Colours 2024 - Newbury & Reading Wargames Society, plus a bit of Birthday Reading

Well another year in the hobby is fast approaching its close and my show calendar for 2024 has ended with a trip up to Newbury Racecourse for Colours 2024 in this the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Newbury & Reading Wargames Society; so with my hat on as Chairman of the Devon Wargames Group, only in our 43rd year, may I extend our congratulations on reaching this significant milestone and here's to the next fifty years.
 

I travelled up from Devon with Steve M who very kindly offered to do the driving this year, to meet up with pals from the DWG, Mr Steve, Steve L and John R, as we enjoyed the delights of Colours, one of the well established shows in the calendar and one I have posted about for several years now, going back to 2013, and looking back at that post, I'm pleased to say my style and technique at post composing has come on a bit since then.

JJ's Wargames - Colours 2013

As I am want to do, I like to get my shows off to a walk around the trading floor to see what's new and grabs my eye, and picking up any pre-orders awaiting my attendance which this year saw me calling in at Pendraken to collect some resupplies from Dave and Lyn Pengilley for my paint stock of Vallejo colours.

https://www.pendraken.co.uk/

Then I popped over to Battlezone Miniatures to sort out my requirements for a few colours from the Coat d'Arms range of paints that they now carry, my old pots not showing their colour code labels, and a bit of colour comparison needed to get the right shades of blue, red and dark grey.

https://www.battlezone-miniatures.co.uk/

Thank you to both for your kind and helpful service.

For a wargamer, there is nothing quite like the anticipation of a new show, and despite fifty years doing them I still feel that excitement about meeting and chatting with traders, game organisers and everybody who shares an interest in this daft hobby which at its heart is a very sociable pastime. 

Given that this was a personal anniversary that I share with show's organising club, I had a certain nostalgia for seeing some rules and games featured that figured very much in my earlier years in the hobby, none more so than Peter Pig and Poor Bloody Infantry I, that I picked up from a show in Weymouth many years ago, or PBI as it became more commonly referred to, with me still having my stapled copy of PBI I in my library as a memento of my first foray into regular WWII gaming.

Part of my WWII collection in action using my rules based on PBI II

I quickly set about using PBI as a format for developing my own set of rules based on them using hex terrain rather than squares, with an example above of an early D-Day Juno Beach game that I ran using them.

So it was with great interest that I stopped amid the Peter Pig inspired games to enjoy chatting to the chaps from the Friends of Peter Pig and their Monte Cassino inspired game which is not an easy type of terrain to represent on the wargame's table, but I thought captured nicely the ruggedness and immensity of it.

The Friends of Peter Pig & Rules for the Common Man - Monte Cassino using PBI 2024

The game was run to demonstrate the latest incarnation of PBI developed this year and I gather intended for imminent publication and although I don't play much WWII these days, I have a great fondness for this innovative set of rules.

It’s interesting to note the games that have changed the way we play wargames over the decades from the IGOUGO style of rules with their copious lists of combat and morale check factors that were the fashion in the 70's and 80's with the introduction of different types of activation rules, pioneered in many ways by the Lardies with 'I Aint Been Shot Mum' and perhaps influenced by board game designs prompting others to nod to the idea of friction with rolling to see which side had precedence of play.

Other innovations have been in the mix and I see Peter Pig with the 'zone-type' of play one of those key influences, in this case squares, but others have used hexes and now we have rules like 'Too the Strongest' and 'Command and Colours', brought to tabletop from a boardgame, very much part of this style of playing.

As well as checking out this game I very much enjoyed watching Martin running through the mechanics of play with his more recent set of rules Conquerors and Kings for Ancients to Medievals with some pike phalanx and hoplite action demonstrating the rules which were very entertaining.

https://www.peterpig.co.uk/rules.html

Wargaming Headquarters - Fallschirmjäger vs US Paras using Rapid Fire Reloaded

Another game that caught my eye, close to the Monte Cassino game and featuring another set of rules I cut my teeth on in my early days in the hobby was this very nicely turned out WWII set-up using Rapid Fire Reloaded.

I remember seeing this style of playing WWII games when visiting Peter Gilder's Holiday Centre back in the late 70's and then building my own armies to these rules.

One of the key aspects of Rapid Fire is their ease of play and the ability for new players to quickly pick up the way they work and was one of the reasons we chose to use this set of rules in a recent 'Big Xmas Game' at the DWG where we had lots of players with differing levels of knowledge about WWII, but all participating in a multi-table game and as expected they worked very well.

A nice looking table with well turned out models only enhances the look of the game Rapid Fire can produce, and this very well done table exemplifies how relatively straight forward it is to produce a table full of eye-candy such as this with a small collection of terrain and figures.

I also loved seeing the rubberised horsehair trees and hedges, pretty well the turn-to option back in the day for games at this scale, which even in these days of multiple terrain choices available, still look very good, and an option I use in my own collection.

The addition of telegraph poles as seen here and perhaps the odd road sign to compliment French advertising boards are an easy way to make a table like this pop. 

