Show Report: T'other Partizan, 18th August, 2019

Just got back from The Other Partizan, and thought I'd post a little report. Mostly pics. 

I managed to persuade Teresa, my wife, to go with me. She used to go to all the mini-military events I went to. But stopped doing so some while back. We've had a busy few days, and Teresa more so than me. She soldiered on gamely (boom-boom!) as we went round all the tables, checking out all the games. But then succumbed to exhaustion, and went back to the car for a nap!

These Adler 20mm SS troops were my sole figure purchases.

I was then free to mooch around spending willy-nilly. But in the end I didn't buy that much. Just some new SS troops in 20mm, from Adler (with tiny little collar badge decals!), and some books. I'd have liked to bought a few more books, and probably some WWII vehicle models as well. But there really wasn't a great deal I felt tempted by, in the end. So I wound up feeling a little deflated.

Cool... A wicker man!

I'm assuming the pictures immediately above and below are from Infamy Infamy, a 28mm Romano-British participation game put on by Harrogate Wargaming Club. I do like the 'Wicker Man'. The film of that name is a cult classic, and I love it (the remake... well, let's not go there). This was a great looking game. Excellent figures and great terrain. 

Very nice looking Romans (casualties or reinforcements). Warlord Games?

Fortus Romanus.

A Pacific theatre game. Nice terrain.

Next is the USMC landing and attack on Pelelui, a 1944 Pacific theatre battle, staged here in 20mm by the Like A Stonewall Wargames Group. Teresa liked the verdant tropical terrain. The excellent HBO series The Pacific depicts action from this campaign to great effect. 

An American plane flies over the jungle.

The terrain for Bloody Omaha, a 15mm game by the Peterborough Wargames Club (pictured below) looked terrific. I'm currently reading Stephen E. Ambrose's superb D-Day book, which focuses on Omaha somewhat more than the other beaches. So it was nice to see a game depicting what I'm reading about!

An Omaha beach landing scenario. Again, nice terrain.

A nice encampment in this medieval game.

There were several late medieval or early renaissance games, and once againI don't know exactly which is which amongst the ones I photographed (and I'm only showing a portion of the photos I took here). I've never been drawn to collect figures from these eras, let alone contemplate gaming them. But I do admire the way they look on a table when I see them.

This was rather interesting; an Irish Rebellion battle...

There were a couple of Irish related battles/games. I'm assuming the one pictured above and below was the Bramley Barn 28mm Wilson's Farm, 1798, a beautifully set up demo game. It looked weird to me, at first glance, seeing phalanxes of pike-wielding Irish troops facing the muskets of the British forces. Looked kind of like ECW meets 18th Century. Strange!

Brits have muskets, whilst Irish 'bogtrotters' have pikes!

The next few pics show an Ancients game which might be set in England, or possibly Germany. The smartly uniformed Roman Legions face some superbly done barbarian types, with excellent wagons, druids, and even a flock of shaggy-haired sheep. I wish I knew exactly which game it was, so as to give due credit to whomever's excellent terrain and figures these were. A fantastic looking set-up!

Nice mise en scene type stuff in this Ancients game...

Love the carts and druids and whatnot...

The view from the Roman lines.

54mm ECW, from Mr Miller and Friends.

There were some wargames in the smaller scales, but these were either naval or armour, i.e. not figure based. I don't think I saw a single 6mm or 10mm battle. Of course the larger scales can potentially make for better eye candy. But I do like the larger scope that the smaller scales allow. And in the right hands they can still look very impressive. They are, I reckon, especially suited to large Napoleonic battles, where the big Battalions can be deployed in all their glory. 

There were however more games in 28mm than I'm used to seeing, and some of these with large models, such as the Pirates one. Lots of gurt big ships! Then there were some strange games, with some kinds of kiddie toys, peg soldiers, etc. There were lots of games. And I didn't get pictures of everything. I mainly photographed what appealed most to me.

Camel train in... the Sudan? Or is this the Afghanistan game?

As has already been shown by my inability to accurately caption all my photos, I didn't make a note of the games I was photographing at the time. Guess I should've. So I'm putting the names to the games now as best I can. I oigjnally assumed the pics above and below were from They Don't Like It Up 'Em, a 28mm Sudan game. But then I realised that the planes probably mean it was actually The Boondock Sayntes' 1919 De Haviland Down.

