SELWG 2022 : A Good Day

The other Sunday I had the pleasure of attending SELWG 2022, at the Lea Valley Athletics Centre in Norrh-East London.

As you can see, it's rather a splendid venue, no shortage of space and quite an improvement on the old location at Crystal Palace.  I met up with my old buddy Dave ( St Cyr on Wheels ), and we followed our usual habit - toured the games first, then a spot of lunch, and finally a look at the trade stands, and a little retail therapy/essential purchasing.  I took a few photos of games that looked good, as follows :

SEEMS - Battle of Britain

South East Essex Military Society ( SEEMS ) put on a rather nice-looking Battle of Britain game entitled Attack of Eagles  - the aircraft were 1/144 scale ( Revell, I think they said ). Luftwaffe Ju-88s and Me109s crossed the British coast, as some of 'The Few' come to meet them.  

'Retired Wargamers Reloaded' had a splendid WW2 game Eagles and Lions at Carentan ( 15mm,  I think? ).  It looked lovely, and that church was quite something! The Germans were defending in depth, and as you surveyed the battlefield, more and more concealed A/T guns and other defensive positions became apparent - just as it should be!  

Carentan - allies advance on the splendid model town

German defenders: quite a few A/T guns lurking here  

Deal Wargames Society showed  Luxembourg 1940 - something of a walkover, one would imagine, Panzer Divisions vs. the 'home guard' of a medium-sized town, in effect!  

Deal wargamer's Luxembourg 1940

There was some help from the French Armee de l'Air, however.  I liked the bomber (below), but I am still  struggling to identify it, even  after spending far too long on Wikipedia looking at French bombers 1939-45..

I'm told it's a Potez 63-11...

The League of Gentlemen Anti-Alchemists - Ducrot's Day Out was a 'Sharpe Practise'  Napoleonic game with excellent figures and scenery 

Shepway Warganes Club's Cold War game   Hahausen 89 looked great too, I liked the typically Germanic wooded terrain ( we all need more trees, I reckon )  and a brilliant model of a Russian missile-launching AFV in action!

The Society of Ancients are always reliable, they had the Battle of Gaza 312BC, using Impetus rules. I must say I always liked those big pike blocks and elephants etc, if I ever venture into Ancients I think Alexander and his Successors would be my choice.  ( 'dipping a toe' into it with  DBA's small  armies is on the increasingly long wish-list ).  

Gaza 312 - phalanxes get stuck in

Prince Rupert's Bluecoats had The Storming of Bristol ( ECW ) using Donnybrook rules, they were very friendly and happy to chat and the layout  looked good. The players were in period costume ( I think perhaps they take their name from the Sealed Knot regiment that they are members of ? ) and I liked the 'old school' trope of leaving 'casualties' lying on the table, giving a sort of visual guide to how the fighting had ebbed and flowed. 

Storming Bristol  ( + player's hand, oops! )

 

Too Fat Lardies were out in force, running several games with their rules. One was Strength and Honour Spartacus revolt  in 2mm ( I'm sure that when recruiting players, they could not resist asking 'who is Spartacus...' )   

Now in principle the idea is great, the rules are very well-regarded, I think, and I did wonder about trying 2mm - but somehow, the look of it left me a bit cold, and I think it is due to the tiny figures. Of course it's great to represent whole Legions as units, but they are just a bit too minute for my taste. It may be a trivial thought, but I wondered if perhaps a bit more bright colours - flags, standards etc - would help, or if Napoleonics with their vibrant coloured uniforms might work better?  This is of course only personal taste. 

Close-up of 2mm Legions

Also from the 'Lardies, a 'Chain of Command' game - The Northern Perimeter at Oosterbeek 1944. Fantastic scenery and models! 

Too Fat Lardies 'Chain of Command'

 'And finally'..  Milton Hundred Wargames Club showed a Vietnam game, which had an interesting concept of fighting in 'The Delta' - US patrol boats on a search and destroy mission against the Vietnamese. It made for an intriguing combination of land and water-borne movement, and made it difficult for those on land to move around since they were forced to cross bridges to reach the next island, and were very vulnerable while doing so.  Sadly I forgot what the rules were...but it was really interesting. 

