Partizan 2026 : A Bit of a Do, Part 2

Last time I showed pictures of some of the games featured at the Partizan show at Newark on 17th May; in this post I hope to finish the job, and show a few 'shopping' items I picked up on the day and give my general impressions of the day.  So let's continue with pictures of the games I saw:

Steve's Painting Shed group presented The Battle of Chatterton's Hill 1776 with 28mm figures by Perry and Foundry, and their own Bloodybacks rules. I think you can see the quality of the figure painting.. 

 

Skirmish Wargames group do a great job with larger-scale figures, and they showed their Trench Raid  WW1 game in 54mm, featuring quite an impressive terrain  setup: 

 I liked this chap, perhaps contemplating his recent lucky escape - but I hope there were no 'Gerries' nearby, given his nonchalance about taking cover! 

 The League of Extraordinary Kriegspielers can always be relied upon to produce a spectacular table - this time it was Baron von Ungern-Sternberg in The God of War - A Drama of Blood and Conquest!, a huge 28mm Back of Beyond game.  So big, it was quite hard to photograph, but I had a go anyway! Considering it was set in  the 'Back of Beyond', there was an awful lot of  military, naval and aerial kit available to the protagonists!  I have no idea what was going on -  I presume it was a fictional scenario, but it  all looked pretty impressive, anyway,

  

Lots more beautifully-painted figures were on show courtesy of The League of Augsburg and their 28mm later 17th Century game ( I am taking a wild guess it may have depicted the War of the.. yep, you guessed the rest - or was it the Spanish Succession? ): 

The first of two impressive Samurai period games came from  The Iron Brigade group, with their 25mm Assault on Kawajima Castle: lovely castle, very nice figures. 

 

 

Another nice 18th Century game was presented by Westbury Wargames, from the  Seven Years War - The Battle of Minden in 28mm - one of several games featuring this year's fashionable terrain item, namely a windmill! 

  

Lovely painted figures (12 figures per battalion? Lots of nice flags as a result! ), nice terrain - my one  slight reservation was about the rather large white unit ID cards on stands among the troops, which were a bit of a distraction and spoiled the look a bit.  I tried to avoid getting too many of them in the photos. 

 Fieldcraft UK  put on a good-looking 28mm WW2 game Winter Thunder - Ardennes 1944, I am told it was with Bolt Action 3rd Edition.  Apologies for slightly gloomy photos - I think  suffered from the classic photographer's error of snow scenes messing with the exposure meter! 

 

 Then another Samurai spectacular from Shrewsbury Wargames Society , in 28mm Rampant Lions, Questionable Honour - a really big table ( in a 'U' shape to allow access from the middle ) with a positively huge castle.  We were told the buildings were all 3D-printed, and the various floors could be removed from the castle, allowing access for figures inside.

 

An interesting feature was that there were two sets of rules being used in this game - the main assault being played out using Lion Rampant, while a 'side skirmish' used Test of Honour.  This won the Best Demonstration Game award on the day - can't say fairer than that!  

One group  I always look out for is 1/72 Wargames, aka Mr John Kersey - you can always rely on John to come up with an interesting concept, but also keep it 'do-able', rather than going for sheer scale. This time assisted by Mark Lodge (who painted most of the figures, I think ), they presented Crimean Interlude,  or  The Light and Heavy Brigades 1854,  in 20mm scale. The USP of this game was limited visibility, with the table largely covered by mist at first,  which I gather gradually cleared, allowing the armies to see each other!   I think visibility and sighting is probably 'the dog that didn't bark' in many wargames - I think players probably have far too much information about the opposing forces in many games, especially more modern periods (this may be a by-product of the use of nicely-sculpted and painted figures - having invested time and money  in them, you want to see them on the table!).   So, a game that challenges players with limited visibility is an interesting idea.   

  

The rules were There Are Your Guns : Warfare in the Age of Steam 1816-1897 by Dennis Williams ( a derivative  of General de Brigade?)    

When the mist lifted you could see that the figures were  'a mix of 20mm Hinton Hunt and Douglas Miniatures with the occasional conversion' , and they looked very nice indeed! 

Forest Outlaws club had as usual teamed up with Kallistra to put on a big game using Kallistra's Hexon hexed terrain and 12mm figures - this was  Caesar Ariovistas – Battle of Vosages 58BC, using Kallistra's  Hordes and Heroes Ancients rules, which can be downloaded for free..  

 the table looked brilliant, a proper 'big battle'!

Now back to  28mm,  Harrogate Wargames Club's  Vietnam game Walk this Hue (hurrah for that title!).  A lovely-looking table, and even the dreaded 'Coke can by the side of the table getting in the photos'  seemed to give appropriate period colour!

North Star presented an ACW game in 28mm scale using their Kepis and Bayonets supplement to Muskets and Tomahawks rules.  Lovely terrain - it may not show in the pictures very well but there was a distinct incline in the terrain, making a hillside situation  - and they resisted the temptation to 'go large' with it.  Very nice figures on the table, and top marks for players' headgear too! 

