Partizan 2021 - Mr Steve has been on his Travels!

Last weekend saw the running of the rescheduled Partizan show at Newark that I and friends normally attend in May, one of the two usual dates the show has been run in the past, pre-pandemic.

However with the relaxation of lockdown restrictions here in the UK, thanks in main to a positive uptake of the vaccine programme that has allowed people to start to resume a social calendar, there has been a bit of a rush for certain shows here in the UK to get on one of the weekend dates before year end, forcing some of us to choose which ones we will include before Xmas and hopefully a return to the usual wargaming calendar.

So it was that I found myself committed to attending the DWG this weekend to not only run my own game but to chair the club's Annual General Meeting where we sort out club business for the next twelve months ahead.

In spite of not being able to be in two places at the same time it is with great pleasure that I have been able to bring some unique pictures of this year's show submitted by the blog's regular outside correspondent Mr Steve who made the drive to Newark from South Wales and sent me a folder of games that grabbed his attention.

In no particular order, the games for October 2021 are;

Continually Wear the Blue, Plains Indian War, 28mm- Barnsley Association of Wargamers

With the glossy new republication of 'Pony Wars' by the late Ian Beck, I still have my original 1980 copy, I have a feeling we might be seeing a resurgence of interest in Plain Indians and 7th Cavalry games and the Barnsley chaps show how appealing these games are especially in 28mm.

Barons War, 28mm- Barons War Facebook Group/Warhost

I have to say I wasn't quite sure how this pet project of Footsore Miniatures would take off when they announced their Barons War range of 28mm figures and rules, with the Hundred Years War and Wars of the Roses the dominant games theme, perhaps because of the larger battles and figure availability.

That said this table really shows how to play this theme on a grand scale and the Footsore figures only enhance the effect with the glorious sculpts they have come up with.

El Cid, The Battle of Bairen 1097, 28mm - Mr James Morris & Friends

Wow! I can see why Steve lingered over this table, what a stunning table and lovely looking game. Our hobby shown at its best which even the casual onlooker couldn't not find themselves wanting to know more. Excellent.

The Battle of Crecy, 28mm - The Bodkins

What was I saying about the Hundred Years War being a popular medieval theme and I think this shows exactly why, with lines of English archers and men at arms facing off against massed ranks of gaily festooned ranks of French knights, what's not to like?

Battle of Zama, 28mm - Hull and East Riding Wargames Club

The Punic Wars and the second in particular is always a popular theme with ancient wargamers and when you see a classic battle such as Zama, Hannibal's last throw of the dice, and the final battle that determined whether it would be Rome or Carthage who would dominate the Mediterranean world you can see why. Love the classic Roman manipular chequerboard line.

The Battle of Dieg, 13th November 1804, 28mm - Boondock Sayntes

This is a period in Colonial Indian history, when the likes of Sir Arthur Wellesley and his brother were looking to make sure that the French would not be a problem in India as they had been in previous conflicts, that I have always fancied getting into. The colour and exoticism of Napoleonics meeting the ancient world together with the backdrop of the Indian terrain and architecture, makes this period a feast for the eyes. 

Fort Isolation 1758, 28mm (Muskets & Tomahawks) - Newark Irregulars

We have a large collection of 28mm FIW figures in our own club and I know a few of the chaps will be interested to see this 'lockdown project'. I think the bright side of this global pandemic is that our hobby has benefitted hugely from all the furlough's and increased painting time. With my own AWI Niagara collection taking shape, fought in the same part of the world only a few years later, I have grabbed plenty of inspiration from the Newark chaps, and I think that's the log fort I have my eye on for my own collection.

Seven Years War, 40mm - Friends of a Military Gentleman

As someone who has spent the last eighteen months building and rigging 1:700th ships for Trafalgar, I have to say this game is ridiculous, well ridiculously amazing; building a collection of figures and terrain in 40mm being mad enough but then to populate the table with fully rigged warships complete with crew has to be up there in the realms of extreme eccentricity and why I love this hobby so much.

Infamy Infamy, Wintery Romans vs Ancient Britons, 28mm - Harrogate Wargames Club

I was planning to play my first game of Infamy Infamy last weekend at club, but ended up running my own game so have it still on my 'must play' list. That said, I loved this rendition of a wintery first century Britain with legionaries in the snow and reminding me of needing to get back to my Romano-Dacians soon.

