Saturday 29 November 2008

Warfare Show

Went to the Warfare show in Reading (UK) last Sunday with my Son. I was aiming to buy the new Valiant Plastic German Panzer Grenadiers but all of the traders sold out on Saturday :-(

I did buy some Numidian & Roman Cavalry and some Balearic slingers, so I now have the figures to build out my Caeserian Basic Impetus Army. I got the figures from Magister Militum. These guys have good deals on nice workmanlike 28mm figures. In fact if you look at their larger packs they are similar in price to the Warlord plastics ! I am seriously considering ordering some of their Gallic Cavalry instead of the Warlord ones.

I have managed to paint the Balearic slingers and they look great, I will post a picture when I get the base finished.

I also picked up Niel Thomas's "Wargaming, an Introduction". This book has basic rules for Ancients, Pike and Shot, Napoleonics, ACW, Colonial skirmish and WW2. At first glance the rules look very basic but I have played the Ancient rules a few times and they do give a good fast game. I plan to try the Napoleonic rules (I have 6mm Adler figures) and the WW2 (lots of 20mm models and figures) as soon as I get a chance and I will post a litle review.

Other purchases were some paint and a 2 foot terrain square with a hill (I try to buy one of these at each show I go to).

The paint is from Coats d'Arms. I am going to try their new washes in comparison with the Citadel ones. I will post a review when I have tried them out. I also bought their "Suntanned Flesh", this is exactly the same colour as the "Army Painter" flesh spray. I primed the Balearics with the flesh spray, washed them with Citadel Orgryn Flesh and then highlighted with the Suntanned Flesh - perfect.

Around the show I saw some good demo games. There was a massive table with 28mm Russians vs Japanese (1939) with masses of green sprayed fake fur steppe. The demo grabbed your attention because there was a Russian fighter with two rockets streaking from it above the table.

I had a go at two participation games (to keep my boy happy). First was an Orc racing game. You had to race against other players whilst Trolls rained objects down on you. If you survived to the end of the course you gained points. If the Troll hit a target on your turn (you had tokens to activate Trolls) you gained points for each casualty. I actually won ! My Son played this two more times. I think this game was put on by the Dunstable club.

The other game that I tried was a post WW2 skirmish - Secret Agents vs Zombies and Monsters in a Berlin bunker. The objective was to stop a V2 with an atomic warhead from launching. Four players against a games-master. One of the players turned out to be a traitor. I was the Russian agent and not the Traitor. A Zombie killed me. My Son played 3 games of this one too. The game was put on by the Wessex Wargamers from Winchester.

I did spend a long time nattering with Nigel Betts. Nigel was putting on an American War of Independence game with the GLC club. This was a lovely looking 28mm game representing the Battle of the Clouds (which didn't actually happen as "rain stooped play").

All in all a very good day out at a great little show.

1 comment:

nigelb said...

yes sorry for nattering i do go on some times

Greek Light Cavalry

Some Greek Light Cavalry; from the Victrix set of the same name. I did add in a few heads from the spares box.