The Lord, The Lady, The Lover and The Rogue

 

Just back from the Border Reiver show. The game seemed well received with plenty of visitors and lots of conversations being had. We were all set up for the show starting at 10am, we managed to get through nearly 2 games, though I only took photos of the first.

The Lady and her escort

Thom's magnificent Keep

The Lord emerges with part of his retinue

The Lover arrives

The Rogue emerges from the woods

Foot and mounted serjeants clash in the village

More outlaws start to engage the escort

The Lord's retinue rushing slowly to his Lady

Outlaws see off the mounted serjeants

The Lover's retinue move through the village

Outlaws ransack a building

And another one goes up in flames

More burning buildings

The escort meets up with troops from the Lord's retinue

The Lord and Lady united

The end

The smoke markers from Thom were superb for highlighting the burning buildings, those and his 3d printed keep were popular talking points.

I did mange to get around the show to pick up a small amount of loot.

Some second hand peasant spearman to expand the retinue. A Blacksmith and a dwarf warrior from Reaper Bones, some Franco Prussian War Landwher, enough for two small regiments. I also pick up some brushes for Mitch. Overall a good day

Border Reiver 2025

On Sunday the club put on a Chain of Command game for the Border Reiver show. Sean did a superb job and managed to get through 2 games on the day, with the Americans and Germans taking a victory each.

Sean's new Chateau was a superb centre piece to the game. The game did seem well received with plenty of visitors. I though, took the opportunity to have a mooch around the show and pick up some loot, mainly around my latest project of the Barons War.

I picked up a 3d printed cart and trade goods from Iron gate scenery, walls from Last Valley, bases from Pendraken as well as some grass tufts, dice tray, paints and weathering powders. I also picked up a box of Fireforge serjeants as I obviously needed more of them.

Back at the club I ran another learning game of Barons War. Same terrain, different scenario and the battle fought in a different area of the table. It was also the first use of mounted troops on both sides, they didn't last long.

Now I await some dry weather to get some figures painted.

Show loot, more hedges and bitten off more than I can chew

So on Saturday I did manage to pop into my local wargames show - Border Reiver in Gateshead. It was good to catch up with a number of local gamers who I missed last year as I couldn't attend when my wife had covid. Unfortunately I couldn't stay for more than a couple of hours as duty called on a visit to the in-laws. There were a few empty tables, impacted by the Rail strike, but the games that were there all looked rather nice. I somehow forgot to take any photos as I was too busy chatting. As for show loot, not much was purchased, just some of the essentials required.

The only figures of note were some sheep from Pendraken, to help build up the flock for future 15mm games. I did pick up a couple of packs of dismounted US cavalry troopers from Galloping Major to add to my collection. They do look very nice and I even got a nice free figure. Other than that some coarse flock, a couple of paints and some brushes.

As I was waiting for some of my extra ECW stuff to arrive I decided to put together a few more pieces of hedge. I went for a little variety on this batch with the addition of a few different colours to break up all that green as well as adding some fencing I already had (some old metal pieces I've had for years). I also put a little camp piece together.

While I have been working on the ECW collection, I did have the goal in mind of re-fighting Marston Moor next year at Border Reiver. However a little reality check has set in and the timeline will need revising. One of the issues is Warlord does not yet produce any epic scale Covenanters, not much of an issue for the horse as we can use other manufacturers, the musketeers we can 3d print. It's the pike, they are too brittle for printing, so we would need to use alternative ranges which increases cost and painting time. (Strips of figures paint up a lot quicker than 10 individual figures). Another issue is no-one at the club has committed yet for Ruperts' horse, I do not mind doing them but need to finish Newcastles' 16 regiments and 15 for Fairfax. I also don't particularly want to be left with nearly 30 regiments of Royalist horse that I'll probably never use unless fighting Marston Moor.

So a revised goal is to work towards Adwalton Moor for Border Revier as we don't need the Covenanters, also both sides also fought at Marston Moor, so in effect we are only delaying Marston Moor by a year, hopefully gives Warlord time to produce the Scottish infantry,

Vapnartak

Well I finally made it to my first wargame show since the Covid pandemic hit these shores. It was fittining it was York, as York was the last show I went to in February 2020.

Despite some anxiety mixing with so many people, it was nice to feel normal again, well aprt from wearing a mask. The show was much more spread out. The large games normally on the ground floor were moved upstairs. I even forgot to take pictures...doh!

Purchase wise I was very restrained, keeping to my wanted list, though I did pick up a small bargain.

