Monday 3 October 2016

Derby World Wargames - 1 October 2016


It’s been a while since I brought you a report from one of the wargames shows in the UK. There’s an obvious reason for this – which is I don’t get to visit many. Work and family life often prevent me from taking to the road and travelling around the country, even thought the shows are almost always on a weekend. It was a rare treat, therefore, to make the trip up to Derby World Wargames over the weekend (now held in Castle Donnington), accompanied by my good chum and Chief Lard-meister, Mr Richard Clarke.

We ran a participation game of ‘Viva Ras Begas’, and excellent short scenario using the Sharpe Practice 2 rules form TooFatLardies. The action was set in the Horn of Africa in 1840, and lots of details of the game, the figures and the terrain are available HERE on Richard’s Lard Island News website.



Everyone  seemed to have a fine time playing the game, which saw two thumping wins for the evil African slave-traders. Good job that history never turned out like this!  Huge thanks to everyone for playing, chatting or just stopping by.  



I had a good chance to walk around the show and collect a few things. I met new friends and old, and thanks to everyone who made me feel very welcome. I think that every one of the demonstration games I looked at was at least a very good standard, with a select few being really excellent. While not discounting the merits of the other games at the show, one game, based on the Battle of Rain in 1632, caught my eye.

 


As a Thirty Years War game it looked superb. I had the chance to chat with Dave, who was running the game and had painted the figures, at length. What I loved about Dave's game wasn’t just the amazing standard of painting of figures, or the superbly hand painted banners. What excited me was that the units had been built in a very eclectic manner, using figures from the widest possible range of 25mm figure manufacturers. 




There were Wargames Foundry, Warlord Games, Essex, 1st Corps, Dixons, TAG, a small number of Redoubt and no doubt others in the Imperial, Weimarian and Swedish regiments and squadrons. While figures of markedly different sizes were not mixed in the same unit, Dave mentioned that he had gone out of the way to mix figures of the same size of different manufacturers. The result was amazing. The differences in 25mm figure size and style blended seamlessly, as they so often do when the figures are on finished bases on fine terrain. Sometimes when we hold two 25mm figures in our hand, they can look to be very differently sculpted, shaped, sized and proportions. When painted, these differences can, I think, melt away in the glory of a game like Dave’s.



The one downside of an otherwise good venue was the dodgy lighting, as sadly you can see from some of the photos above. For once, my hamfisted photography was not to blame, but rather it was the electric light in the venue, which seemed to have a distinct ivory cream glow to it. If the colours in the photos look a little vivid, and on the yellow-ish side of the colour wheel, I am sorry – but for once, I don’t think it’s my fault!

37 comments:

  1. Like you, time and commitments have severely curtailed my attendance at wargame shows this year, so it's nice to see you out and about having the fun I missed.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Ashley. It's always great to get out on the road! Do you think you'll make it to 'Dragonmeet' this year? If so, it'd be great to meet up.

      Delete
    2. Probably not, I'm chasing my Bowman archery award and Saturday is the only day I can shoot.

      Delete
    3. Very best wishes with the Bowman award. You'll be greatly missed at Dragonmeet! Hope to catch up soon!

      Delete
  2. Exellent pictures ! Thanks for sharing !

    ReplyDelete
  3. Two great looking games. I had seen the SP game development on the Lardies site but the TYW game was new to me. Wonderful stuff and thanks for sharing.
    Peter

    ReplyDelete
  4. Good looking games MR R .. I fully agree once figures are mixed in you don't not really notice , and it gives a greT unique effect which is great to look at

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I was really taken by the variety in the units. They looked far better for it, and the sculpting differences melted away.

      Delete
  5. Splendid looking games both, but the scale of the Battle of Rain looks immense.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The battle was a large one, but the table wasn't over-full. A few routing units towards the end seemed to help as well!

      Delete
  6. Nice pics Sidney :)

    That 30YW game looks superb stuff

    ReplyDelete
  7. Thanks for this report and for the photos, SR. Glad to see that the TFL game is getting the love it deserves, and I agree with you, what a labour of love the 30YW game is! There is so much to look at in those photos, especially the camp scene with all the mundane labour going on behind the grand battlelines, as ordinary and mixedup as a Brueghel painting. I hope that game got some prizes.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm not sure about prizes, but there were many fine painterly touches around the tabletop battlefield. Sadly the photo I had of Count Tilly's coach didn't really come out, but that was very fine in its own right.

      Delete
  8. Two great looking games, thanks for sharing the pics!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Nice to have met up again (at the L&L stand) I agree that the lighting was a bit dodgy and thanks for some extra pictures of the battle of Rain 1632. it might yet inspire me to get going on my TYW armies again!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Will - great to meet up as well. Fingers crossed you head back to the TYW soon!

      Delete
  10. Nice photos in the circumstances, so Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  11. It looks to have been a fine day out. Thanks for the report and photos Sidney!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It was a fine show, Curt (even if I spent too much!)

      Delete
  12. It looks to have been a fine day out. Thanks for the report and photos Sidney!

    ReplyDelete
  13. Fantastic games. Thanks Sidney!

    ReplyDelete
  14. Still looking for army level TYW rules before being willing to invest in figs. Too little space and time to just collect.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You are spot on there, Charles. As a period, the Thirty Years War has been a little over-looked. It's also a period where the linguistic challenges (Swedish, German, Dutch, French, Spanish) make it hard to gain real traction over all of the historical sources and commentaries. It's a great shame, as the period is an amazingly rich one for wargamers. Fingers crossed that someone brings that army level set of rules out one day ;)

      Delete
  15. Great report! Your photos were a vast improvement on mine!

    Fortunately everyone seems to have taken all their photos of Viva Ras Begus earleir in the day, so there are no photos of me looking confused playing Ras Begus (or piggy in the middle!) on the second game of the day!

    Or shoudln't that be 'Reis' Begus?

    It was great to meet you and Big Rich and your Lardie associates: It seems I'll have to pay a lot mroe attention to the Twitter feed on the TLF official site if I want to stay in the loop with evetns using TLF rules!

    - Best wishes, Daniel.

    (No, Bartley Butsford isn't my real name, but then Sidney Roundwood isn't your real name either, is it? Actually, who was the REAL Sidney Roundwood? Some c.17th type?).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Bartley! It was great to meet you on the day - I'm really pleased you had fun on the beach in the Horn of Africa. You looked to be rolling high when I was watching! I'll try and keep blogging here regarding what's happening down at Lard Island, but you're right in that the best place to look for Lard related rule-sets is either "Lard Island News" (link in the blog post above) or following @TooFatLardies on Twitter

      And you're right. Shock Horror, but Sidney Roundwood is not my real name!! As to how that came about - it's a long story, coming (as many good things do) from the wargames table!

      Delete
  16. What a great update - thanks for sharing. They look like some very impressive setups.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Nice pictures and report of what must clearly have been a fine day out! A shame Germany is such a diaspora in wargaming terms...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It was a great day out, Nick. We do keep meaning to get over to Tactica in Hamburg some day to see the German wargaming scene for ourselves! Fingers crossed we can do this soon!

      Delete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...