Nice game chaps, and well done. I really enjoyed watching the play.

Wargames Association of Reading - Illipa 206 BC using DBMM

This rendition of Illipa from the Second Punic War by the Wargames Association of Reading was an eye-catching table, not just for its imposing length but the the look of the terrain boards that seemed to really suggest an arid Spanish vista, and would work just as well creating a Tunisian one around Carthage itself.

Two large armies arrayed along its length added to the look, and I'm always going to stop for a Punic set-to.

Shepway Wargames - Russo-Finnish Winter War using Chain of Command

I'm always impressed with what folks can do with teddy-bear fur when it comes to terrain, but I can't remember the last time I saw it being used for a snow clad winter look before.

The chaps from the Shepway Wargames had managed to create this rather good snow clad look for their Russo-Finnish Winter War game that really did a great job at suggesting the frozen and bitterly cold battlescape portrayed by the books that had inspired this creation.

Loughton Strike Force - Borodino 1812, The Raevsky Redoubt using General D'Armee 2

I'm always going to stop for a well turned out Napoleonic set-piece and Borodino is just the ticket if you love seeing massed cavalry, infantry columns and big guns holding redoubts.

Not only that but 18mm is one of my favourite scales to see big battalions and regiments portrayed in and I have seen Dave Brown and the Loughton chaps turn out some excellent looking General D'Armee games in previous years and this ranks up there with them.

This table had lots of lovely cameo shots, so needless to say I spent a bit of time enjoying the spectacle.

Blood Red Roses, Game Demonstration - Society of Ancients

Finally, my attention was drawn to the Society of Ancients table, with two very interesting games they had being demonstrated, the first being a new to me map-game entitled 'The Saxon Shore is Burning' that looked very interesting with a lovely map and some very nice counters to match.

Set in 4th century Roman Britain and the Barbarian Conspiracy of 367 A.D, the Romans struggle to fend off a looting and pillaging series of attacks across the province from an alliance of the Scotti of Ireland, Atacotti of Western Scotland, Picti of Eastern Scotland and the Saxoni of Upper Germany/Lower Denmark. At just £15 this game looked very appealing.

However it was the other offering that grabbed my full attention, namely 'Blood Red Roses' written by Adrian Nayler.

 

https://soa.org.uk/joomla/games2/236-blood-red-roses

I had the good fortune to have Adrian talk me through what his creation was all about, and with a large stock of Wars of the Roses Perry miniatures occupying much of my to-do store room I was naturally all ears.

I have to say I was very intrigued with the ideas behind the game and its mechanisms for creating the armies for one-off games or quite readily usable for scenario based ones, as well as the combat system, using a combination of stances adopted by the player commander, Retire, Hold, Advance, Attack, and Assault and cards to influence the success or not of those stances from the ensuing combat, be that shooting, hand to hand or effectively a combination of both.

The rules are scale agnostic, so although 15mm are portrayed here in the demonstration, I can easily use my 28mm in a similar fashion, and finding the SOA chaps had sold out of the copies they had brought to the show, which was a good sign of enthusiasm for them, I ordered the rules when I got home, that come with a set of 72 playing cards, used for mainly generating the armies but that includes 18 x Happenstance cards and 18 x Leadership cards that are used during play, together with the printed rule book and reference card.

https://www.soa.org.uk/joomla/games2/236-blood-red-roses

Additionally copies of the reference sheet, stance counters and the complete card deck can be downloaded from the SOA page in PDF format and Adrian has also created a Board Game Geek page for the game that has additional downloads for playing it together with ideas for multi-player use, this game principally designed for two player use, and the number of companies required to fulfil the maximum size armies that can be generated by the cards.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/423716/blood-red-roses-a-game-of-battles-in-the-wars-of-t

It was great to chat with Adrian about his thoughts behind the design of this game and I came away as much enthused by his obvious passion for this project, as for my own ideas for using the rules with games I have in mind, and the basing involved for the armies that will allow me to use Blood Red Roses alongside other rules I have a liking for, plus I think they will work well for some campaign ideas I have in mind.

So there we are, my very personal take on this year's Colours show, which was a thoroughly enjoyable day, in good company and a great way to bring another show season to a close here on JJ's.

Finally, I spent a very pleasant time last weekend celebrating my birthday with friends and family which saw me being gifted with some wonderful books to add to my reading list over the foreseeable months followed by some book reviews here on the blog.

As you can see the current 'All at Sea' theme features large and I have already started delving into the delights of Anson's Navy by Brian Lavery and Sailors, Ships and Sea Fights from Nicholas Kaizer et al and Helion, so more anon with my impressions of these reads to come.

This kind of reading very much underpins my hobby and efforts at trying to better capture the events/aspects they describe in the games I like to play, not to mention that it is just another enjoyable aspect of the hobby.

Anyway that's it for now as thoughts now turn to getting ready for a bit of Kiss Me, Hardy at Clotted Lard next weekend.

More Anon

JJ