I couldn't get to Colours this year, so Ross and I went along to the Hereward Wargames Show in Peterborough on the next day (Sunday 6th September). This is a much smaller event than Colours, typical of the medium-sized club show (now seemingly quite rare). I know Colours, Salute etc are technically run by clubs, but they are far more like professionally run events.
This was my first visit and I was pleasantly surprised. It was a well organised show, Parking was almost a challenge, we arrived before the doors opened and still only just found a space in the free car park attached to the venue (the fact that Panto auditions were going on upstairs might have contributed to the congested car park - Oh No It Didnt!).
After a 10-minute wait we got in and decided to go straight for breakfast, in my case a very nice bacon bap. The refreshments were very basic, but of good quality, our lunchtime pizzas were also good. The bar was open, but we figured 10am was a bit early so we saved that for lunchtime. To be honest there wasn't any early morning drinking going on, punters were buying crisps, choccy bars and fizzy drinks for their kids.
There were 20 trade stands, with a couple of big names, Warlord and Sarrisa were there. Mostly they were more local one-man-band or family business, many of which I hadn't come across before. Perhaps because it was still early, but we found the traders a chatty and enthusiastic bunch and we had some interesting exchanges. It was good to see some 3D-print stands who were designing their own models, rather than just printing off other people's designs under licence. The was also a table top sale (NOT a bring and buy), where people had booked and hour or 2-hour slot to sell their unwanted stuff. Perhaps because they were just gamers shifting unwanted stuff, or perhaps because they had to man their own table, I didn't see the exorbitant price I've previous seen on some B&Bs. In fact I managed to pick a few (unplanned) bargains myself!
Games-wise there was a good selection, again about 20 of them, with a large number of participation games for punters to join in. Unfortunately the camera on my phone was playing up and most of my pictures turned out blurry! Again everyone was friendly and happy to chat about their game, even on the demo tables. Not the row of bums in the air, ignoring passers by that you sometimes see.
A beer and pizza for lunch. they only had lager and fizz-beer on tap, but found us some bottled ales in the chiller, so that was a result!
I did sit in on a Gaslands game in the afternoon, run by two enthusiastic and knowledgeable gents, which was fun! I hadn't played before. but Ian has asked me about playing it several times, so now I can confidently say I'm happy to play it!
Here are the only pictures of games that turned out alright.
"Escape from Innsmouth" , a fantasy skirmish using We Want the Gold rules.
A very colourful table for "The Hare, the Wood and the Snake", a Burrows and Badgers game by the Chesterfield Open Gaming Society. Other games I originally photographed included the rather nice 28mm Hereward the Wake Raids Peterborough Abbey, a 10mm recreation of The Battle of Nybol, May 1848 and the Battle of Holme Lion Rampant game all by the host club, Peterborough Wargames Club, as well as the Bedford Gladiators WW2 Chain of Command) game Burma or Bust.
On to my purchases for the day:
I picked up these from the table top sale for half-price, or less in the case to the two boxes of orcs!
Also on the tabletop sale a chaps was selling of a load of 3D printed terrain he'd printed up for a club campaign, but no longer needed. A quid a piece, unless you were buying a load of them, which I was. I have good uses in mind for all of these.
Especially the stacks of barrels and bookcases. I will need to touch the bookcases up a bit, but the barrels are ready to go as they are.
Only a couple of purchases from traders, a pack of bargain-priced brushes from ABC Brushes and a set of moss paints from Pemberleys Scenics. these are textured paint designed to simulate moss on old stone walls etc. I hadn't come across Pemberleys before, he's only been in business for a year and he had some very nice looking basing material. Once I use up my existing stock of materials, I'll be back! Ross bought a couple of models for painting, rather than gaming.
All that remained was for Ross to collect his minis from the painting competition and head off home. A good day out, nice to see a different mix of traders. The last few shows I've been to felt like the same old trade stands, and often multiple traders with identical stock!
