Salute 2021

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Yesterday saw a return to the annual pilgrimage to the Salute show, one if not the largest wargaming show in the UK.

Previous years have been characterised by long queues to get in, dim lighting and, in the morning at least, an event so crowded that it was hard to even get to see a trade stand let alone buy anything.

Well this year it was very different. No queues at all by the time we arrived half an hour after the event opened at 10.30am, the same dim lighting, but a distinct absence of any crowds. The show was busy, but good busy: plenty of room to move around.

There was also less to see: there were several noticeable gaps where trade stands should have been, and as many empty demonstration tables where people hadn’t turned up to run their game. This was presumably all down to COVID, and is a real shame, particularly as the venue was operating a strict vaxed/lateral flow policy before you could come in.

The theme of this year’s show was the Battle of Britain, and one of the good things to see was the Hurricane and Spitfire aircraft on show…complete with pilots sitting in chairs drinking tea and flirting with WAAFs!

Nothing to do with the show, but quite amusing, was the fact that Excel was also hosting a Star Trek convention, meaning that the small number of military reenactors present was utterly dwarfed by the vast numbers of Trekkers in the venue dressed up in their uniforms…including daughter #2 who took full advantage of me going to Excel to tag along and take us to the Trek event as well.

And very expensive that proved too.

I don’t know how much Rifleman Harris charges for his autograph, but I suspect that it’s much less than I paid for daughter #2 to get a signed photo from two of the cast of Deep Space 9. It was certainly more than I spent on figures!

So a smaller, less busy Salute this year, which actually was no bad thing. Not many of the demo games warranted a mention, with the obvious exception of the O Group game featuring some wonderful terrain representing Stalingrad sloping down to the Volga. Looked fantastic and I would love to play IABSM on the set up!

Pictures from Virtual Lard 3

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What with COVID-19 putting paid to wargaming shows across the country, it’s good to see some remote events still taking place. One such that happened last weekend was Virtual Lard 3, and one game run there was an I Ain’t Been Shot, Mum scenario by Mike Whitaker.

The game was set in the Italian theatre. Here are some photos:

Good Time at Overlord

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I last went to Overlord, Abingdon Wargames Club's annual show, some years ago, and all I remember was how small the show was, with few trade stands, and quite frankly not much to do.

I remember it well, incidentally, because that was where I bought my Peter Pig solid resin French buildings for use in my May 1940 WW2 gaming…not that I would ever buy solid resin buildings again: they look great but where do you put the troops that are in them? This must have also been before the great mdf scenery explosion, as that’s what I would buy now!

Anyhow, a throw-away comment by a fellow-gamer reminded me that it was on yesterday and, as it happens, I was able to negotiate a trip, and very glad I was too.

Aside from meeting up with said fellow-gamer and friends, the show is now in Abingdon & Whitney College, which has ample carparking, nice toilets (unisex!), a reasonable snack bar, and much more room for trade stands and games.

One of the games that caught my eye is pictured above: a 28mm “China invades Australia” game using Empress Figures. Very nice indeed.

There were also about thirty trade stands there, so I was able to get what I went for (flowers to dress the element bases of my ECW armies) and have a browse to see if there was anything new to see.

Well, there was: Syborg 3D Printing, a new (to me!) company producing 3D printed model vehicles in 15mm, specialising in somewhat obscure types from WW2 to the present day.

What caught my eye was their WW2 fuel tankers: a GMC CCKW 353 Truck for the Americans, a Canadian Military Pattern - Tanker for the British, and (my favourite) a Zis 5 truck - Tanker for the Soviets.

They were all bought very quickly, and have leapfrogged to the front of the painting queue! I shall be keeping my eye open for more from them too.

So a good trip to Abingdon, and a date for my diary for next year too.

Back from Warfare

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Although I know that some people hate Warfare (Richard!) I actually rather like it.

Good shopping (even if it gets a bit crowded sometimes), some nice demonstration games, and a huge competition gaming area. Above all, it’s full of people actually playing wargames, and always inspires me to actually wargame myself as opposed to spending my time painting and reading about wargaming on the ‘net!

This year was no exception. I headed over on Saturday morning (so if you’re reading this today, you can still get there tomorrow as it’s a two-day show), and saw the following:

Nice to see Big Rich, John, Bevan, Neil and Carol…and I’ll be back tomorrow for more.

IABSM AAR: The 4th Panssari Goes to War!

