Epic Celts, anyone? And Going to Partizan

I recently bought the May 2025 issue (no. 449) of Wargames Illustrated  magazine, which included a free sprue of Warlord Games Epic Hail Caesar  Celt Warriors, which I believe are 12mm or 13mm scale. I was interested to have a look at them, but I admit I don't have a use for them -  I have dabbled in Ancients, but am pretty much committed to 20mm scale for the period.  So, would anyone like them? 

 

First come, first served - leave a comment on this post, including a contact email ( I won't publish that on the blog, of course ) and we'll arrange for me to post them to you (UK only, please) - or even better, are you going to the Partizan show on Sunday?  If so, I can hand them over in person!  

As you can see, there is a nice mix of warband infantry, skirmishers, cavalry and even one chariot. One amusing feature of the warband figures is that some of them depict naked warriors.  Their modesty is of course  covered in front by their large  shields  ( and you know what they say about the size of a Celt's shield..) but from the back, it's all on show: 

 

So, if you are of a nervous disposition, be warned, you may find these a bit too 'cheeky'. I also wonder if a rules amendment might be required to give an extra  minus 1 on their combat die roll if attacked from the rear..

I have to admit I never thought I'd be having to say I bought a wargames magazine 'because of  the interesting articles of course, nothing to do with  the nudes'. 

*** UPDATE : they are taken already! Alan 'Tradgardland' has offered them a good home, I look forward to seeing what he does with them.  ****

Meanwhile, as already mentioned, I am planning to visit the Partizan show at Newark on Sunday, and look forward to an interesting day. Looking at the website, it seems we can expect  to see no less than 70  games  ( about 40 demonstration to 30 participation ), which is slightly mind-blowing!  Also over 40 traders, so plenty of shopping opportunities.

Browsing the list of games, there is a very wide range - all periods from Ancients to the Sci-Fi future and the realms of fantasy, and all scales from 6mm to 60mm ( Blitzkrieg Miniatures '60mm Ancient Battles', may look impressive!) plus aerial  and naval games.  Among those I will be looking out for are : 

-  John Kersey               1/72nd Russo-Japanese War    Nihon shugi: Assault on 203 Metre hill 

 - Anschluss Wargames           10mm WW2                                 A Small town in Italy 1945    

- Ardhammer Group               28mm French Dutch War 1672-1678       The Battle of the Windmill

- Boondock Sayntes               28mm Anglo-Sikh wars                           The Battle of Aliwal, 1846 

-  Glasgow Tradeston Club     15mm 30 Years War                                The Battle of Rocroi 1643

-  Gordon's Gophers                15mm WW2                          North Africa Rapid Fire Reloaded 

- League of Augsburg        28mm 17th Century Caribbean    Dutch Raid on Hispaniola circa 1675

- Nick Hindley                        Epic scale Napoleonics                         The Battle of Waterloo 1815

 - Simon Miller                       Lust for Glory        28mm “To the Strongest!” Horse’n’Musket 

 - South London Warlords       6mm WW1              Crisis on The Marne, September 1914 

  -  Steve Jones                         6mm Napoleonics                                 Wagram 1809

- The Yarkshire Gamer            28mm AWI                                       The Battle of Germantown 1777

 ..'and many, many more', no doubt! 

 And of course I would hope to meet a few friends, old and new   I know Postie's Rejects will be there, for starters, always good to see them.

Finally I can report some painting progress : I now have a small Italian village in 6mm scale for my 'Risorgimento' project, couttesy of Timecast miniatures and my very average painting skills. 

Something for Piedmontese and Austrians to fight over..

 

Now for the roads, rivers, railways, walls and trees...

I strongly suspect that my next post will be a report from Partizan - let's hope it lives up to expectations! Meanwhile keep well, everyone.  

