Alumwell Loot

Hello again.

It is now a very busy two weeks since the WMMS show, aka Alumwell, held last 10th March at the Aldersley Leisure Centre near Wolverhampton in the UK.

I went with a plan. Definite purchases were to include some steel paper, some magnetic sheet and some more textured paint, Basetex Dark Earth to be precise and, do you know what, that plan actually survived meeting contact with the enemy! I bought all three in short order.

Vaguer plans involved something to contend the field with my as yet unpainted 10mm Sassanids and perhaps some additions to my also as yet unpainted, and largely forgotten, French Wars of Religion proposal, ideally in the form of some Reiter cavalry. Well, 19 Reiter for £2 each from Tiger Miniatures saw to the latter and Pendraken and Magister Militum saw to the former in the form of an Arab Conquest army. The choice for opponents for the Sassanids had devolved down to either Middle Imperial Roman, Late Imperial Roman or Arabs and the Arabs simply provided something that bit different. Maurikian Byzantine may well follow, but only after I have painted up the Sassanids and Arabs, whenever that may be.

The show was, I felt, more populous than recent years (especially last, held in the midst of a Siberian flourish to early Spring) and there were some good looking games on show, but arguably a diminished trade presence. Unfortunately, I forgot both my camera and my phone, so got no photos, but I can recommend this show to anyone in the area the second weekend of March next year and I will hopefully catch some of the games again later this year.

There were a couple of good looking AWI games amongst others, but a Peninsular War encounter and a Japanese vs Dutch in the Eat Indies WW2 affair were probably my favourites. I especially liked the terrain in the former and the three-engine Dutch seaplane in the latter.

So, to conclude, just a few quick photos of the best parts of the loot from the show.

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The newly-acquired Arab army, with relevant bases and some tents for colour, courtesy of Pendraken and Magister Militum.

A long-held but largely unfulfilled interest of mine is the Austrian Empire and the wars of the mid-19th Century, so this offering form Helion was a welcome find.

Likewise this small tome, which I had seen advertised in Wargames Illustrated, I think, and my mind went wandering to the Wyrley Retinue game based on Malta 1565 that did the rounds a few years back. I still have the Turks, some at least of the terrain and enough unpainted mid- to late-17th Century figures to paint up some Venetians and Allies for a game. Venetian amphibious operations against Turk-held Aegean islands anyone? Another find at Helion's stall.