Milton Hundred - from the Swale 'Delta' to the Mekong

 

There were loads more games, of course, I just couldn't photograph them all ( I admit I have a blind spot with Fantasy/Sci Fi - sorry! ) . Of course other bloggers will have posted masses of pictures of the show - Tamsin at  Wargaming Girl especially has a comprehensive set, I think she managed to photograph every single game!   Special mention to one I forgot to photograph - Tunbridge Wells Wargames Club using 'Paperboys'  paper model Trafalgar-era ships for an 18th Century Naval Battle Spanish Gold.  A great alternative to what can be pretty expensive ship models in some proprietory rules systems/games. Dave has the Paperboys Trafalgar book and a taste for the age of sail, and it got him thinking.  

We broke for lunch - the one issue we had with the show was that I think  there were only three catering vans, one doing  Burgers, one Greek Souvlaki etc, one for teas and coffees. With a rumoured 700+ visitors, the queues for food got pretty long and slow-moving - although I'd concede that there might not have been much room for more caterers.  There was however, plenty of seating available, with the banks of spectator seats around the running track in the main hall as well as some tables outside.

After lunch, a selective  tour of the trade stands. My biggest purchase was not at all photogenic, being a pack of self-adhesive magnetic paper from Magnetic Displays. These should allow me to make unit bases for my Pike and Shot infantry, which are based in ones, twos and threes to allow flexibility of regiment/battalia/tercio size, but are a bit of a pain to move on the table with lots of small bases! The plan is to mount all the small groups of figures on magnetic paper, then use steel paper to make unit-size movement bases at whatever size is required. I could also line the storage boxes with steel paper, for safer storage. So, I was pleased with that purchase, saving the P&P.

I am still picking up odds and ends ( in a completely unplanned way ) for the 'D-Day Dodgers' ( WW2 in Italy ),  and I noticed that a couple of traders did 20mm Indian Army, so I bought a few samples - Sikh, Gurkha and Rajputan command groups ( 4 figures per pack ) from SHQ, and a pack of  6 Gurkha riflemen from the Combat Miniatures range sold by Stonewall Figures, whose proprietor had come all the way from Cornwall. Both traders very pleasant to deal with, and the figures look nice. More for the painting backlog.. 

Test-purchases: Indian Army from SHQ ( left ) and Stonewall

On the same theme, the 1:72 Model Figures stand usually produces something, and this time it was Italians - a must for an Italian campaign, and they can fight on both sides!  This set from Strelets are probably more suited to the North African campaign, I admit ( those with sun helmets and feathers might not be so useful to me ! )  but I'm glad to have them, they will fit in somewhere. The box art is interesting - I wonder if the makers have pasted-in the faces of friends/colleagues onto the picture?  

 

Last but not least, a visit to Helion's stall and a nice chat with the guys there, who I had spoken to before at their 'Festschrift' for Christopher Duffy, and I came away with a copy of Barry Hilton's new book about wargaming the late 17th Century,  Every Bullet Has Its Billet.   Not sure I will ever actually game this period, but having seen some reviews it just looked to be a good read! The author pays tribute to Charles S Grant's From Pike to Shot which covered a similar period,  and which I have a treasured copy of - but I think Barry covers a wider range of armies, and gives quite a lot of space to Naval affairs too, of which he is an afficianado.  Lots of really nice pictures of figures and ships etc, and it looks to be a good introduction to a lot of different armies and conflicts. It feels like a similar concept to George Gush's lovely old Renaissance Armies from the 1970s, and I think it will be a worthwhile piece of reading. I will try not to get tempted by figures for the Polish/Lithuanian Commonwealth just yet, though..

 

And that was about that.  having arrived about 10:30 am, I said my goodbyes to Dave as we left at about 3:30 pm - the time had positively flown. Having arrived quite early, I had wondered if I might give a participation game a go, but there just wasn't time ( probably too much time on shopping! ) . So that will have to wait for another time. Having got the show 'bug' again, I am wondering about 'Warfare' at Farnborough next month...

I hope you've enjoyed reading about SELWG 2022, I certainly enjoyed visiting it, and many thanks to all involved with the organisation of the day.  Next time,  some thoughts on In Deo Veritas rules, and a look at Twilight of the Divine Right, which cover a similar period and format of game, so comparisons will be interesting. Meanwhile keep well, everyone.