 

Quick-Fix Gaming: Dominion of Pike and Shot

 It's been far too long since I actually set up a game on my own table - there's just been a bit too much 'real life' stuff going on. However, recently some  other bloggers (in particular,  Bob Cordery)   highlighted a very simple series of rules known as 'Dominion of...'  by Steve Parker, which allow very quick games on a 'three by four'  grid table. You don't even need figures to try the rules, you can simply play the battle out using pencil and paper.  I like simple rules and these seemed to have something about them, so I spent the huge sum of (almost)  £5  on the PDF of  Dominion of Pike and Shot  from Wargames Vault.  Typically an 'army' in the rules is up to 6 units, and there is a selection of army lists in the basic rulebook,  so it was very easy to get out my veteran 15mm Thirty Years' War figures and  create forces for list no. 63, 30YW  French and no. 56  'German Catholic'  (let's call them Imperialists),  and give the rules a try.

initial setup, veiwed  from behind the French army

 

The army lists give similar but not identical forces for the French and Imperialists: each has two  units of Cuirassiers, defined as 'Melee Mounted'  and one unit of 'Carbineers' ( I assume 'Harquebusiers' ) which are 'Missile Mounted',   and then three units of Infantry.  The variation comes in the Infantry - the French foot are defined as Pike (plus Musket) - 'Melee Foot' - and the Imperialist foot are Musket ( plus Pike ) - 'Missile Foot'.   These classifications are the equivalent of  'Pike Heavy' and 'Shot Heavy' infantry formations in other rules, so the French are 'Pike Heavy' and Imperialists 'Shot Heavy' in these lists. From my prior knowldge I admit that  I would probably have suggested the other way round!  But I wonder if the idea of these lists is to emphasise the attacking Elan of the French by making their Infantry very much melee-oriented, while Imperialist foot are a bit more ponderous and defensive-minded.  Units can be deifned as 'Armoured' or 'Elite' but I kept it simple to start with, keeping all units 'vanilla', so to speak.     

The picture above shows the two forces deployed at the start,  shown from behind the French army. In the middle, the main forces face each other with each having a unit forming each of Left Wing, Centre and Right Wing. I went for a conventional setup of Infantry Centre, Cavalry on the wings, with the French deploying both their Cuirassiers while  the Imperialists placed Cuirassiers on their right, Carbineers to their left.   The remaining three units on each side are placed in 'Reserve' - those are the lines of units nearest to (French) and furthest from (Imperial) the camera.  A die roll decides which side is 'Attacker' and which 'Defender' - the Imperialists won that honour, and as a result the French had to deploy first, an the Imperialists 'moved' first each turn.  

Front Lines at start (French nearest camera) 

True to the period, there is a Bombardment phase before the first turn, even though  no artillery units are actually included - a nice simple way of reflecting the reality, where artillery often did not play much part beyond an initial cannonade. Each side chooses a target sector to bombard - Left, Right or Centre - and rolls a dice, and a 'hit' forces an targeted Infantry unit to retire, but a  Cavalry target if 'hit' is goaded into a charge. Risky, but presumably you aim to provoke them to charge recklessly against a better unit of yours.   This phase turned out to be quite eventful - the Imperialists bombarded the Cuirassiers on the French left, and 'hit', provoking a charge at the Imperial Cuirassiers opposite them. That meant combat between the two, at which point both promptly rolled high scores, and both units were destroyed!   Quite a shock for both sides, even before the first 'proper' move!  the French bombardment, meanwhile, had no effect. 

bombardment provokes Cavalry clash!

If a unit is defeated it is removed from the game - sudden death,  indeed - and must be replaced by a unit from the reserve, if one is available.  So as a result the Imperialists brought up their second Cuirassier unit, and the French their 'Carbineers'.   

Now on to Turn 1 - each side gets to attack in one sector, with Attackers ( Imperialists) going first. Both sides elected to attack with their respective Carbineers against opposing Cuirassiers  - the logic being that Missile troops get to attack first, so the Carbineers hope to shoot well enough to drive away their opponents before being charged.  It didn't quite work out, as the both Carbineers units shooting was ineffective, and the Imperial Cuirassiers promptly charged and destroyed the Carbineers on the French left (French Infantry regiment  'Bleu' moved up from Reserve to replace them),   Each side gets one attempt to 'rally' a destroyed unit, and at this point the French tried to rally their Cuirassier unit - and failed. So losses after turn 1 were: French 2 units, Imperials 1. 

