Cavalier 2024 and Transports of Delight

On Sunday just gone, I visited my first hobby show of the year - Cavalier 2024 at Tonbridge, staged by the Tunbridge Wells Wargames Society. It proved to be a good day out, from all the important points of view - seeing games, meeting people and acquiring 'goodies'.  I'll describe them in roughly that order.  

There were 17 games advertised, in  a good variety of periods, scales and universes - I admit I tend to stick to the 'historical', with apologies to Sci-Fi and Fantasy fans. Having said that, first up was a really  interesting sort of  'crossover' game,  Death on the Savannah (Survival of the Thickest) from Deal Wargames Society - not a toy solider in sight, but kind of 'historical' .  As the show program stated, 'Can the Wildebeest cross the Savannah, hunted by lions and crossing a crocodile-infested river?; 1/32nd using vintage Britains figures'  

 

I don't know how it played and whether the wildebeest made it (that looked quite challenging!), but I like the way the Deal guys always come up with something a bit different, and always make it look good.  

Another group that can be relied upon for a really good-looking table are Retired Wargamers Reloaded - their Hold Until Relieved game of Pegasus Bridge, June 1944 is well up to their usual standard. I have featured this before ( at SELWG 2023 ),  but can't resist showing a few pics again - apart from the fine terrain and scenery, I like the details such as  columns of vehicles moving up, aircraft overhead etc.  

Also in the  WW2 period,  Tonbridge Wargames Club presented LRDG - The First Rogue Heroes ('LRDG Raids in the Western Desert 1942; DAK Mini-campaign; 28mm' ) as a participation game. I am very bad at trying participation games - just for once I probably had time to give one a go, but ended  up spending quite a lot of time talking to various people - so participation will have to wait for another time!

Looks like LRDG did a good job,,

Another one I really should have tried was Maidstone Wargames Society The Summer of '77 - no, not punk rockers vs. disco divas, but a Battle of Britain game, based on a game that had been published in Warlord comic in, presumably, the summer of 1977.  I liked the way they had taken the simple printed square-gridded map from the original and made a really nice scenic table, with the 1/300 aircraft 'flying' on stands above.  The game ran several times and always looked busy.

 

And just one more  WW2 feature:  Friday Night Firefight Club's Fall of the Reich, depicting battle around the Reichstag, Berlin in 1945 using 28mm scale and Bolt Action rules. 

that Reichstag model  looks suitably grim and imposing

Other periods are available, of course: starting with the oldest, The Society of Ancients   put on a game of the Battle of Ilipa 208BC  in 28mm using Impetus rules: 

Ilipa : view from Carthaginian line

..and the Roman force

This was interesting, as I had taken part in one of Jon Freitag's games of this battle, using his version of Basic Impetus.  Watching the play, I recognised the mechanisms in use for combat die rolls etc, though I think the 'proper' version of Impetus has a bit more chrome than the basic version.  The action seemed to move along at a decent pace with  experienced players.

battle in full swing, later

 

Several Napoleonic games were in progress: first up Battle of Villamuriel   from  Konfederacy of Eastbourne Gamers using 10mm figures 

I really liked the Vineyard terrain pieces, cleverly made to allow units to fight amongst them! 

Central London Wargames Club brought their Tally Ho Vera (!)  in 15mm,  showcasing the Emperor of the Battlefield rules written by one of their members, I think. I had previously encountered them at SELWG - I'm sure if I was thinking of a move into Napoleonics (get thee behind me, tempation!) they would be worth a look.

Meanwhile Warlord Games had a nice-looking demo game of their Epic Napoleonics system in 13.5mm.  They look pretty good en masse! 

Rainham Wargames Club showed a game of Hammerin' Iron : Riverboat Action in the ACW 

Nice layout and 'buckets of dice' !

..and Real Time Wargames had their Russian Civil War  rules and campaign system The Glittering River on show, attracting quite a few players to a participation game. These guys often seem to create games in 'interesting and different' periods and settings. The ships and aircraft were 1/600th and the terrain was 2mm scale.

South East Essex ( SEEMS ) showed their Nach Paris!  ( previously seen also at SELWG )   28mm Franco-Prussian War game, using The Men That Would be Kings rules but pitting two European forces against each other - an interesting idea.

 Last but certainly not least Milton Hundred Wargame Club with, their  1/100th Modern (Soviets vs. NATO )  game featuring 'an armoured bridge assault including a paradrop' , Eine Bruecke zu Weit  (geddit?). 