The War of Triple Alliance, 28mm - Perry Miniatures

I think it is safe to say that you could write down on the back of a postage stamp what I know about the War of Triple Alliance or the Paraguayan War, however the Perrys, regulars at Partizan, always produce an interesting and well turned out game and I think, like Steve, I would have spent plenty of time lingering over this table. Not that I'm ever likely to get into the Paraguayan War, but simply to enjoy the aesthetics of a lovely looking game and come away inspired to produces something similar.

The Battle of Guagamesque, 60mm Ancients (To the Strongest!) - Messrs Lycett and Miller

Alexander and Darius going at it in this 60mm, that's big!, To the Strongest game run by Dave Lycett and Simon Miller. You have to see these figures close up to see the level of detail lavished on them and Simon has posted some great pictures of their game on his blog, The Big Red Bat Cave, just follow the link below.

https://bigredbat.blogspot.com/2021/10/tother-partizan-2021.html

WWII Pacific 28mm - Iron Brigade

WWII really accentuated the empty battlefield effect of modern weaponry and the period is always a balancing act of the wargamer looking to get the toys out on the table versus depicting that emptiness particularly when it comes to the larger scale of figures.

In the end, as always, there is a compromise to allow the game to show off the look of the battle and the troops involved whilst trying to capture the look of terrain being fought over and this pacific atoll game does a very nice job.

The Battle of Utitza 1812, 28mm Napoleonics - The Old Guard

The advent of boardgame systems like Command & Colours from GMT and indeed Simon Miller's To The Strongest have heralded a new interest in grid/hex wargaming that brings all the advantages of zone based terrain to wargaming with figures; with units in clearly identifiable terrain and with targets clearly indicated by the hex or square grid arrangement, negating the use of tape measures and guessing angles of fire.

That said I have long passed though my own hex and grid phase of gaming as old friends of mine will know with my own adaptations of Peter Pig's WWII set PBI and the Worthington Games for my AWI system, Hold the Line, and have returned to my tape measure and angle of fire device.

The good thing to see with these latest incarnations is that the figures and terrain are not with the stress on the word not a boardgame, when the games are presented in this style and the figures are by no means simply tokens, with all the attention to detail lavished on them and the terrain, whilst capturing the ease of play the game has to offer.

 

So there we are, a quick review of the games Mr Steve pictured at this year's Partzan that has left me very much looking forward to 2022.

Thanks Steve, and this has been a Mr Steve Production in association with JJ's Wargames.

Next up, I've been enjoying painting some Footsore Vikings so hope to get some pictures up soon and I'm off exploring local battlefields with Mr Steve, so will post on our journey and the traveling goes on with a trip up to Nottingham to join the chaps at Warlord Games commemorating a certain world defining naval battle that occurred this month in 1805 - More Anon JJ.

PAW 2020 - Presented by the Plymouth Association of Wargamers

The main hall of the YMCA sports centre, Plymouth yesterday, with the other hall next door given over to the competition gamers, the show was well attended with a nice buzz in the rooms of wargamers chatting and playing and picking up stuff.

Yesterday I spent a very pleasant day travelling down to Plymouth in the company of Vince and Bob to revisit a show I hadn't attended for five years, namely PAW, presented by our neighbouring club, the Plymouth Association of Wargamers, based in the second city in Devon forty miles down the road from the more famous County town and City of Exeter - only kidding chaps.

PAW - Annual Show

PAW - 2015
PAW - 2014
PAW - 2013

The re-sparked interest in seeing the Plymouth show arose from chatting to several new members of the DWG who are Plymouth members as well and who suggested we might like to come down and see what was happening.

These local shows are a great time not only checking out games, picking up stuff from the traders but also an opportunity to 'shoot the breeze' with other local wargamers who I have met and chatted to over the years but who tend to attend other groups and clubs and so really only meet at occasions like this.

However with the recent growth in membership of the DWG in recent times, it felt like being at our own show at times bumping into other chaps from club who had also popped down to Plymouth to see what was on.

I wasn't really looking to get much in the way of purchases myself having recently added to the ship collection and with several vessels on the slip way in the JJ's Wargames Royal Dockyard, but ended up picking up HMS Royal Sovereign and some paint.

