After a bit of a summer hiatus, the wargame show season seems to be re-starting, and on Saturday I was able to go to Newbury and Reading Wargames Society's Colours show, which took place at Newbury Racecourse. I had been to this show once before, and on consulting diaries I see that was in 2019 ( does the phrase 'pre-pandemic' for current generations have the same ring as 'before the war' for our parents and grandparents? ), so I knew what to expect of the venue. I think it works quite well, the show occupied one of the racecourse main stands, which has decently large public rooms (presumably bars, on race day) on three levels. The ground floor was occupied by trade stands (about 50 of them), the first floor by (about 20) more traders plus a food and drink / seating area, and the second floor was devoted to a total of 29 demonstration and participation games, plus a bring and buy stall, a DBA competition area and a 'Boardgames Cafe'. The upper floor rooms are well-lit, one wall being effectively all windows with views over the racecourse, and feel quite spacious and airy: it was easy to move around, none of the 'Partizan crush' here! My plan is always to see the games first, so I climbed a good few flights of stairs to the top floor: here's a general view of about half the main games room; the crowd at the far end is around the Bring and Buy, of course!
I think I managed to look at most of the games, and photographed a good number of them. I'll admit that taking pictures wasn't entirely straightforward, as that big glass wall means a powerful light source from one direction - so it was hard to get pictures of games near the windows. But anyway, here's a selection of what I saw.
Anschluss Games were there, with their A Small Town in Russia demo game showing off their excellent model ranges (12mm scale) and of course their The War on the Ground rules.
Deeprose Games showed a 15mm Peninsular War game with suitably massed Napoleonics. I liked the scenery, with cornfields etc
Next an ancients game - I'm not 100% sure but I think this is probably the host club's Sassanid Persians vs Late Romans game:
I always like a big ancients battle, and a few elephants are a bonus!
Next, a nice-looking Ecorcheurs game Will the Portcullis Fall at the Castle? portraying 1st St Albans, 1455:
Another good-looking large Ancients game was presented by TooFatLardies, this being The Battle of Marathon using David C.R. Brown's Vexillarius rules :
Guildford Wargames showed yet another ancients game, using a set of rules called Breach and Scutcheon which seems to be currently under development by Form Square Games, and is aimed at 'big battle' Ancient and Medieval battles.
Southbourne Tabletop and Wargamers showed a game using Club 1813 : another 'coming soon' set, from Alternative Armies. The game was a fun idea, being entitled Napoleon at Netherfield, portraying an imaginary French invasion of the equally imaginary country estate of Mr Bingley in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. As a big fan of Miss Austen, this certainly made me smile!
Shepway Wargamers can be relied upon to produce a good-looking game, and they brought their An Englishman's Castle 28mm Wars of the Roses game using Never Mind the Billhooks rules, with a Lancastrian Lord under siege by Yorkists in 1483. I thought that castle model was really nice!
Another really nice looking table was that of Beaconsfield Wargames Sharpe Practise Peninsular War game - sadly I only got a couple of pictures of it! But if you look at SteveJ's blog (more about him later) you'll see some more nice pictures. Here are my efforts - should have got more!
(I've always fancied having some orange trees in my scenery, and I think it's because I never forgot one of Duncan MacFarlane's pictures from a very early issue of Miniature Wargames or Wargames Illustrated : now I may have to go through the archives to check my memory!)
Yet another big battle Ancients game was from Wargames Association of Reading, with their Cunaxa 401 BC game using DBMM rules : a nice table (shame that bar behind wasn't actually open for them!) and good-looking figures
I had a good friendly chat with one of the gents on this table; I admitted that I am hoping to use ADLG rules rather than DBMM, and he agreed that ADLG are a good set of rules - it's just that these guys know DBMM really well and can do battles without too much rulebook checking.
Next up, can you guess? Yes, another big battle Ancients game! (and there are more to come..). This time, father-and-son team The Leggetts with their Romans v. Britains Siege of Maiden Hillfort:
Now I should perhaps apologise for this never-ending conveyor belt of Ancient battles, I am just showing you all the games I saw and photographed, in the order I saw them! I didn't really register it at the time, but has Colours been the subject of a takeover by the Society of Ancients? I think we should be told...
The next one is at least a change of scale : this time 2mm figures, Solent Wargames Chivalry and Honour game of Fulford Bridge, 1066. C & H it seems are another 'coming soon' set, Mark Backhouse's variant of his Strength and Honour rules for medieval battles. I'm very much in two minds about 2mm scale - I can see that it's great for really big battles, but the figures are just sooo tiny, I can't get excited about them even en masse! Nice scenery, admittedly. Hmmm....
And of course, with all these Ancients games, the Society of Ancients had to be in there somewhere! sure enough, their game of Gaugamela (331BC) used Impetus 2 rules and featured lots of Macedonian pikemen and Persian chariots, of course:
And finally, a break from the blokes with pointy sticks, in the form of Oxford Wargames Club's Bloody Big Battles in the Wilderness 1864 - an ACW version of a BBB game. I only managed to get one picture, but I did like the table, Wilderness was indeed the word!