 

 

That's all the tables I managed to photograph, as I think you can see it was a good selection of games. The second aspect of any show is the social side - I was very pleased with that side of things. I met up with old gaming friend Tony Toms ( from  Retired Wargames Reloaded ) who I had met at the Broadside show  last year after a very long time out of touch. Tony had come along with his son Oliver  also a gamer, and friend Reg, another of my former Rainham Wargames club-mates from the 1980s(!) - Reg and I think we had not met for at least 40 years!  We all had a good long chat over a coffee in the cafeteria, and there may even be some gaming to follow, as it turns out Reg and I don't live so very far apart. It was really great to meet these guys!   I also bumped into various members of Posties Rejects, and had another  good  chat with  Ray Rousell ( looking surprisingly well after his recent illness - thank goodness!)  and Big Lee - including a bit of tactical talk ahead of their second playing of Jon Freitag's Battle of Lake Trasimene game ( they didn't win in the end, so not sure how much help I was! ). I would strongly recomment both Ray's and Lee's blog/Youtube  posts on this show -  loads more and better pictures than me, and a pic of me on Ray's blog - fame at last! 

I also had an important appointment to meet  up with the excellent David Crook of A Wargaming Odyssey  blog,  as we had arranged for me to buy some WW2 British vehicles from the collection of the late Eric Knowles. These turned out to be a really splendid purchase, as you can see :

 

Four Jeeps, six Bren Carriers, four Lloyd Carriers, eight trucks and a 'Dorchester' command vehicle - a pretty useful collection!   And David threw in a lovely 'Brucie Bonus'  -  a box full of command figures and AFV crews. Star of the show is this command group map table :  

This is fantastic stuff, it will provide transport for at least two British battalions in my 'D-Day Dodgers' Italian Campaign project, plus a rather well-appointed Brigade HQ with the Dorchester! Many thanks indeed to David, I am very pleased indeed with these! 

A little light shopping with the tradestands was also done - 1-72nd Models are always of interest, and I picked up a couple of items from them. All those games of the Punic Wars with Jon F must have had an influence, and I have dipped a toe in the water of that period with these HaT Carthaginian Veterans:

Sadly I 'ummed and ahhed' too long over a nice unit of Garrison Roman Republican infantry on the Bring and Buy stall, which would have been a good match with these - learned my lesson there, if you like them,  buy things when you see them!  So the Carthaginians are a bit of an impulse buy, but could be the start of a DBA army - maybe even using some of my vintage  Airfix Ancient Britains for Celtic warbands.. From the same stall, I also picked up some cheap MDF road sections, which should come in handy for the more urbanised setups which are bound to feature in WW2 games As you can see they come with neat jointing included, and also some 'end caps' ( not shown ), so they will lay out nicely and should remain straight when placed on the table! Just need a bit of suitable paint and texture. 

 

So there we have it - overall, a pretty good day and a pretty decent 'mid-size' show, with good games and  traders  and best of all, meetings with friends old and new! Many thanks to the organisers, and all the  clubs, traders  and players, and to everyone I was fortunate enough to chat to.  I was glad I attended, a nice relaxed  start to the 'season'. More to follow I suspect, as  I note that  April, May and June will offer Salute, Partizan and Broadside, all very tempting..  Now I'd better take inspiration from all this and get some painting and/or gaming done... Until then, keep well everyone.

Lurking in the Loft - continued

I was sure I would get on with painting and/or gaming this past week or two, but those have rather fallen by the wayside - apart from a great evening in the (remote)  company of Jon Freitag and fellow bloggers Tony MS Foy, Mark  Jolly Broom Man and Chris Nundanket,  playing Jon's Third Battle of Trasimene - many thanks, all! 

One of the things that has taken up some time has been finally getting round to looking at a whole bunch of hobby-related stuff that was still lurking in the loft, some for several decades!  These really need sorting through, and reducing (in terms of  volume occupied, at the very least), and some stuff probably needs to go to a more caring home. 

The largest task has been going through many and various boxes of old (mainly) Airfix figures. As a first tranche, I found this selection of random boxes : 

 

what lies within..?

Gotta love the random selection of boxes and tins that must have been all that came to hand years ago (the box from the Japanese fighter plane kit has a price label marked 33p!) .  I wasn't a smoker as a child, I hasten to add(!), but an elderly 'aunt'  ( do kids still have 'aunts' that are not really aunts? ) rolled her own and was a good source of those nice tobacco tins. And yes, that's a classic Hinchcliffe box, too - pocket money never stretched to them, so where did that come from?! 