So some well needed paints, bases. I even picked up some brushes from ABC to try out as well as a few from my normal supplier Coritani. 

I picked up a resin well for my Colonial games, some Carlist LMG teams for the SCW and a pack of war mammoths for my 10mm Chaos army. Lastly was the bargain I came upon by chance, picking up 5 packs of Peter Pig Pony Wars range for £10. Nice little additions to the small collection that I really need to think about starting.

So happy to be back at show, look forward to the next one.

Vapnartak 2020

I made it down to York today for my first show of the year. This is the big one for me as the show scene is rather sparse in the North.

The layout this year seemed much better, giving plenty of room to actually move around. They thankfully moved the Bring and Buy to an upper floor. First year I've actually been able to see anything, even picking up a few bargains, a Panzer III, German MG42 team in winter clothing and a couple of game mats.

I didn't really study any of the games  on display, though there were a few eye catching ones. I just spent my time shopping and picking up about 80% of the items on my shopping list.

So some Oathmark Elves to complete my LOTR project, Some WW2 Germans in winter clothing, dice tray, bases and paints. I even had some change.  So very happy. Now back to the painting table.

Vapnartak 2017

Once again I made the annual pilgrimage to the York show with some mares from the Cresswell club. Overall I am impressed with the show. Plenty to get me enthused for the start of the year.

On the purchase front I once again went with a list and managed to obtain everything I had wanted. Kallistra for a selection in hex hills, Old Glory and Dixons for some extra WSS figures, mainly command and cavalry. I also picked up some paints from the Warbases stand. I only made 2 extra purchases, some d20 dice and some paintbrushes that were very reasonably priced.

Show loot

On to the games. There was quite a nice selection, again I forgot to take pictures. There was a formula minions game for the kids which looked fun. A very nice Bronze age skirmish game using the SARS rules. I also liked the look of the Montrose game on the ground floor. Overall a great show and looking forward to next year

Border Reiver 2013

Today I attended the Border Reiver show held at the Gateshead International Stadium. It was my first attendance at the new venue and its much more spacious that the Arena, however it did get hot, though thankfully not as bad as it was last year according to others from the club.

The club put on a demonstration game for day 2 of the Battle of Gettysburg. We were using 15mm figures from my own collection as well as those from George and Neal. There was a mix of manufacturers on display from Old Glory, Warrior, Essex, Peter Pig, battle honours and Mini figs. Harry did all of the terrain boards while Neal and myself provided most of the fencing and buildings, We were going to use the Fire and Fury rules, but in the end decided to just move the figures to there position as they did historically to try and demonstrate how the battle unfolded on the day.

I did manage to take a number of photographs of the game. I was rather pleased with how it turned out and we did get quite a bit of passing traffic and people stopping for a chat which is always nice.

Initial set up

Union position on Seminary ridge

Sickles and III Corps

Behind the Union lines

The view from the Round tops

Ward's Brigade

Hood's Division begins their approach

III Corps falls back

Rebel II Corps advance through Gettysburg

II Corps falters under the Rebel assault

V Corps occupy the Round tops

VI Corps finally arrives to bolster the line

VI Corps start to deploy

Rebs assault the Round tops

Johnson's Division crosses Rock Creek

Rebel III Corps finally in to action

With running the game I didn't get much of a chance to visit the other games. I was was impressed with the Falkirk Wargmaes display for  the AWI, sorry forgot the camera here. There were a couple of 40K games on display, full of some excellent figures including Titans. The game that really caugh my breath was Blood Bowl. The Custom built stadium was awesome (sorry guys I forgot which club you were) the chaps were very friendly talking about the game and the dstadium and all the fans. Also liked the custom built Treeman for the Halfling team.

Blood Bowl

Blood Bowl

Lastly I have to mention the Wings of War/Glory participation game that was run by Neal from the club. Seems a lot of fun was had and the table was constantly busy throughout the day. Neal reckoned that thery used 35 different planes on the day. He is already talking of improvements for the next show.

Wings of Glory

Wings of Glory

For purchases I was very restrained this year, keeping to what i had made a list for. I did pick up some figures from Andy, 15mm Austrian napoleonics, some Austrian Landwher from Colonel Bill as well as assorted MDF bases and paints. There was one bargain on the Bring and buy which tempted me. A full brigade of napoleonic French nicely painted for £50.00, when I returned with the money they had already gone.

Was the show worth it, yes definatly and I will try and make it next year.