The latest additions to my current project plus a surprise contribution from Colin Farrant at Charlie Foxtrot Models of a copy of Naval Warfare in the Age of Sail which has added to the bedtime reading pile.

Not only that but Colin Farrant from Charlie Foxtrot Models happened to have a copy of  Naval Warfare in the Age of Sail by Bernard Ireland that he was looking to re-home and very kindly let me have it, given my current focus, all things age of sail. Thanks Colin that was very kind and very much appreciated.

I have posted a bit of an update on my current projects at the end of this post.

So as usual in no particular order I present some pictures of the games that caught my eye from the day:

Ghost Archipelago - Ian Rowe and Friends

Fellow Exmouth wargamer Taff and a few of his friends staged this glorious fantasy treat of a game using Ghost Archipelago from the Osprey Frostgrave stable of rules and books.

What particularly caught my eye with this game was the harbour, and buildings together with its protective town wall, with the latter being 3D printed and really setting off the look of the whole table, not to mention the fire breathing temple platform at the other end.

Great fun and a treat for the eye, and some examples of great modelling to capture a particular theme.

I know nothing about these rules other than their existence and am very unlikely to ever play a game like this, but I did enjoy watching the play and taking some time to get these pictures.

Test of Honour - John Roberts & Chris Pearce

Slightly more towards the historical theme, but with a period that has never really captured my imagination was this Samurai set piece using the Test of Honour rules.

John now joins us at the DWG and has regularly brought Test of Honour along as a stand by game should we need it for a club meet to cater for excess numbers.

Thus it was I joined John and some of the other chaps from club to finally get to play this game, and I have to say that I was really impressed with the mechanics and fun the game created as we moved characters and small groups of figures around on the stylised play mat seen in the pictures looking to dominate key objectives within the five turn scenario being played.

With some nicely turned out models and terrain pieces the game play is further enhanced to give a very thematic game that had me imagining scenes from Seven Samurai.

American War of Independence, Command & Colours - Martin Binns

Another nicely turned out game and in a period that is always likely to grab my eye was this Command and Colours game produced with figures and hex mat.

As you can see the individual units were nicely turned out together with terrain items that complimented the hex mat that did a very good job of turning the board game into a very attractive tabletop miniatures game.

I can definitely see the attraction of this style of gaming and I was using hexagons to do these kind of battles long before GMT thought it might be a good idea, but have now returned to my roots with games not reliant on any zonal appearance and hopefully more aesthetic in its overall look.

French Indian Wars - Laurie Walsh

Talking of aesthetics in tabletop gaming, the following FIW game exemplifies perfectly the point, offering pictures of figures in their natural environment, almost as if you were on the banks of the Mohawk River itself, three hundred plus years ago.

Some lovely modelling on show transporting the onlooker to scenes straight out of 'The Last of the Mohicans' - Very nicely done.

On my travels around the various games and trade stands I stopped off to watch a couple of chaps playing a little English Civil War set-to using 'The Kingdom is Ours' fast play rules from Bicorne Miniatures and published by Helion.

I have seen the rules advertised now and then but didn't really know too much about them and so it was great to watch the rules in action together with a selection of units from Bicorne who sell them ready made to work with the rules.

I really liked the chit draw activation system together with the combat exchanges I watched during play, and unfortunately there weren't any copies of the rules there on the stand as I would have bought them there and then, but I will pick up a copy anyway.

The activation is flexible enough to cater for individual units to brigades of multiple units should you want to play a bigger game.

English Civil War is a period I would really like to build a collection of figures around if I can just live long enough and these rules looked rather interesting.

So there we are for another PAW.

I had a very nice day out at my first show for 2020 and thanks to all the chaps I met who made the day it was and especially to Vince and Bob who travelled up with me on the journey from Exeter.

Finally as a bit of a post-script, I mentioned progress on my current project and the additions made to the collection this month and include here a few pictures of the current builds in progress, constructed from the French Fleet, box set.

The collection of French ships will bring my French squadron up to fourteen when these roll down the slipway.

The box offers specific stern galleries and figureheads to produce named French frigates and 74s from the generic plastic kits together with a French three deck first rate.

The classic lines of HMS Victory are captured well in the Warlord Games model

Alongside the French three decker I have HMS Victory taking shape for which I am looking forward to festooning with signal flags to stir the heart of any red-blooded Briton.

My French first rate starts to take shape, with the first wash applied

More anon
JJ