But enough about the boxes - you can see how  sorting through this stuff can be a slow process.. On to the actual figures themselves. Let's start with the real vintage ones : 

The 'classic' 1960s Airfix Germans

 

and rather fewer British, of similar vintage 

I'm quite glad to have about 80 of those vintage Germans, they are the figures my gaming started with as a kid, and there will be enough to raise a few more Wehrmacht units for my 'D-Day Dodgers' to fight.  The British 'Combat Group' is more tricky as there are not many of them - and I don't think I ever liked them that much. My first  British infantry battalion (in Rapid Fire order of battle)  has been built around some 1970s Matchbox figures which I liked, but there are only a few more of those, and the Airfix 1970s update to British infantry are a bit rubbish, tbh! So I may have to find an alternative which may involve much more modern figures. I suppose I will just have to put up with the much better quality sculpts(!).  

Having said that, the following couple of sets may come in handy: .

old-school (1960s) British 8th Army..

      

..and German Afrika Korps

I think these two sets could be quite useful when  running games that purport to be set in the Italian summertime, such as Sicily in July/August  1943.  After all, it was pretty much the 8th Army making up the British  contingent, and they would have surely continued wearing their tropical uniforms - and I assume  the Germans would have worn 'hot weather'  gear too. So there is scope for a judicious mixture on both sides - and the various 'early Airfix' will go together OK, so I think I can use these. Yes, I am really going to try to use some of these -  I should say I am entirely aware that more modern figures are much 'better', i.e more detailed, dynamically posed  and well-proportioned, but this is at least partly an exercise in nostalgia for me, I have had these figures a very long time and it will be lovely to make use of them - and to finally get them painted!  

I'll spare you too many   more of these pictures, but so far I have also found Airfix British paratroops (terrible poses and blobby physiques ),  Commandos ( men holding up anchors!), a few WW1 British,  WW2 Russians, Japanese and US Marines, plus the later (1970s) Germans,  and 1980s Esci British and German WW2 - which have an old-fashioned look which may just fit in.  

 

the famous 'Michelin Man' Paratroopers

Switching periods, a couple more random aircraft kit boxes revealed a small collection of (badly-painted)  Airfix Ancient Britains - ancient indeed,  probably at least 40 years old! I think based for WRG 6th Edition:

yet another US Cavalry conversion

 

I had just been reading Alan Gruber's  Duchy of Tradgardland blog featuring lovely conversions of old Airfix figures, in which it was mentioned just how versatile the US Cavalry figures were - and guess what?  Yes, very clearly they are the basis for these Ancient British horsemen - you can see the dark blue plastic where the paint has flaked off saddles etc. The US cavalrymen have had their body rather brutally cut off at the waist, and the top half of a British foot warrior glued in place - and as if to prove it, one of them has suffered a catastrophic glue failure and separated into its consituent parts. I'm afraid the conversion wasn't terribly well thought-out,  as the shields get in the way and prevent the man sitting securely on the horse - but at least the younger me had a try!

There's plenty more in the loft, which means a lot more sorting required, I suspect, and perhaps one or two more blog posts.  Meanwhile, if anyone out there is desperate to add to their collections of say, those blobby British Paratroopers or slightly bizarre Commandos, do drop me a line via the comments and we'll see what we can do - just cover the postage, maybe?  I can't quite bring myself to actually throw them in the bin. 

To end on a positive note, this Sunday is the Cavalier wargames show run by Tunbridge Wells Wargames Society,  and I will be going along, I have never been before, so it will be interesting. Given the quotation on my blog page header, I really should pay homage to the club that George Gush founded. The website lists about 20 traders and 17 games, so a nice medium-size show, which I hope makes  everything a bit more relaxed than the big shows like Salute, and allows visitors to spend a bit more  time looking at each game or stand. I'm glad to say I have arranged a couple of meet-ups with friends old and new, too, and it will be great to have a bit of a chat.  Hopefully a nice start to the 'show season' for 2024.  

Right, now back to the boxes, let's see what else there is... Until next time, keep well, everyone.