End of Turn 1 (Imperialists to the right)

Then Turn 2 was quite bloody : Imperial Carbineers on their left wing managed to shoot down the opposing French Cuirassiers ( both French Cuirassiers now gone ) but honours evened when on the French left, the newly-arrived 'Veste Bleu' regiment chased away the Imperial Cuirassiers.   The French brought up their last reserve unit - 'Veste Vert' infantry,  while the Imperialists replaced their dispersed Cuirassiers with their own Green coated infantry.   Losses now  French 3 units, Imperialists 2, and the French cavalry have all been scattered. 

Turn 2 : French Cavalry seem to have 'gorn'

Turn 3 - on the Imperial right, their 'Gruner mantel'  foot attacked the French 'Veste Bleu' regiment. The Imperialist unit being 'Missile Foot', it fired first, but missed. The French being 'Melee Foot' then got to strike back - and also failed.  In turn, in the French centre the  'Veste Rouge' regiment attacked the Imperial 'Blauer Mantel' unit. Again the 'missile' troops (Imperialists) rolled first, but to no effect, and the French promptly charged home and routed the Imperial unit.  They were replaced by the 'Roter Mantel' regiment from reserves;  the Imperialists also took the chance to try rallying one of their lost Cuirassier units, and succeeded. That left the losses at end of Turn 3  French 3,  Imperialists 2. 

Turn 4 : On the Imperial left their Carbineers attacked the French 'Veste Vert' foot, to no effect, while on the French left, the struggle between their  'Veste Bleu' regiment and the  Imperial 'Gruner Mantel' ended in defeat for the Imperial regiment.  The newly-rallied Cuirassiers stepped up from reserve. Losses at end of Turn 4 were  three units each - neck-and-neck stuff - and we have an interesting situation,  with three French Infantry units facing only one Imperial foot and two horse units. 

 

End of Turn 4 : an interesting balance

The next turn was the first one without any losses - the Imperial Carbineers and French 'Veste Verts' tangled inconclusively, as did the French 'Veste Bleu' and Imperial Curassiers on the other flank. Losses remained at  three each.

After that comparitive lull, things livened up on Turn 6. On the Imperial left, the long struggle between their Carbineers and French 'Veste Verts' foot continued without a result, while on the French left their 'Veste Bleus' tried conclusions with the Imperial Cuirassiers - and the French regiment was promptly routed!  That brought losses to French 4, Imperial 3 and crucially left the Cuirassiers unopposed,  and able to turn inwards to take the French centre in flank. 

Turn 6 : French flank in danger..

Turn 7 therefore inevitably opened with the Imperialist Cuirassiers charging into the flank of the French centre - attacking from the flank gives a +1 on the die roll, and the defending unit cannot reply if they also have opponents to their front. The dice duly favoured the Imperialists, and the 'Veste Rouge' regiment was destroyed. 

Turn 7 : Imperial Cuirassiers strike

 

and with only one unit remaining, the French on their turn facing imminent defeat,  tried a last desperate attack with their 'Veste Vert'  regiment on the Imperial Carbineers - only to be scattered by a salvo from the horsemen ( I think we can conclude that the French infantry were none too enthusiastic in their attack, and needed little encouragement to skedaddle).  Thus Turn 7 ended wth all 6 French units routed, to Imperial losses of 3 units. 

The final blow -  last French regiment routed!

 

 Well, that was rather fun.  Obviously very simple,  but quite tense and with a few surprises and subtleties in the mechanisms. I think it took about 90 minutes to play through, but that included taking detailed turn-by-turn notes, checking rules carefully and taking some photos, since it was a first try.  I think it would have probably taken less than half an hour if simply played.  Some interesting questions arise over details of the rules, which give advantage or disadvantage to units in combat in certain combinations. For example  'Missile Mounted' get +1 against 'Melee Foot' ( note that without that modifier the Melee unit would have a +1 advantage, but also that the Missile unit always fires first).  This is all quite subtle stuff, which  I will be interested to ponder over and try to decode all the ramifications of what on the face of it is a very simple combat mechanism. 

