Wargamer 2015

Sunday, 6th December, 2015 saw the annual, drastically under-publicised event that is the "Wargamer" show. held for the second year at the Leasowes Sports Centre, Halesowen.

There was some good stuff on offer from trade and gamers alike, some of which you can see snippets of below.

From a trade perspective, the ever-wonderful Ainsty Castings were there, as were the omnipresent Warlord and numerous others to boot.

My eye was drawn however to someone I had not encountered before and a game I had not heard of. That trader was "7th Heaven Games" and the game was "Carnivale", gothic horror set in 18th Century Venice!!! The miniatures looked astounding and the thought of gondoliers taking on Cthulhu is a big draw!!! Check it out.

I bought some Frostgrave figures and the new scenario book, "Thaw of the Lich Lord" from Ainsty, finally got my hands on the Mercenary Captain figure for the late 16th Century from Warlord (the idea of the French Wars of Religion just won't go away...), got some much required paint and a card game called "Condottiere" from Fantasy Flight Games, bought from MagicGeek. I look forward to trying out that one over the festive period.

I hope this show gets some better publicity in future as it has the potential to be a biggie. We in the Wyrley retinue always view it as the start of our "season", where we try out our latest demo offering. Massive thanks to all those who took the time to come and see us, speak to us and comment on our showing. Your feedback is greatly appreciated! A certain doyen of the hobby by the name of Mr David Bickley even suggested we take it to Partizan! Our next scheduled outing is the WMMS show at the Aldersley Leisure Centre near Wolverhampton on the second Sunday in March. We aim to have a bigger and better offering on show there, as we like to upgrade our demo games between shows so you never see the same thing twice. Seeing as you guys have to pay to get in, the least we can do is show you something you will not have seen exactly the same as beforehand is our view.

For this outing, I called the game "The Battle of Canny, c.1476". We had elements of Grandson, Morat and Nancy in the game, so an anagram was deemed the most suitable choice of name.

But, without further ado, some pics of some of the games on offer. It was a good day out.

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Burgundian right flank, with plenty of gensdarmes and a handy fence...

The unit of the match - the Burgundian foot men-at-arms led by Philip de Crevecoeur (scratch one pike block and a unit of halberdiers...)

The mixed cantons battle storming down the centre of the table.

The Zurich-led contingent that formed the right of the Swiss line. Uri, Lucerne and the banner of Adrian von Bubenberg are also visible.

One of the artillery redoubts that formed part of the Burgundian line.

More gensdarmes, this lot under the command of the Comte de Romont

And the good count himself, a Foundry rider on an Essex horse with a Perry coustillier holding his banner, which is from Freezywater Publications available from the Lance & Longbow Society stand at shows.

Sir John Middleton commanded the Burgundian centre. This little stand is a mix of Foundry, Front Rank and Perry figures, with the usual Freezywater banner.

And now for something completely different...Sikh Wars from the Selly Oak and District club

ZAMBURUKS!!!

That farmhouse, but I am unsure who brought this small slice of Belgium to the English Midlands (Chase Wargames Society???)

Martin Hackett and the Border Warlords ran a fantasy game with some impressive mountains on show

Kinver brought along a decent looking Malaya game, c1942

A column of Chi-Ha tanks enters the table

Back to us and the fight that sorted out the centre - those darn MAA taking on and beating all Swiss comers...

More gensdarmes from the Burgundian right flank battle. Almost taking the Man of the Match award were the Lorrainer Men-at-arms who singlehandedly routed the gensdarmes opposed to them on this wing. The Lorrainers were the only unit of heavy cavalry on the Swiss side but they were AWESOME!!! They are just off to the right of this shot and about to pounce!

Traffic jam in the Burgundian centre, with Flemish pike from Ghent, Ordonnance pike, longbowmen and gensdarmes queuing up behind Crevecoeur's brilliant MAA

An interesting desert game, source unknown. Rommel's half track is on the road just north of centre of this shot.

A Peninsular War skirmish

And the funniest thing about the whole day. This is the Italian mercenary command that finally arrived on the Burgundian left to help their cause. They arrived late on turn 6 or 7 through poor arrival dice, then blundered their orders at the start of the next turn and fled never to be seen again!!! You could not write such quality comedy!!!

The Last At Last!!!

After almost eight months of trying to paint as many Swiss and Burgundian troops for the forthcoming "Wargamer" show game on 6th December at Halesowen, near Birmingham England, I finally managed to complete the paintjob on the last unit I had planned to complete.

So, here they are, the much-vaunted (???) Flemish pikemen, sporting banners from the fair City of Ghent.

I have settled on a minimum unit size of 24 figures for pikes for this era, using the Warlord Games' "Pike & Shotte" rules, so this will be a "standard-sized" unit.

The figures are almost all Perry plastics, which I would heartily recommend to anyone contemplating an army from this period. The two exceptions to the Perry count are a couple of Foundry figures on the foremost command element. The flags are from Freezywater Publications, available from the Lance & Longbow Society stand at shows and always worth a look.

Since finishing this unit, I  have managed to varnish all the new figures, texture all the figure bases for the extra units and have started the detailing phase. I have a week to go to the show, where the "Wyrley Retinue" will be demo-ing its 2016 game.

We always change things between games, so what you see at "Wargamer" will be different in some respect from what you see later on in the year, but if you are in Halesowen next Sunday, come and say "Hello!". As yet, we do not have a scenario and we are not yet sure exactly how the forces balance out. Nephew Nick has painted some troops up as Italians, however. Whether they remain Italian mercenaries in the Burgundian army or masquerade as Lorrainers in the Swiss army remains to be seen!

It will all be sorted out in the next week. So, "Wargamer", Sunday 6th December, Halesowen.

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Probably about as menacing as the Flemish got at this point in their history...



A better view of the flags. Very reasonably priced, take your time to cut them out and fold then round the pole neatly and they work well. Apply Bostik or similar on one inner face and glue the halves together, then paint out any white edging carefully. They can also be detailed with shading, etc. Quick and easy!