Partizan 2025.

Another year and another Partizan, a show I nearly missed this year, as all the years of driving I did professionally added to the ever increasing traffic in the UK, made worse by our authorities love for cameras, so called 'smart motorways' that have only served to increase the chances of having an accident, and reduced the average speed of travel still lower have finally combined to put me right off driving for anything more than three hours at a stretch in this country and my preference for keeping my adrenaline levels low.

So it was with much gratitude that I accepted Steve M's offer to do the four and a half hour drive up to Newark this year, where in the company of my eldest son, Tom, Steve L and Mr Steve we all gathered at out new favourite overnighter, a certain gastro-pub out in the Lincolnshire Wolds with all the bucolic delights of the English countryside, fine ales and excellent food it has to offer on the Saturday evening; before a thirty minute drive to the Newark show ground, the traditional venue for Partizan, and all the delights this show has to offer with its combination of great traders and perhaps some of the finest games to be seen in the hobby.

A busy entrance marquee to this year's Partizan show.

However on arrival at the ground the next morning suitably fortified by a full English breakfast on top of the most magnificent rack of ribs I had enjoyed the previous evening, together with much banter, laughs, and a few 'Lucozade's', I noticed the arrangement from this time last year had changed, with our parking away from the previous grassy area in front of the show hall which entailed a bit more of a walk to the entrance, but in addition an entrance now garnered with a marquee providing additional trader space together with a 'Tabletop Sale', buyer and seller space for those looking for a possible bargain. 

 

This year's Partizan floor plan and list of games, traders, societies, and guest authors.

As is my usual practice, I like to sort out my purchases and pre-orders with the traders on arrival, it being so important to me to support the traders often making very long journeys to attend, so that I can then turn my attention to what I consider, for me, the most attractive part of Partizan, namely the games on show and the inspiration I have always drawn from them over the years, and the ideas gained for use with my own collections combined with chatting to fellow enthusiasts, as passionate about this daft hobby as I am.

I, as usual, have showcased the games that caught my eye for one reason or another, but should add a caveat that my coverage of the games on show this year is not as exhaustive as in others, for which I will apologise, as I know there were other games I saw that I did not get time to include due to a large amount of time picking up additional purchases and grabbing the opportunity of talking to some very interesting people during the day.

So in no particular order and first up 'The Yarkshire Gamer' having a break from the WWII naval modelling, as I too am having an excursion from the Age of Sail, to both indulge in a bit of American War of Independence in glorious 28mm, this being a marvellous interpretation of the British Grenadier inspired take on the Battle of Germantown 1777.

I very much enjoyed taking the pictures of this game providing as it does much food for thought on the collection I'm currently working on and the look of the table and units I have in mind.

The chaps from the Westbury Wargamers have featured in previous Partizan posts and so I was not entirely surprised to be standing in front of their interpretation of the Battle of Sagrajas, fought in 1086 between the Almoravid army, led by their king, Yusuf ibn Tashfin, and the forces of King Alfonso VI of Castile, just north of the modern day city of Badajoz in Spain as part of the Spanish Reconquista.

The Burton and District Wargames club presented a Zulu War battle I don't think I had seen before namely the Battle of Intombe fought on the 12th March 1879, in the wake of the disaster at Isandlwana on the 22nd of January, that saw an Imperial supply column escorted by a company of the 80th South Staffordshire Regiment attempting to reach the garrison at Luneburg but forced to halt its march at the Intombe River due to high water levels.

The British defenders were caught out by a surprise night attack and were very rapidly overwhelmed, with just forty survivors escaping and led by Sergeant Anthony Booth on a three mile chase, fighting off their pursuers along the way as they made their escape and seeing Booth awarded the VC for his valour.

The figures are mainly Black Tree Designs and the rules in use were The Men Who Would be Kings by Osprey Publishing.

The Iron Brigade presented a fictitious ACW encounter entitled Bonnie Blue Flag after the rules they have developed and published with Caliver Books, with a straightforward encounter action demonstrated between a brigade from each side, of six Union and five Confederate regiments supported by a battery of guns and tasked with forcing their enemy to quit the field.

For us gamers of a certain age the loss of friends in the hobby becomes a fact of life we are all too familiar with and it was nice to see the tribute this game represented to a friend of the chaps from the Iron Brigade, and I always feel our friends are never far away when we gather around a table and remember them with affection.

The Chesterfield Old Boys had a very nice WWII 28mm Russian Front game entitled 'Russia, Case Blue - The Georgian Highway' with a glorious collection of models married with terrain and buildings that really captured for me the feel and look of the battles that characterised the German campaign of Russia in the summer of 1942 with a mixture of early and late war models of tanks and vehicles coupled with a sprinkling of British and American supplied equipment.

