - fighting for what it believes in: the preservation, interpretation and publicising of the 1460 battlefield at Delapre Abbey ...

(Community Star award alongside exhibition weapons from the Northampton Battlefields Society)

And I was also doing some surveying for our friends at the Naseby Battlefield Project who need to know what you would like to find in a visitor centre should you go to the ECW site (I will provide info and a link when there is an online version available) ..

If not particularly busy or intensively promoted (and the two can go together) Wargamer is a great example of a good quality local wargames show.   Lots of great exhibits from clubs and groups within an hours or so's drive and a fair mix of traders including the indomitable Dave Lanchester (Books) down from Yorkshire for the day (great support from Dave and he looked busy enough for it to have been worth his trip) ...

The show was a little easier to find than the former venue, better lit, had a bar (albeit rudimentary) and more parking ... winning all round, then.

In addition to Northampton, there were plenty of ancient games on show ...

The Cobridge (Stoke Challenge) club had this sumptuous Republican Roman Armati game.

The Border Rievers had a splendid and well captioned Battle of Mycale 

Tremendous terrain and loads of figures  ... this game was being played using WRG's 6th edition.

And The Guards of Birmingham were playing a large Hail Caesar game loosely based on Hydaspes ...

Well, add in our Medieval battle and that's some good coverage of the Society's period of remit for a local Sunday show I think.

A good diversity of style too ... 15 and 28mm ... Armati, vintage WRG and HC (and the set up for ours would have been a matrix game) ...

Other good stuff at Wargamer included ...

(WWII - Parker's Crossroads)

A couple of Renaissance games ... from Malta ...

... to the English Civil War ...

Several Napoleonics and even an interesting WWII Naval game ...

A great selection: I counted 17 games: 5 Napoleonic, 4 WWII (3 land; 1 naval), 3 Ancient, 1 Medieval, 1 Renaissance, 1 ECW, 1 ACW and 1 Indian Wars … in a good mix of scales and using everything from glossy published rules to oldies and homebrews.  

What a showcase.  There was also a Bring & Buy.

The weather was good for travelling so this was a great day for the midland wargame enthusiast (if you didn't attend this year I am sure you will want to look out for next year's show) ...

That was the last show outing for the Society of Ancients for 2014 although my own wargaming is moving on apace over the Winter break (and more special features are in preparation - so keep an eye on Ancients on the Move or just hit the follow by email button) ...

Oh ... and don't forget to renew your Society subscriptions (the majority of members still lapse with the distribution of the November issue - and that's the next one coming) ...

1st December, Birmingham

Just a few turns from the M6 (if you take the advice), Wargamer is a friendly local show in a sports hall that marks the end of the Midlands shows season.

It is less well supported that the range of attractions would merit and I can only assume that as the Midlands is so well connected to the rest of the UK, catchment enthusiasts can attend all the other shows anyway (so are just about 'showed- out' by December)

Although the Society stand was relatively quiet, it gave me the opportunity to talk through next year's plans - and begin to develop an idea where Montaperti might fit in (to a year where I may scale back still further due to costs escalating and volunteering being out of fashion - but where I had hoped to look again at Chariot Racing) ...

(Reivers show team checking out the Society of Ancients Bosworth game: 54mm)

(my longshot of their Al Qadisha game: 10mm)

Beautiful sculpted terrain, I guess the 10mm Al Qadisha game was the Alpha to my big figure Bosworth's Omega.   It is difficult to do small scales well at shows as they tend to get 'shouted over' by bigger scales (especially the 28mm sprawls that are de rigeur for public events these days) - but terrain and basing are crucial (whereas, with the big stuff, the figures dominate, with smaller scales people see the whole world you are creating ... so if it is to work, it has to be good) ...

(Al Qadisha AD636 ... Arabs and Sassanian Persians in splendid 10mm)

Exhibits at the show covered most popular periods and a range of scales, rules and approaches were represented (something for everyone) by friendly teams who had time to chat and explain their take on wargaming.   Most of the games were historical, and most were clearly captioned - but it always pays to ask.

(clockwise from top left: 28mm Alamo; WWII Pacific; Isandlwana; 28mm ACW)

I particularly liked ...

(vast phalanxes of Napoleonic Russians)

(more 28mm Nappies, this time a beautiful layout on which to play some Sharpe Practice)

But my favourite was the Wyrley Retinue's Kirkburn Bridge game.   Oddly enough, 28mm again ... and not actually a historical battle (kirk-burn-bridge ... think about it ...) but and amalgamation of features from several prominent events in the Anglo-Scottish wars.

Some further details (click on the images for the bigger picture) ...