Calling up the 'West Suffolks'

I've been sadly neglecting my 'D-Day Dodgers' Italian Campaign min-project recently, so I thought it was high time I put in some more time on them.  Bob Cordery's The Portable Wargame gave me a nice introduction with his simple,  accessible rules - I will doubtless use them again, but for the moment I am looking to use Colin Rumford and Richard Marsh's  Rapid Fire Reloaded ruleset. I like their simplicity too, and they have the advantage of providing plenty of details on the organisation of scaled-down forces for all the main combatants.  So I am starting from there, with my first British infantry battalion. 

The 'RRR' booklet gives a nice suggested organisation for such a battalion, which looks like this : 

The above represents the 10th Highland Light Infantry,  and is used in the rulebook's example  scenario for Mouen, Normandy, 28th June 1944.   So I have borrowed it as inspiration for my very own 1st Battalion, West Suffolk Regiment. This of course is a distinguished senior regiment of the line, with many hard-earned battle honours from the times of Marlborough to Montgmery, all of which are stirringly recorded in the annals - of my imagination.  

Starting from the basis of the 'battle group' I put together for the Portable Wargame, which previously saw action at  Monte Lucedelsole  and Ponte Natale,  I have been making small acquisitions of additional figures and vehicles from traders at various shows in the last year or two - yes, I am one of those annoying folk who will approach a tradestand and buy just  one or two packs of two or three figures, or one vehicle! I should also mention the 'bring and sell' style tables at the Broadside show at Gillingham, which proved a good source of 'pre-loved' Bren carriers, Jeeps etc. 

new recruits - need to smarten up a bit

I've now had a proper sort through the various accumulated packs of figures and vehicles, and put them together in the organisation as suggested above - minus the Machine-Gun Company, which is not an integral part of the battalion.   

From the front  we have the Battalion HQ with its Bren Carrier, PIAT and Mortar team,  the Carrier Platoon with another Bren and PIAT team, the four Rifle Companies, and at the back the Support Company with Lloyd Carrier and 6-pounder AT gun, Bren Carrier and 3-inch mortar.   Figures are a right old mixture - the majority being my vintage 1970s Matchbox guys as previously seen, with PIAT and mortar teams from Brittannia/Grubby Tanks and SHQ. I didn't have quite enough Matchbox figures in suitable poses, thus the newly-recruited   'D' company's riflemen are good old Airfix 1970s WW2 British Infantry, which have been in the loft for several decades! Vehicles an equally polyglot bunch - two of the Bren carriers (probably Airfix ) were second hand, provenance unknown, the Lloyd Carrier a resin Ready To Roll  model from Rapid Fire themselves,  and the rather nice Bren Carrier which the battalion commander has 'baggsied' is by Disain Studio, and proudly proclaims that it is 'Made in Devon' - I think it is 3D-printed, which is a first for me!  I am entirely happy with this mix and match approach, I think it's fun to make use of the vintage stuff that I originally had as a child and give it a new lease of life, supplemented by some new aquisitions from - well, whoever I happened to find at SELWG, Broadside, Salute or Partizan! They all seem to go together pretty well. 

Now I have to get on with painting and basing the recent recruits as required, and then rustle up some suitable opposition - the core of which will be  nice  old 1960s vintage Airfix Germans, riding in a fleet of recently-acquired Steyr heavy cars and Opel Blitz trucks.   After that,  I think I can raise a lorried Indian battalion, with trusty Bedford QLs and doubtless some more Bren carriers.. 

 'In other news', as they say,  I was lucky to be included in the latest of Jon Freitag's remote games,  playing the ill-fated Roman Consul Flaminius in Jon's  table-top  re-creation of Lake Trasimene, 217BC. I'll won't give too many spoilers, and leave it to Jon himself to give his usual excellent battle report - suffice it to say it was a surprisingly close-fought and exciting affair!  Many thanks to Jon for a great scenario and for running the game so smoothly.  Also for this teaser picture, showing Flaminius and one of his  legionary Principes units ( lovely figures from Jon's collection, of course ) getting their feet wet - which may give you a clue as to the eventual result!   

 

Many thanks to Jon, and to fellow players Chris, Tony and Mark  ( aka  Nundanket,  MS Foy and Jolly Broom Man ) for a great evening!  A re-match may be in prospect, with the sides reversed - I think Hannibal has it rather easier, let's hope it turns out that way.  Meanwhile, maybe it's time to run an actual game (albeit solo)  here - I am mulling over Seven Years War vs. Thirty Years War. Watch this space - or just 'follow' this blog, and it will pop up on your reading list.. Until then keep well, everyone.