 

By this time I admit I was flagging somewhat! So, only a quick look at Blitzkrieg Miniatures  Mighty Empires game, which the program billed as using 60mm figures, but they looked more like 28mm to me?  Still nice, though..

Peter Dennis presented his Paperboys , in  a Colonial game (perhaps the Sudan?) using his in-house Magdala to Mafeking rules, written by Andy Callan. I really liked the camel train!       

 More colonials next;  John Lavender's  28mm Zulu War game of Rorke's Drift

 

 

Nearing the end of the day now, a lot of the participation games were packing up, but we were able to see one of the more spectacular examples - Reveille Studios  Robin of Sherwood  40mm Medieval Skirmish game. It turned out that 40mm scale meant  Lego! ( actually cheaper Chinese imitations, no doubt helping reduce the budget considerably!). It featured a really nice fortified town (Nottingham?) - and the obligatory windmill.. 

..and a splendidly dense Sherwood Forest! 
      

 

 

Cattle watch as Knights battle..

Robin and  Marion making their escape

I think this was the casualty pile! 

 We arrived at the end of the game, I wish we'd seen it earlier as presumably all sorts of action was going on, clearly a great fun game. 

Last of all, Northampton Battlefields Society's  The Northamptonshire Regiment in the Great War : this featured the attack on the village of Ronssoy by 6th Northants battalion during the battle of  Epehy in the Somme region in autumn 1918.  Graham Evans (aka blogger Trebian ) gave us a characteristically enthusiastic and thorough talk-through of the game, most impressive given that he'd presumably been doing the same thing all day long!  The game was being played using Chris Kemp's  Not Quite Mechanised operational level rules - which I have been meaning to buy a copy of,  but once again I didn't get to Dave Lancaster's bookstall before they sold out! Here is Chris with the game; clearly the attackers are using a pretty powerful artillery barrage..

 And that, as they say, was that: apart from a little 'retail therapy'.  I came away with quite a large number of 40x40mm and 50x50mm  MDF bases from Warbases for my ongoing project to re-base pre-loved Minifigs 7YW/AWI figures, and a couple of interesting publications.

Firstly from Anchluss publications, some potential 'D-Day Dodgers' scenarios; 

 

and from Caliver books,  more scenario fodder in the shape of Henry Hyde's recent 'coffee break campaign'  Junction Jeopardy  
 

and last but very much not least, I was really pleased to meet Rob Young of The Eastern Garrison fame, who had kindly cast me up a batch of 24 assorted Seven  Years War French infantry officers, standard bearers, drummers and sergeants, which I should be able to combine with 'spares' from the Minifigs re-basing project to create six more battalions of French. Rob went well 'above and beyond' with this, as I had only emailed to enquire with him earlier in the week, and he turned up at the show with them all cast after only a few days! I think they are very nice, and they will fit in absolutely fine with the Minifigs, being of a similar vintage.  They are perhaps a bit more elegant than the Minifigs, but it seems only right that the command group of a  French battalion of the time might have a certain je ne sais crois compared to the rank and file... 

 Very many thanks to Rob for these lovely figures! 

Also thanks of course, to everyone involved in the show be they game hosts, traders or show organisers, for making it such a success.  Great to meet some friends 'old and new'  ( and Dave and I got our picture taken with Ray and Big Lee from Postie's rejects by none other than Rich Clarke of TooFatLardies - fame at last!) and see other familiar faces and great games.  And there's the rub - my only real problem with the show is that it is just too much to take in given one day! Faced with such an array, it's easy to get a bit 'rabbit in headlights' and just wander around trying to take it all in, with too little time to really look properly, or get into conversation with the hosts. I usually manage to see most of the 'demo' games (but how did I manage to  miss the 1st Korps Magnesia game?!)  , but also usually get to the Participation games  area far too late - next time, I really should do it the other way around,  for a change!  It was also very crowded (and pretty noisy as a consequence ) early on, which made it hard to approach some games - though I note that Rob didn't feel that, and I suspect he spent more time in the 'Parti' area, so is it the big  demo 'specataculars' that logically enough tend to be very crowded?  the crowds also meant I missed a few people I would really  liked to have met - apologies to Steve J, and to  Battlefields and Warriors' Norm, one day I'd love to catch up with you both!   Finally a massive thank you do 'the other Dave' for accompanying me on the day and putting me up that night - we even fitted in a game of Command and Colours Napoleonics the next day, which of course he won! 

Now, I need to press on with yet more re-basing, and maybe get some of those Garrison officers painted while they are still fresh! And in ten days time, hopefully another show - Broadside at Gillingham, which I very much look forward to. Maybe see some of you there?  And of course, I'll report back on that one. Until then keep well, everyone..