Overall, I enjoyed this - it certainly gave a very simple and quick means of 'scratching the itch' for a game, and I can see that it could be very useful for playing through mini-campaigns in short order. I note that there is a companion volume available with many scenarios recreating real battles of the period;  it may be interesting to see how White Mountain, Lutzen or Naesby translate to this small gridded-game format. Having recently bought a book about Fribourg, 1644, I wonder if I could work out a scenario for that? We shall see.  

Next, I need to 'crack on' with painting scenery for my Risorgimento 19th Century Italy project, and I feel a Portable Seven Years War  game is long overdue - and I also hope to get to the Partizan show at Newark in about a week's time, so plenty to be going on with and to generate future posts here. Until then, keep well, everyone.    

Proper Napoleonic gaming : Medina de Rio Seco, 1808

Last week I was lucky enough to have a session of 'proper' ( i.e. 'in person' ) gaming, courtesy of old buddies Tony and Reg, and hosted by Tony at his lovely home near Whitstable. We played a Napoleonic game using Black Powder rules and 15mm figures, and Tony's chosen scenario was  the battle of Medina de Rio Seco  (14th July 1808).  This was a clash between French and Spanish forces during the Peninsular War - Tony had based the game on a scenario from the Shako rules system,  I  took a slightly dim photo of the map:

 According to Wikipedia  a combined body of Spanish militia and regulars moved to rupture the French line of communications to Madrid. General Joaquín Blake's Army of Galicia, under joint command with General Gregorio de la Cuesta. 

The Spanish are divided into two distinct forces, with Blake's units [ in the scenario, Blake does not appear on the table, and Cuesta is Spanish C-in-C ]  on the hill centre-left,  Portago's brigade  on the Spanish baseline at top right,  and Cuesta with reinforcements coming up later. The lack of co-ordination between Cuesta and Blake opened up a gap which the French commander Bessieres spotted, and moved to exploit.

The French baseline is at the bottom, with two brigades  along it facing the hill and Lasalle's cavalry entering on the road, while a further formation under Mouton  is at centre right, threatening to get between the two Spanish contingents and sweep away the Spanish left wing.  The French also had reinforcements - a brigade of the Young Guard, due to arrive on their right.  

Reg and I divided the French between us, with me commanding the troops facing the hill and Reg leading  Lasalle's and Mouton's formations and the Young Guard, while Tony took command of the  Spanish. Here's a picture of the starting positions from my point of view, with my chaps in the foreground, Reg's force at far rght beyond the road, and Tony's Spanish atop the ridge in centre  and straddling the road, top centre. 

Most of what follows will inevitably be from my point of view and my memory of events, and I admit I took a slightly random set of photos during the game, but I hope I can give an idea of what transpired. 

I'm no Napoleonic expert, but of course I had the 'conventional wisdom' to know that Spanish infantry can be a bit rubbish ( their Militia units especially have weak morale ) , and looking at all my lovely French infantry lined up in assault columns with voltiguers out at the front, it seemed a no-brainer to order a general advance to sweep the Spanish off the hill.  But I had reckoned without a few things. First the wooded area, which slowed down the battalions trying to move through it, and thus disrupted co-ordination of my attack - obviously  I could not charge home all along the line at the same time.  Second, Tony had carefully lined his infantry units up in two lines,  meaning that when charged by my units, the front rank of Spanish units  would get combat bonuses for having friends in rear support. Suddenly the attacking elan of my French (in only a single line of units ) began to look like it might not be enough. And finally, I had no cavalry, but  Tony had a unit of Spanish heavy cavalry, who promptly charged downhill and crashed into my left-hand brigade. 

Spanish Heavy Cavalry coming down the slope (centre)..

    

Zut alors! Here they come!

