Battleground 2018

The hall (about 11.30am)

So, despite being in a modicum of pain, I set off Saturday morning with #1 son, his son and a mate who drove us to venue at Stockton ( a mere hour's travel away) to my second Battleground event.
 As I didn't have a shopping list I went around all the games first then the traders.
 Be aware that this post is very photo-heavy.




Here's my photographs of the event and a few comments :

Stafford and District's Battle of Blenheim was one of my favourite games of the show and I had a very pleasant time talking to the chaps playing it. 

Blenheim in 10mm (Pendraken and Ausburg Figures iirc)

Such detail for 10mm figures!

Great looking buildings too!

A big game !

Another close -up

Next up,  my friend Colin's (of Carry on up the Dale's Blog fame) Battle of Zurich 1799

Huge table with superbly painted 28mm figures

Zurich, probably

There were vignettes all over the place...

Somewhere on the outskirts of Zurich

Ships too on this vast table

Next up was Durham Wargames Group's Battle of Zyrabulak 1868, again a large table using 28mm figures,

Large numbers of cavalry

Good looking town too

Battlefield Trust's Battle of Piercebridge 1642, an architectural model, so probably very accurate was more a display than a game, and in a very small scale and I initially thought the white covered waggons were sheep!

Close-up of the action

Overall view

 Redcar Ironbeards War of Germany 1944, a participation game:

Great looking game - spot the Germans!

Superbly painted models too,

What would a wargames show be without a bit of Napoleonics ?

DBN, possibly Waterloo (?)

 Brompton Bankers, Battle of the Standards 1138, using 28nmm figures

Not my period, so I didn't dwell here long.

 Iacta Alea Ests's WW1 Zeppelin participation game looked interesting:

These were quite  large models for an Air Wargame.

 Border Reiver's Napoleonic Naval Harbour Attack game featured paper (!) ships in  very good looking game

Possibly not the most attractive game, until...

...you see the harbour and the ships close-up

 Durham Raiders Napoleonic game

Looking like a club game and none the worse for that

The Westerhope gamers put on a WW2 Eastern Front game  with their usual panache and banter was not optional - great group of gamers and the argument over whether their shirts are "Commie Red" or "Pink Panthers (Panzers?)" seems to be ongoing:

Tide of Russian Tanks assaulting German defensive lines

I would have needed a high-speed camera not to catch an arm across the table in this game!

Great models and who would be a tanker ?

The German rear lines

Tyneside (iirc) Wargames Ancient Galley game

Busy day at sea...

...from every point of view,

 No show in the North would be the same without Mr Wiley's western games

The man himself

The game, with new river !

With Mr Wiley's participation game I knew what to expect, but with The Society of 20th Century Wargamers, I didn't. It was a strange looking game centring around a French Foreign Legion Outpost.

Cards and card holders...dice...hmmm

The central piece - very nice

Prince Bishop wargames Club's "Battle of Byczyna 1588" :

Good looking game of a battle I've never heard of..

 Scarborough Games Society put on two games on a single table - that confused me !

A fantasy game that...

...seemed to be involved in a Very British War set-up

General & Kings put on this rather attractive Battle of the Bulge game

With my eyesight, 28mm camo works

Splendid King Tiger

Other end of the table (with an oversized Panther imo)

Matt Crump put on a participation game of "What a Tanker" and I'm now a convert to this fun game, as is my 5 year old grandson!

Superb, simple looking terrain, but with many subtle features

Sunderland's "Malifaux":

There was no-one around and I haven't a clue -sorry

 Nate Zettle put on this "Blood and Thunder" pirate game, a genre I'm interested in, but the 'special' cards needed really puts me off this system (amongst other things).

Set-up and figures are good

Huge ship (and why not, even if a bit superfluous!)

Cozzmik Cakes again put on their Cake Wars game:

I don't know anything about this and didn't ask

Where this chap comes into it all is a mystery to me

IIRC. this yellow peril thing was a recent purchase, unfinished and not in the game\

 "Warlords" put on two demonstration games of their products:

Cruel seas

Gangs of Rome

Another view of the hall, busy but not too crowded.

 That wasn't all I'm sure, but it's all I have photographs of . I spent a long time talking to two chaps (the Lancaster Cellermen) using wooden pieces in a Krieg Spiel type of game and got so interested in their game that I completely forgot to take photos - sorry guys!

It was a great day, seeing many great games and meeting a lot of  old friends. 
My loot list is less than poor, it's non-existent. I ate the pie I bought for lunch and my wife ate the peanut brittle I bought her as a present, so no evidence remains !


Thanks for taking the time to visit, I hope there's something here that you find interesting and as ever, your comments are both welcomed and appreciated.

Thylacines and more.

         Thylacines   

After a week of the usual ups and downs of real life I managed to finish off my four "Steve Barber" Thylacines, the prehistoric "Tasmanian Tigers" that only became extinct in the 1930s.
It did take me two attempts to get a colour scheme that I was satisfied with and although maybe not an exact match for the real-thing, I reckon it's close enough for my purpose.
They're meant to have 15 to 20 stripes from their tail almost to their shoulder, but I managed about 10 and they're not that obvious from the photographs, just as they were in reality (especially with my current vision). They're small carnivores and from accounts hunted nocturnally.

The almost obligatory rear view (only slightly blurred)

Size comparison with a hunteress (she's on a 20mm diameter base)

Full frontal view

The whole order - five critters

In other news, I received my second order From "Steve Barber", a mere eleven days after ordering, a major improvement on the five weeks, four days of my previous order!
The two "terror bird" types (Phorusrachus), came with nests and they're great sculpts (- probably his newer ones) as is the Smilodon - one of the best I've seen imho.
The woolly rhino is yet another two part model and didn't go together that well, requiring the usual filler to get a result and it was also a bit small imo, so probably an earlier sculpt to fit his previous 20mm prehistoric range.

The reverse of the Woolly Rhino kit

Finally the Megalosoros, a giant Elk thing, looks beautiful in the web site's picture but was a nightmare to get the head to fit the body and of course required filler. To get to the stage of having the head affixed to the body took about two hours of filing, drilling and a lot of swearing, plus I still haven't added the huge spread of antlers!
It's a huge potentially beautiful model, as it should be, but those antlers I've no doubt will be a pain to add too, as the fixing points are very small.







The day after my order to Steve Barber,  I also put in an order to "Fighting 15s", my first to this particular website.

What a load of Aurochs !

The order was for the "Eureka Figures" Auroch Family group, a Bull, two females and a calf. Their communication was very good and despite stating that they would be not dealing with order between the 7th and 11th November (my order was placed on the 5th) they arrived at the same time as the Steve Barber order - the 15th of the following week., so I was very pleased!

Left to Right - 28mm Female Auroch, 28mm Ox, 28mm Auroch Bull

Aurochs were extinct in Britain by about 2000 BCE but Julius Caesar mentions them in his annals and were extanct in Eastern Europe until the 17th Century..
Their horns and demeanour remind me of the archetypical bull-fighting  bulls generally depicted in cartoons.
They fit in well with prehistoric games imo and their colouring is a bit unique too - Black bull with white stripe down its back but tan coloured females and chestnut calf; the latter darkening to black if male and lightening to tan if female.

So whilst it's not  been a particularly productive week,  I have finished four models and have started on the six wolves that I have and also started basing up all but the Megalosorus.

That's it then for yet another week and as always your comments are both welcomed and truly appreciated.