Afghanistani infantry and cavalry.

British aerial supremacy.

The Colonial combat pictured above and below was a very handsomely appointed game. Very enjoyable eye-candy, with great terrain, figures, and other stuff, like the aircraft. Once again, I only wish I could be certain what the game was, to give due credit to a fab looking game. As noted above, after initially locating it in the Sudan, I now think it's the 1919 Afghan game, De Haviland Down. Either way, it's a great game layout.

Lovely desert dwellings, also Colonial HQ, by the looks of it.

Another view of the aerial flypast.

There was only one Napoleonic game, that I noticed. Apparently there were two, but I only recall the one shown in my pics! And I always look out for games from my favourite era. And the one I did spot was set in Spain. Not my favourite theatre. But the figures were abundant, and very nicely turned out. 

French Guard Engineers...

Massed French artillery.

Massed French cavalry and artillery. Looking fab!

Spanish Cavalry, in yellow garb.

A North African beach landing...

There were several North African WW2 games, and I confess, yet again, I don't know which is which. This one had a beach landing by the Allied forces, and Rommel atop a nicely appointed colonial type building. Another one had the Italians fighting an Allied unit that I took to be the Desert Rats. Both sides were using a railway line as a road. Must have been a very bumpy road!

Rommel's rooftop radio-mast HQ.

AWI action from Steve Jones.

Whilst I spotted one very nice looking AWI game, pictured here above and below, I didn't spot any ACW action. After the Napoleonic era and WWII, ACW is my next port of call, interests wise (see later book purchase info!). And most shows I go to I see at least one game from that era.

Looks like the British are fighting themselves!?

Cavalry about to collide...

It's now some time after originally posting this pictorial show report, and I'm still working out which games were which, and slipping in new bits of text accordingly. Several pics follow that are a League of Augsburg Beneath Lily Banners thing called The Three Kings or something similar. You can read more on it here. Not my normal period of interest. But it looked very tempting when so fabulously presented.

A rather splendid battery...

Apparently this is Swedes vs. three other nations (or even Empires?).

Originally I'd posted thus about this game:

One or two of these games I can't even place by referring to the list of games on the Partizan website. That would include the one pictured above and below here. Looks 18th Century. I dimly recall a game referring to a clash of three empires or kingdoms. Was it this one? Maybe this is the League of Augsburg game? That's not actually given on the Partizan webpage (simply listed as  (TBA!).

At least I was on the right track!

This staff group looks dangerously exposed.

Vehicles using a rail bridge as a road... bone-shaking!

The second of the aforementioned WWII North Africa games. Was this one in fact the Forest of Dean Gamers' North Africa 1941, Chain of Command, demo' game? Or hav I muddled the two. North Africa WWII games up?

Brits as well as 'Eye-Ties'...

'Modom, your carriage awaits'.

No idea what this game was. Can anyone enlighten me?

A rather cool looking fort...

Next, another 28mm Sudan game. Now...this must either be They Don't Like It Up 'Em, by RAWgamers, or an untitled game by Iron Brigade. Can anyone clarify?

British troops form square, to meet the revolting natives' attack.

Reinforcements exit the fort.

But wait... danger lurks in the water. And not just the crocodilian variety.

A splendid evocation of a Dutch town.

55 Minutes in Peking. A Victorious Miniatures Boxer Rebellion game.

A Douglas A/B(?)-26 Invader flies over the beach, in Gothenburg Gamers' 28mm Bay of Pigs demo'.

The defenders seek to stop the landings.

I had a small wad of cash to splash, and immediately blew a big chunk of it at David Lanchester's book stall, on Shelby Foote's ACW trilogy. I've wanted this for several years now. The last time I saw any of it, it was just volume two, in a bookshop in Ely, for £39.99. Today I got the whole trilogy for £50. A lot for me to spend in one go on books. But, I very much hope, well worth it. Shelby Foote is great on Ken Burns' ACW series.

A very attractive set! 