And of course there's always Dave's bookshop (without which no wargames show is complete these days) .. I took some nice stuff home (if there is ever anything you need - especially those wargames classics you forgot to buy 30 years ago - ask Dave Lanchester ... he'll track a copy down for you).

Very nice little show.  Nice to meet people ... and home in time for tea!   As a Midlander from the other side of the M1 like me, anyway ...

(more scenes from the Society of Ancients Bosworth game, created by Phil Steele, flags by Fluttering Flags)

2nd December, Birmingham

(a quiet moment on the SoA stand at Wargamer: Chris examines his loot from the Bring & Buy)

WARGAMER 2012

... and so it was with a yawn and barely a scrape across the icy windscreen and we were loaded and off to Great Barr Leisure Centre in Birmingham for the last show of the year ...  Shows North's last show for the year, certainly, and pretty much the last on the UK circuit.

Wargamer is something of an enigma - it is quite modestly attended and very 'old school' ... the feel is as much 'community open day' as 'trade show', the Bring & Buy is a treasure trove of wargame surplus, priced to sell, and the admin is a family affair.   Attendance can be patchy.   Maybe that's a December thing.

(scenes from our DBA 'Lords of the Nile' game in progress)

We took along the DBA V3 try out game, because it suited the relaxed nature of the show - but also because I had arranged with Phil Barker to take over his original flats collection and so the flat's version of his latest game seemed entirely appropriate.

There were a couple of other ancients games in play, both of them 'open day' style big games.   Either ends of the tradition, I think ...

(old style WRG Ancients game in progress on a cloth battlefield)

(new style trayed-up 28mm Ancients game, fairly static, on a 'teddybear fur' battlefield)

Both very impressive games and good to see traditional ancients periods doing well amidst all the hyped-up gamer fads.

There are always plenty of games to look at here ... I think it is a nice 'end of year' day out, and the kind of venue where people can set up something they want to put on (just because they want to).

There's always a good ECW/TYW display and plenty of good 20th Century and Modern exhibits.

This is Ancients on the Move, of course - but I'm sure you'll indulge me a few out of period examples (it is Christmas ...):

(splendid 28mm TYW wargame)

 

(LRDG raid game ... Bardia giving some 'drive by' options, but ending up on an airfield -shades of 1942 from Benghazi, perhaps?)

(shoot up them planes while the chance is there ...)

And a very impressive Spanish Civil War game fought on an impressively Iberian looking table ...

(different scale, but very 'Trebian', right down to the white casualty rings!)

(a lone T26 scouts out the road ahead without any infantry support ... click on it for a bigger version)

The other key event at Wargamer 2012 was my acquisition of a large collection of authentic 1960's flats, donated by Phil Barker to my memorabilia collection.  Wargames History.

Now, when Phil and Sue asked if I would be interested I had no idea what might be involved ... A mass of fine pewter or just an old shoe box with some broken bits and pieces in it?   I said yes, of course, as Phil is, in person, a pivotal piece in the history of today's wargame (and a key contributor to The Society of Ancients).

Well, take a look!

(new accessions: Phil Barker's ancients flats collection)

What a fantastic array!

Being from Phil, the figures are fully turned out, simply but consistently (and 'fully') painted, organised into proper units, and based.

The latter point is fascinating.  Tony Bath, of course, stored his figures flat, and mounted them into slotted sabots (made of two layers of cardboard stapled together with slits at regular intervals) on the day.

The majority of Bath/Hyboria figures from Deryck Guyler's collection were glued onto plain cardboard bases in fixed multiples (so would have required rings or similar casualty markers).

Phil's collection seems to mark a transition between the Bath wargame and the WRG games I began with (2nd edition) when I started ancients as a teenager in the early 70's: they are flats, of course, organised in typical Bath-style units, and with no 'frontage' concepts (so,say, no dispersing of skirmishers more widely than combat infantry) ... but the uniform basing is permanent, is painted over in a precursor to the modern landscape style, and each unit has a split down of (mostly) singles and smaller multiples to allow casualty removal.  So part Tony Bath, part WRG.

Well, as the photo shows, there is much more to say and plenty to photograph: I will post some more as I assimilate all this over the winter.

Well, that was 2012.   I think the wonders of the Olympic Games in the middle of the year have added to the pace with which the year has rattled by.  I have a few more games to play and a couple more blogs to squeeze in - but what a year for the historical wargamer and Ancients enthusiast!

Thanks to everyone on the UK Shows circuit who contributed to making it a friendly and rewarding time!

See you in 2013.   Vapnartak is in 7 weeks.   Sooner than that, I'll be out playing FoG in Usk.