I should point out that the French infantry unit in the above picture had succeeded in a die roll to hurredly form square when charged ( they only have 3 bases, so making an actual square formation on the table can't happen),   I should also mention that the figures are 15mm scale,  mostly from AB Figures  which are rather nice and very crisply well-detailed.  Many of them were painted by Stonewall Figures / Capitan, and some by Tony himself - Tony's work included those bicorne-wearing Spanish Heavy Cavalry in the picture, and I think you can see what a good job he did with them! 

A nice feature of the Black Powder (2nd Edition) rules was the handling of French attack columns and skirmishers - the 'Attack Column' formation makes the unit more likely to pass its orders dice-roll and advance, the skirmisher base out front causes a reduction in enemy musketry die rolls, and when 'contact' is made the skirmish base is simply removed, simulating the voltiguers 'merging back' into the column as the charge goes in.  I thought that all worked pretty well and looked 'right'.  

What didn't work so well was my attacks - what with attacking uphill, trying to fend off the Spanish cavalry, the woods breaking up my line and the well-supported Spanish first line, most of my attacking battalions made very little impression on the enemy!  There was hard fighting, and the Cavalry were eventually destroyed by my musketry ( I think Tony allowed them to 'charge home' against the square as a test of how the combat rules handled the situation, which probably weakened them ),  but losses mounted up, several of my units reached 'Shaken' status, and all too soon my left-hand brigade under Merle had 50% of its units Shaken, thus 'breaking' the brigade and forcing it to retire. Not a good start!

Meanwhile on our right, Reg was having troubles of his own, in particular with Lasalles' two cavalry regiments, which he repeatedly tried to order to sweep onto the end of the hill and take the Spanish line in the flank and rear, only for them to repeatedly fail their orders rolls, and stay pretty much stationary for most of the game!  One of those quirks of the Black Powder orders/initiative mechanism, we can only assume that the cavalry commander  weras sick (or drunk!)  on the day, and/or that all messengers sent to them with orders were incapacitated and didn't get through! We realised that we probably should have sent Bessieres himself to see what was going on and urge them on ( C-in-C can re-roll orders dice ), but he was too busy elsewhere, it seemed! 

Above is a view from Reg's side of the table -  the two recalcitrant cavalry units on the hill  (upper left) - to add to the annoyance, they had stopped close to a Spanish battaltion which was forced into square but was able to keep sniping at them for several moves - us French commanders became rather obsessed with trying to kill that single unit! In the centre of the picture, the Young Guard  faces off against Cuesta's rather mixed quality  Spanish infantry.

Also on Reg's side,  here are ( I think)  Portago's Spanish brigade coming into contact with Mouton's French line infantry - who could have done with some help from those cavalry too! 

Reg managed to break Portago's brigade, but Cuesta's reinforcements arrived in numbers and had to be countered by the Young Guard, and there was long and hard, but good-humoured  fighting between regular opponents Tony and Reg, who know each other's tricks pretty well after many years!  Below we see the Young Guard doing battle with Cuesta's infantry - the number of casualty marker  figures and 'smoke puffs' denoting Disordered units are testament to the ferocity of the combat. 

Back to my side, and it all got very touch-and-go, my largest brigade (Verdier) could  not fight its way onto the hill, and took so many casualties that it was very close to breaking - which would have destroyed my entire wing. I became a bit more sensible at this point and pulled the most battered units back, and got Verdier busy rallying the shaken units, while a couple of less-damaged  units traded volleys with Spanish infantry.  The dice went in my favour at the crucial moment, with Tony unable to shoot up my chaps much more, and failing a couple of orders rolls which might have allowed his infantry to pursue us down the hill and finish off Verdier's brigade.  I guess the Spanish units felt comfortable holding that hill, and decided to stay there!   As you can see in the picture below, my chaps had pulled back quite a long way fron the hill.  