Partizan, 2016

I don't know why, but I felt I had to go to Partizan today. Teresa didn't come with me this time, alas. And it was such a nice day for a spin up the A1 with the top down! The sun shining brightly, it felt like a proper little holiday jaunt.

The former Partizan venue, Kelham Hall.

The new venue, the George Stephenson Exhibition Hall, Newark Showground. Outside view.

The George Stephenson Exhibition Hall. Inside view.

I was intrigued to see what the change from Kelham Hall would feel like (I never went to the show when they had it in tents!), and was unsurprised to find that - despite the worthy invocation of a Victorian giant - the George Stephenson Exhibition Hall was just another characterless marketing shed. But, on t'other hand, it is a more practical and better lit space. What a pity we can't have both character and adequate lighting! Surely it must be possible?

I got there early enough to enjoy queuing for about 15 mins, and to bag the commemorative figure - a miniature steampunk (that theme again!) Stephenson. Frankly I'd have preferred him without the steampunk overlay. 

The show seemed well attended, and there were plenty of traders and games. I must confess I didn't think the games were all up to the old aesthetic standards of some previous Partizans. 

And there weren't enough Napoleonic games for this old grognard. I think I saw just three: one naval, one very small skirmish game (Sharp - or is it Sharpe? - Practice), and one in which Austrians troops were, rather unusually, fighting their old allies, the Rooshians. 

Austrians vs. Russians on the teddy-bear-fur Steppes.

It was nice to see these two reliably recurrent antagonists of the French slugging it out with each other for a change, in what I assumed must be a Russia 1812 scenario. 

I assumed this for two reasons: the only time this happened, I believe, was when Schwarzenberg's Austrians formed the Grand Armée's southern flank, and had some run-ins with the Russians in their sector; oh, and there was one of those onion-domed Russian Orthodox churches.

Exquisite miniature fleets - Dutch foreground, English background - afloat on what looks like a blue faux-leather sea!

There were some other interesting looking games, but I didn't get as snap-happy at this show as I usually do. One of my favourite tables, from a purely visual point of view, was probably the 1666 Anglo-Dutch naval battle. The 'scenery' element was perhaps a little too basic for my tastes, but the sheer quantity of miniature fighting ships was a delightful sight.

As an aside, with reference to the above six pics: By and large I try and avoid getting sucked into new areas of wargaming interest. Potentially every book or film or whatever it might be can spark a desire to buy another army in another era. 

At present I'm confining myself to Napoleonics and WWII (with the ACW lurking in the background!). But I have to say that when I recently listened to an audiobook of extracts from Samuel Pepys' diaries I found it hard to resist the idea of getting all marine and 17th Century. Nautical but nice, as I like to say!

Above and below, SS cavalry, 1/72 by Britannia Miniatures [1]. I love these guys!

Due to limited funds figure purchases were severely restricted. There's another figure in this set, toting a panzerschreck. But they didn't have any (unpainted), alas.

I had second thoughts about going along to Partizan all, both 'cause I'd be on me lonesome, and 'cause our attempts to buy a home mean funds are severely limited.

In the end I only bought two 1/72 WWII German tank kits (an Italeri Hetzer and a Fujimi Tiger I), a nice little group of mounted SS WWII German Cavalry (both these lots from Grubby Tanks/Britannia Miniatures), a magnifying-visor for painting (Barwell Bodyworks), and a biography of Baron Larrey from David Lanchester.

The Baron bandages a biffed bonce, in a detail from Lejeune's fab Borodino painting.

Despite only stopping at the show for a measly two hours, I had fun - except for the moment when I nearly fainted! [2] - and came away with stuff that's both useful and enjoyable.

I had wondered if any bloggers might meet up at the show, as they do at Salute, but I only got wind of such a meeting when I got home afterwards and googled the subject... Doh!

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NOTES:

[1] I realise now that some of the WWII Germans of unknown manufacturer origin in my recent previous posts - the rather dynamically posed if somewhat chunky and oddly proportioned white metal nebelwerfer crew, to be precise - are Britannia figures.

[2] It was the price of ... no, I can't lie... it was purely and simply that I'm apparently inexorably evolving into the archetypical overweight unfit wargamer! The fare they served up at the Bistro didn't exactly help me wage war on my waistline. Oh no, it was more like reinforcements!