One reason why I failed to take more pictures was that one of the players at this table (it was a participation game) was Steve J who's excellent blog Wargames With Toy Soldiers: 1685-1985 is one of my favourites. Very nice to finally meet him at a show after several near-misses, and we had a really good chat. Great to meet you, Steve!
Now, just when you thought it was safe to go back to the Mediterranean, along comes one final ancients game! This was from Liverpool Wargames Association, who must be congratulated for coming all that way: a 15mm Spartans v. Greek City States (430BC) battle, played with Field of Glory rules.
Of course those big showpieces have their place, shows would be less exciting without them - and probably the biggest game of the day was this 28mm ECW battle from the Pike and Shot Society: very nice, though I saw absoltutely no information displayed about either the game or the society (of which I am a member). .
Not sure who presented this next one, but a nice Napoleonic Battle of Fuentes de Onorao using Bataille Empire rules : the chap doing meet and greet on this one was slightly horrified when I admitted I don;t do Napoleonics! Nice looking game, anyway.
Not to be outdone by the SoA and the P&SS, the Lance and Longbow Society were representing medieval gamers with their 28mm skirmish using My Oath Sire! rules
And that's all folks, at least for games! Phew. Not a bad selection, especially if you like the Ancients period.. That took me to lunchtime and beyond from a 10:30 arrival.
One nice feature if the venue is that you can sit on the terracing outside on the stand, which was pleasantly warm but with shade available too, so that's where I went with my sandwiches.
Then it was time for shopping - with 70-odd traders present, there was plenty to choose from! Having said that, I was modest in my purchases, which amounted to the following:
- Some self-adhesive ferro steel paper from Magnetic Displays, for the great Minifigs re-basing project;
- A 16-man battalion of British French & Indian War / 7YW line infantry from Parkfield Miniatures - I decided I will need at least a few British for that collection.
- An Army Painter 'Speedpaint' pen, in Crusader Flesh - for speedy and hopefully neat painting of faces and hands .
- A copy of Sue Laffin-Barker's Start Ancient Wargaming Using DBA 3.0. From David Lanchester books.
this was a bit of an impulse buy - but it includes the DBA v3.0 rules and a useful example game, plus Sue's distinctly old-school hints on figure painting (poster paints, hurrah!) and terrain modelling. plus a massive chapter (70 pages) of army lists with explanatory notes on the armies. I was pleased to pick this up, and had read half-way through it by the time I got home that night - admittedly due to my train being heavily delayed ( was really glad I bought a book!). Having only used the 1st Edition (1990?) of DBA so far, nice to have an update.
I mustn't forget the social side of the day; especially since starting this blog, shows are of course fantastic for meeting friends old and new in the hobby, especially bloggers and commenters who would otherwise be just an anonymous person out there somewhere on the web.It's great to meet people, and this show was no exception. I was even buttonholed early on, by John Kersey whose 1/72 Wargames tables I have often admired at shows and made a point of discussing. John was there as a punter this time, but I think he'll be doing a game at Partizan ( was it Romans, perhaps? ), which I look forward to seeing. I was very glad to meet Guy Barlow from the Virtual Wargames Club - if very briefly as he was on a very tight schedule and was racing around as fast as he could go to see all the games! As already mentioned, great to meet and talk to 'SteveJ', and I hope to do so again in future - see you at The Other Partizan, Steve? And last but certainly not least my old friend Tony Toms and his son Oliver - always great to see them both. Tony is chair of Milton Hundred wargames club and thus already deep into planning next year's 'Broadside' show at Gillingham, and don't forget their Re:Play show in October at the Royal Engineers Museum - fantastic venue for a wargames show!
Having toured the games, met some people and done some shopping, I thought about perhaps spending a bit longer and trying a participation game, but it had been an early start and I wanted to be not too late home, so apologies to Mike Smith and/or the Bloody Big Battles guys, but I'm sure they were not short of players! I left about 3pm and caught the train from Newbury Racecourse via Reading back to London - all seemed set fair until we were stopped for well over an hour just outside London - a trackside fire had cut off the overhead power supply and we were stuck behind an all-electric train..This stoppage affected all services between London and Reading,including services to Heathrow, so it was quite a major incident and made it to national news media, I was probably lucky to have boarded a train at all, if I had stayed for a bit more gaming I might have ended up sat on Reading station platform for many hours! As it was we were invited to leave the train at Ealing Broadway and continue by London Underground - fortunately I was stopping in London that night, so that wasn't too bad. I'm now told that owing to the delay to my journey I will be refunded my fare, at least. Not much fun sat on a stalled train with little idea how long the situation will go on, but at least I wasn't trying to get to the airport for a flight, and I had Sue Laffin-Barker's DBA book to read!
So, on the whole a good day, despite a bit of stress on the journey home! I'm glad to have visited the show and will try to do so again next year. I'm afraid my photos are maybe not up to usual standards, I did like the venue but I struggled to take pictures I was happy with given the lighting conditions. Have a look at SteveJ's blog for his report, with more and better photos (and he took pics of more games too!)
Not sure where the hobby will be taking me next, though I suspect the vintage Minifigs re-basing will feature as always,, really must do some sort of game, though! I hope you've enjoyed my report on Colours, I had a great day there, and if you are within range of it next year, do give it a go! Until the next time, keep well everyone.