In the distance you can also see how Reg's wing has progressed despite hard fighting, with  the Young Guard toe-to-toe with Cuesta's men at top right - it had been an epic fight.  So epic in fact that having started the game after lunch, breaking for dinner at the local pub, we went back to the table for an hour or so after dinner - I think play only paused for sleep about 11pm - and back again after breakfast the following morning for a last hour or so!   The victory condtions depend on the number of 'broken' brigades on each side -  in the end I think I had lost Merle's brigade, Reg had lost Mouton,  but we had broken the Spanish brigades of  Portago and Masseda, and the final blow came when my battered brigade under Verdier managed to finally break Tony's brigade ( Cagigal ) on the ridge.  Three-two to the French, which the scenario defined as an honourable draw,  and that felt about right.   Tony and Reg are hard-bitten old campaigners and played a great game, though the dice weren't always with Reg - especially regarding those cavalry, still resolutely stationary on the hill to the end. I think I was much too confident of the abilities of the French infantry and nowhere near cunning enough - I should have split my infantry either side of the woods and attacked in two waves for rear support, hopefully crashing into the Spanish at two points simultaneously (mind you, still not sure how I would have dealt with those Spanish cavalry! ).   My first Napoleonic game in many a long year, so I'm chalking it up as a learning experience, or that's my excuse at least!  Here's a post-game picture of my fellow commanders, with the French cavalry still rooted to that hill at centre left..

Tony (left) and Reg : beach hut prices unknown, sadly

 

Many thanks guys,  especially Tony for excellent hosting and scenario planning, and to Reg for putting up with my beginner's command style!  

I thoroughly enjoyed the game, and great conversation across the table and over dinner etc. My second game with Black Powder and  I enjoyed playing these rules - I do like the simplicity of the combat and firing rolls with simple D6s and straightforward modifiers, such that after just a few turns you can pretty much remember the dice rolls you need for hits and saves.  The 'orders' rolls I think are good too,  even though they can throw up unusual events such as those French cavalry refusing repeatedly to move! We should have got our C-in-C to go and give them an earful and re-roll...  As discussed before, a slight downside is the plethora of 'special rules' used to tailor the basic rules to the specific period and different troop types,  which  can lead to an awful lot of paging back and forth in the rulebook and the relevant period supplement.  The game threw up an interesting discussion on the timing of infantry going into square - in the rules this only must occur when they are actually  charged by cavalry, not simply when within charge range, for example.  That means an infantry unit in line can advance towards a cavalry unit and try to shoot it up, which seems a pretty 'brave' ( in the Yes, Minister  sense ) thing to do! Tony and Reg have been discussing a 'house rule' modification to that one, perhaps to vary the die roll required to form square depending how close the enemy cavalry start from, which seems a reasonable idea. With a whole bunch of optional rules already there, adding one or two in-house variations seems entirely OK. 

Final shot - those Spanish cavalry causing mayhem on my left wing.. huzzah!

 Once again many thanks to Tony and Reg, that was a great game and a great day! We might manager another get-together later in the year, we think, and that would be very welcome - some talk of ECW? that would be interesting! 

Meanwhile one or two other hobby things to get back to after a lot of social and domestic 'real life' over the Easter period - for example, orders are being drafted for a big battle around Prague in Chris 'Nundanket's Bohemia 1757 campaign. It will be fascinating to see how our orders translate to action on his gaming table...   And still lots of scenery to be painted for my 'Risorgimento' Italy 1859 project. So, I hope plenty to write up in future posts on this blog. Until then keep well, everyone. 

Salute 2025

Last Saturday, 12th April was by all accounts the warmest day of the year so far in the UK, so how did I spend it? Yes of course, indoors - wandering around a huge and somewhat dimly-lit exhibition hall at London's ExCel Centre,  venue for South London Warlords'  Salute 52  wargaming show.

Need I say it's a very large show, with about 120 games and a similar number of traders listed on the program. That really is more than I can deal with on one day!  So a degree of selectivity and filtering is required,  and my 'filter' is to simply stick to 'historical' games only, and mostly pass by the fantasy and sci-fi games, just because I don't play that sort of game myself.  So with apologies to those who love the latter formats,  here is a selection of the pictures I took of the games I did stop and look at - more or less in the order I saw them..

Well, a big show needs big games, and in prime position right near the entrance was Retired Wargamers Reloaded  Gotterdammerung Berlin 45  

Depicting the final Soviet Army assault on the Reichstag in April 1945, this absolutely gargantuan table (I am told it was about 20 feet long) was truly spectacular. Just look at all those tanks! 