The Russians were using their infamous dogs complete with satchel charges ready to run under the nearest German tank.

Tom and I really enjoyed taking some time to check out the League of Augsburg game entitled 'Dutch Raid on Hispaniola circa 1675, complete with a Voodoo suicide squad and accompanying war-dogs contesting the beach and bringing back memories of the late great Sir Roger Moore as James Bond in Live and Let Die. I think you'll know what I mean when you scan down through the pictures from the game below.

Gordon's Gophers presented a Rapid Fire Reloaded game of Operation Battleaxe in 15mm with some particularly nice vehicles and guns on display complete with clouds of dust to capture the feel of hundreds of tanks racing across the desert wastes to close with the enemy.

I particularly enjoyed the shading and highlighting of the various desert paint schemes on the vehicles, something that can be quite tricky to produce well at this scale, and finished off with some nice decals to capture the look.

The Russian Front was well represented this year with the Derby Wargames Society producing their take on Operation Typhoon from 1941, here in 28mm and depicting an attack on a Russian village by a German infantry company supported by StuGs as close artillery support and part of Guderian's 2nd Panzer Group's attack against the Soviet Bryansk Front from the 30th September to the 3rd October 1941, this game using Bolt Action version three.

I particularly liked the trench full of sub-machinegun toting commissars ready to deal with those brave enough to be a coward in the Soviet army.

The Ruckusteers presented a nicely turned out participation game of 'Here's the Ruckus' the recently published medieval skirmish game inspired by Andy Callan's 'Never Mind the Billhooks' that according to Wargames Illustrated 'allows players to step into the shoes of a Captain and take charge of a small retinue of warriors, leading them through gritty, granular, tactically challenging, story-driven, and fun-laden skirmish encounters'.

The League of Extraordinary Kriegspielers came up with a very entertaining 28mm Pulp game entitled 'Wake Island 192?', an island of calm and tranquillity as the Pan American bill-board ironically declares, and a game which I think speaks for itself when you take a look at the pictures I took, with its distinctive take on the historical Japanese invasion of Wake on the 8th December 1941.

The next game shown here was an absolute delight for 'Yours Truly' given that I was able to see the figures and terrain close up, but also that I had the opportunity to shake hands with and chat to its creator, Mr Bill Gaskin a hero of mine in the hobby and whose collections I have only till now been able to admire from the pictures that have graced many publications over the years and greatly influenced my own efforts in the hobby.

The style and quality is immediately recognisable with these marvellous miniatures and the accompanying terrain, and Bill and I share an admiration for the late great Peter Gilder, among others, whose talent and happiness to share his modelling and painting techniques has influenced us both and it was such a pleasure to chat wargaming with Bill and to enjoy his game that I am very pleased to be able to share here on the blog.

Steve L, Tom and Mr Steve join me in enjoying this stunning collection of Seven Years War figures and terrain presented by Bill Gaskin, with some Battle of Minden inspired British infantry fending of French cavalry whilst fearlessly standing in line to meet their charge.

The very suitably named Bodkins presented a stunning 28mm Wars of the Roses 'What If' scenario entitled The Battle of Boars Hill, 6th April 1471 that presupposes that Queen Margaret had not been delayed by storms in the Channel but had landed as planned, along with several other possible alternative movements by other key players at the time, such as Fauconberg, Warwick and Edward, with all five armies involved in the campaign of that year meeting south west of Oxford as depicted here.

These armies are of course using the wonderful range from Perrys and represent elements from collections within the group and are just a glorious display of painting and detailing that I hope to lavish at a similar level on my own planned collection, waiting patiently at present in my store cupboard for me to share the love with them.

Check out the surcoat on Sir John Touchet, Lord Audley and that of his man at arms riding alongside. Simply stunning work and a real inspiration.

Finally I managed to include some pictures of the Perry's presentation of their 28mm Peninsular War inspired game promoting their rules written in conjunction with Jervis Johnson, 'Valour and Fortitude'.

Needless to say this game was a beautiful rendition of a battle from this period and theme and as well as the marvellous terrain and figures was also a showcase for some of the new Spanish figures recently rolled out.

We had an absolutely wonderful time on our weekend 'Boys Beano' to Partizan and I also came back home carrying a large bag of goodies ready to start serious work on my AWI collection in the forthcoming months, with plenty of inspiration garnered from yet another excellent Partizan show to encourage the work ahead.

Thank you to Steve M, Steve L, Mr Steve and Tom for their company and the fun of the weekend, and I look forward to showcasing the AWI project going forward here on the blog.

As always more anon

JJ