The Other Partizan - part the first

 On Sunday just gone, I was fortunate enough to attend The Other Partizan show at Newark. As ever, I didn't get started early enough to get to the show at opening time (10:00 am), and there was quite a lot of mist and fog en route hence a little slower - in the end I think I got there about 11:00. Met my old buddy Dave (who had come from a bit nearer, and arrived earlier )  in the hall and we had a good wander around looking at many and various splendid games - though by no means all of those present, there were so many!  I'll show what we saw and managed to photograph, pretty much in the order we saw them. 

 First up, 'Barely Legal Wargamers' group with Beyond the Ntombi River  Zulu War game in 28mm:

 It is mandatory these days for any UK wargames show to include at least one game representing the 1879 campaign. This one was a sort of 'what-if', I think, and perhaps unusual in giving quite a significant  role to British Cavalry ( I know rhe lancers played a part in the final victory at Ulundi).  

 

'The Bunker' group presented a 28mm ACW game, The Battle of Ellisville 1863 : Jones County, Mississippi locals, runaway slaves and army deserters making up the 'Knights Company' rise up against Confederate authorities. 

  

the town and courthouse scenery were rather nice

Quite a spectacular 'big game' was the Old Pikeys Gaming Group  28mm  WW2  Five Games at Arnhem: was the idea perhaps to represent several different episodes from the battle in the one display? Anyway, it was a serious bit of terrain which I probably haven't done justice to. Nice use of the Dakota, wrecked glider etc.  

  

..and famously, Urquart's HQ

Next 'Morris and Chums'  brought us not one but two games using James Morris'  Midgard Heroic Battles rules. First the Liberation of Pavis, in 6mm I think,  inspired by the Runequest role-playing game: 

  

 

I thought this was a really nice-looking small game, in distinct contrast to some of the huge tables nearby, you could much more easily imagine doing something like this. I thought the armies looked good too, I rather liked the basing.   

On a larger scale, they also showed a 28mm scale Agincourt 1415 

 

the rather effective 'winter ploughed field' terrain was made from corduroy upholstery fabric and sherpa fleece, I thought that worked well.  Midgard seems to be well liked, and these certainly show the versatility of the rules. 

 At a nearby table,  Peter Dennis Paperboys  presented  yet another Midgard game - described as 'Early Medieval' .  

I like the idea of the 'paperboys', one day I might well take the plunge with scissors and glue and this setup looked nice, but the real highlight was the paper motte and bailey style castle!

 

 The Bodkins group presented a very  impressive 28mm Hundred Years War game The Siege of Montargis 1427 .   Really nice-looking terrain ( town walls very evocative ):

 

 

Big battle units fighting it out ...

 

and lovely painting, colourful costume and flags  on the figures.  No way am I ever going to even try to emulate this - if I ever get the urge for the period, I think those 'paperboys' will be the best bet - or go 6mm and major on the flags to make it look colourful!  

Bramley Barn Wargames showed a really nice-looking Russo-Polish War game in 28mm (using Setting The East Ablaze! rules, I think),  including a range of troops and weapons, from Lance-armed cavalry to armoured cars and aircraft. 

 

  

Staying with Russia, 1st Korps presented  Kamenewo 6th October 1941,  a 28mm WW2 Eastern Front game showing a moment in Operation Barbarossa when the German Panzers ran into modern Soviet armour (lots of  T-34s!) and came off second best. 

The Panzer onslaught..

...and the waiting Soviets

 

including this monster KV tank!

 

Another really good-looking game was by The League of Augsburg,  a 28mm War Of Spanish Succession game using their Beneath the Lily Banners rules. Lovely figures, including a nice cameo of Grenadiers fording the river.  And it attracted wargaming celebrities -  isn't that Michael Perry? I didn't ask if they were using Perry figures, but  I wouldn't be surprised! 

 

 

Now back to Russia again, this time 1944 and operation Bagratian - Derby Wargames Society's Defending Maciejow.  Lots more nice-looking T-34s, this time on the attack, made a  nice counterpoint to the earlier Barbarossa game. 

 

North Riding Wargames Club showed Going Up  Country, a 28mm Vietnam game with a US armoured column running into an ambush from the 'VC' , and including air support from a splendid model Skyraider, with spectacular-looking bomb explosion markers ( though I couldn't help thinking  is that a giant caterpiller?') .  The guys running the game explained how they were using 'blind' card markers for potential concealed VC units, giving a nice 'ambush' feel as the Americans don't know what (if anything)  they are going to meet until the card is turned.

    

 A bit of local interest for me - Fieldcraft UK's  28mm WW2 D-Day Assault on Hillman game, 

 

featuring The Suffolk Regiment

and a nice Sherman 'flail' tank

Shrewsbury Wargames Club showed a splendid 'big-battle' Warhammer 40K game, Battle at Glazer's Creek - with a witty reference to 'real' history as red-coated Orks defended an outpost against attacking hordes. The sub-title of the game was, of course, Ork's Drift!   

 

A nice 'clash of civilisations' game from The Iron Brigade group, The Black Ship, with rival late 16th Century Samurai groups meeting a Portugese warship and hoping to capture it and its modern weapons:

 Now just a very quick vignette - couldn't resist photographing these chaps 

 1:32 scale WW2 figures, some of which were immediately recognisable to the 'Airfix' generation, there must be quite a few of these still buried in the flower beds of gardens around the UK! The game was, I think,  Action at Nierstein  staged by John Kersey, who always has an interesting game - but we must have arrived at his lunch break, and didn't get to find out more. Nice to see those models still in use, anyway!

The Very British Civil Forum presented a 28mm VBCW game entitled Stand and Hold - The Somerset Levels Campaign : I admit I can't get too excited about the whole VBCW thing, but it was a nice looking table (that's my buddy Dave getting a picture, on the right). 

Now at this point, we are about half-way through the 30-odd games we saw. We needed a break - and so do I, writing this report!  I hope the story so far has been interesting and enjoyable, whether you were at the show or not - join me again next time for pictures and comments on the rest of the games we saw, and a wash-up and thoughts on the show as a whole ( spoiler alert - surprisingly, I didn't buy anything!).  Until then keep well, everyone.