 

I gather the buildings are 3D-prints modelled on the actual buildings that were there - they were really impressive. 

 

 and I particularly liked the huge Flak Tower in the far corner

 

This display won the award for 'Best Scenery' at the show - well-deserved. I also understand that it will be appearing at some more shows this year, starting with Broadside, Gillingham on 14th June.   

After that show-stopper, the expression 'follow that' sprang to mind. But fear not, there were plenty of other great games to see. 

A nice 'compare and contrast' moment  was provided almost immediately, by the Loughton Strike Force Warsaw 44 game.  

  More excellent scenery, as one comes to expect from the 'LSF', and the game was being played through with ( I think ) 'O Group' rules. I loved  the dive-bombing Stuka; 

 and the tramcar barricade 

Getting away from WW2,  Simon ( To The Strongest ) Miller and friends put on a nice-looking War of Spanish Succesion game Louis Quatorze’s Warses,  as a playtest of Simon's upcoming ruleset for the period

 You can't beat the colourful look of the troops in this period, which exceed even those of Simon's signature Hawaian shirts..

The Gentlemen’s Wargames Parlour group showed their 'VBCW'   Like cricket - but with guns - not sure exactly how that worked, but it looked suitably quirky! 

Now back to WW2, and a couple of Western Desert games. First Brecon Wargames Club - DAK ATTACK   participation game of an LRDG raid on an Axis airfield: 

 

and second,  Anschluss Publishing with their The Defence of Tobruk 1941 : Anschluss are another group who always do a very nice-looking table. I bought their 'War on the Ground' rules a couple of years ago, they are really designed for 15mm  and smaller scales, but I might get away with playing a smaller action with my 20mm WW2 forces - one day! Notice more Stukas, they seem to be the aircraft of choice at this year's show.

Still in Africa (albeit fictional ) but a few decades later,  Weymouth Levellers Wargames Club AK47 game:

 

Cornwall Wargames Assocation were having all the fun with their Brandy for the Parson participation game of 18th-Century smugglers, including 'Judge Jeffries'  doing a Brucie's Play Your Cards Right  turn drawing cards for the players,  a great idea for a light-hearted game, and note the club members in smugglers 'uniform' striped sailors shirts. 

Back to Ancient times and a more traditional approach, Society of Ancients Battle of Gaugamela 331 BC  used Impetus rules and great 28mm armies

 

the 18th Century Imagi-nations Wars of the Gelderland Succession Vauban’s Wars game depicted a fictional siege and looked very nice ( including obligatory wargamers pointing, as this was clearly very much a game being played ) 

 

 

 

Friends of General Haig showed their   Breaking the Stalemate, Iran Iraq War

 

 ..including a nice idea for storing multiple dice
 

From desert to snowscapes,  Hugo’s Heroes  Trangen 1808 , Swedes vs. Norwegians
 

 and including Napoleonic Ski Troops! 

From the same period,  Garry David Wills/Caseshot Publishing's  The Best Army in Europe - the Battle of Pirmasens 1793  , 15mm Game using Black Powder, a really nice looking terrain using Kallistra 'Hexon' system - and roads/rivers by Timecast,  I think he told me. 

I think this was a scenario from Gary's excellent Throwing Thunderbolts book on the Revolutionary Wars period.

Going forward again by 90-odd years, the Continental Wars Society presented their  Battle of Gurguljat 1885, an episode from the war between Bulgaria and Serbia - which you are of course all experts on(!)  As ever, a really good setup with loads of information about the battle and the CWS, and complimentary biscuits, something of a tradition! 

 

There were mobile post offices on the battlefield, and a (Bulgarian?) marching band:

 and finally, a rather brilliantly simple set of home-brew rules were being used, which I can show in their entirety:

 

I think these look rather good! Notice the massive simplification of not worrying about casualties but only the effect of combat on morale, because of course the result of taking casualties is ultimately the destruction of a unit's morale  (a similar mechanism drives combat in  the slightly more complex Twilight of the Sun King/Divine Right etc rules series, does it not?).   Great idea, and it allowed the game to be played very quickly and easily, so players still had time to chat to us punters. I joined the CWS myself last year, and it was great to meet and chat wth Ralph Weaver and his associates, including Peter Laing figures expert Ian Dury - nice to talk to you, Ian!

 More 19th Century Europe in the form of  Yarkshire Gamer's The Battle of Mentana 1867 “Rome or Death”   using really nice Gringo 40s figures

 

I really need to get some of Garibaldi's Redshirts into my 1859 Risorgimento forces! 

 

Now it seems the theme of the show was 'Highlanders', but I only realised that quite late in the day when I enountered these gents: 

 They were from  Gordon’s Regiment, Scots Brigade, of the Sealed Knot. Very interesting to see their interpretation of the Scots  'Hodden Grey' of the 17th Century, and worth remembering when next painting any such units for wargames.

Back to WW2 and another spectacular terrain for TooFatLardies What a Tanker participation game Operation Charnwood, Caen July 1944, which was proving very popular 

and on closer inspection, there were quite a lot of tanks in there..

 Mark Backhouse Strength and Honour 2mm Roman game looked great, note the ingenious creation of woodland from what I strongly suspect was 'bobbly bathmat'...

 

Peter’s Paper Boys  Wofun 10mm Napoleonic - I could be tempted by these, no need to paint!

More monumental WW2 :  All Hell Let Loose,  Bloody Omaha

And finally, last but very much not least,  Per Broden and Wyre Forest Wargamers The Crossing of Düna 1701  Great Northern War game looked tremendous: 

I loved the floating siege batteries

and the typically GNW forest

and there were some armies in there too! (10mm?)

Phew - that's all the games I managed to get decent-ish pictures of; by no means all of just the 'historical' setups, and I was there from 11:00am to closing time 5:00pm.  As usual, for much more comprehensive coverage I can recommend the fantastic reports by 'Posties Rejects'  Big Lee and Ray Rousell - how they manage to get round ALL the games is beyond me! 

Of course there's a social aspect to the show, and I managed to catch up with old friends and meet some new ones - had a coffee and chat with long-lost and receently reunited old gaming buddies Tony and Reg, and Tony's son Oliver ( Tony and Oliver were part of the Retired Wargamers Reloaded support team, tasked with setting up and packing away that huge Berlin game!) - more about Tony and Reg in my next post.   I also attended 'Reject' Ray's Blogger Meet-Up  ;  it was really nice to do that, and good  to chat to,  among others, Andy ( Major Ballsup's Hobby Shed ) and Steve ( General Reeve ) , and very interesting to meet Matt Crump,  who told us he is the man who introduced Jon ( Palouse Wargaming Journal )  Freitag to remote gaming during lockdown - quite a few of us have a lot ot thank him and Jon for!  Also at the meet up was Chris P aka Nundanket, and we joined forces for a couple of hours after the meet-up to wander and look at the games. Good to see you, Chris! 

And of course there was a little light shopping, but I kept it moderate, partly due to time constraints!  A couple of Helion books - most importantly  Stephan Thion's Battle of Fribourg 1644 which I hope to use for a re-fight and will discuss more in a future post, and I also took a punt on the new Bismarck's Wars rulebook,  with a view to trying them on my 1859 Risorgimento armies.  That project needs scenery, and I picked up some basic ( and cheap - good!) unpainted  MDF roads and rivers from Pendraken, and trees and fences from Heroics and Ros. So now I need to get those painted...

And that's about it - as you can tell, it was quite the marathon day, and my legs and back ached considerably that night! But I'm very glad I went along, and it's been great reading all the other bloggers' reports of the day - partly for getting an idea of all the masses of stuff I missed(!)  

If you've read this far, I hope you've enjoyed seeing my pictures, and if you were there, I hope you had a great day.  Many thanks again to all the folk who I chatted to, that's what the day is really about.. 

Next time, I hope to report on some actual Face-to-Face gaming - Napoleonics, no less, with Black Powder rules... Until then keep well, everyone.