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Dave Lister had a lot of fun running a scenario based on the Battle for Honkaniemi (Feb. 26, 1940) at Broadsword 9 last weekend,. Honkaniemi is known as the only, and therefore largest, tank battle of the Winter War!

As you may know, while the Soviets had thousands of tanks at their command, the Finns had very few indeed. They threw them into a desperate attack late in the war that they hoped would throw back the Soviet forces that were closing on Viipuri (only 15km away at this point in the conflict) and spearhead a larger Finnish offensive operation.

Well, it turned out to be a terrible day for the Finns, from losing more than half of their thirteen operational tanks to mechanical trouble, to friendly artillery falling on the heads of the supporting infantry, to a complete lack of reconnaissance that could have revealed the Soviets were planning their own attack operation at the very same place and the very same time!

While a conventional victory was probably out of the question, Dave and friends decided to judge the results of this scenario against what the plucky and hopeless Finnish tankers achieved historically. And for all that, the Finns did very well during the game! Have a look and see what you think by clicking on the picture below:

Peleliu at The Other Partisan

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The other game of I AIn’t Been Shot, Mum at The Other Partisan was another amphibious assault: Tim Whitworth and the Like a Stone Wall Group’s magnificent Pelelie scenario, set in the Pacific with US Marines assaulting a Japanese-held beach.

This game was, in fact, so good that it won the Best Demonstration Game award for the show. Click on the picture below to see loads of excellent pictures of the game:

The Other Partisan

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I don’t usually get to The Other Partisan: Newark is normally too far to go on one of the few days off I get each week.

This year, however, I did get to go: mainly because I had promised to drive my daughter’s rollerscate of a car up to Edinburgh for her, and Newark provided a reasonable waypoint on the journey: drive to Newark on the Sunday, do Partisan, stay overnight, then do the rest of the journey on the Monday.

So I did get to go to Partisan, and great fun it was too. Lots of good trade stands, although I didn’t actually buy anything (still far too much in the lead mountain!) and, almost more importantly, a huge number of very impressive demonstration and participation games.

And what a lot of Lard on show too!

In all, I think there were six games featuring Lardy rules: Big Rich was running CoC (more on that later); Mike Whitaker had brought his Omaha game; the Like A Stone Wall chaps were there with their Peleliu game; Matt Slade was also playing CoC, but desert-style; there was a Sharp Practice Ancients variant; and a huge WW2 Normandy CoC game too. That’s six Lard games in all. Here are some pictures:

I even managed to get a battle in as well: I played the Fallschirmjaegers attempting to capture a Dutch windmill in Richard’s afternoon CoC participation game.

After I’d watched the FJs getting beaten in the morning through attempting to use no tactics at all - just trying to overwhelm their Dutch reservist opponents through sheer firepower - I was determined to do better. A bit of the old feint to the right, then pin with the centre and attack on left soon had the Cloggies defeated…although the way my opponent’s young daughter was rolling the dice meant that the path to victory was definitely not all plain sailing. Very nerve-wracking in fact.

Third Fallschirmjaeger squad at the moment of their victory!

So, all in all, a very good show indeed. Highly recommended.

IABSM AAR: Peleliu Warm-Up

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Tim Whitworth and his colleagues from the Like A Stonewall Wargames Group have been preparing the game they are showcasing at The Other Partisan wargames show in a couple of week’s time.

It’s a scenario for I Ain’t Been Shot, Mum based on the US Marine assault on Peleliu Airfield in 1944. Click on the pic below to see all:

Operation Market Larden 7

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Another fantastic Lardy Games Day: this time up in Evesham at Market Larden 7.

There were about forty Lardies present, playing a selection of beautifully terrained and figured games that are easily the equal of any demonstration game seen anywhere else in the world.

I had a very good OML7: got to the hotel in time to have a full breakfast, an excellent game of Chain of Command set in Malaya, then lunch, then an equally excellent game of I Ain’t Been Shot, Mum set in Italy, then a few drinks before the usual curry, and then more drinks. Polish that off with another full breakfast this morning, a good trip home, and the perfect day’s gaming has occurred!

I’ll do separate reports on the two games I played in myself, but here are photos of most of the games on show (I think I missed the Bag the Hun game off my picture taking for some reason):

Colossal thanks to Ade Deacon for organising everything as efficiently as ever.

Salute 2019

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This Saturday it was off to Salute 2019 at the Excel centre in Docklands.

Salute is one of the cornerstone shows in the UK wargames calendar, and it’s easy to see why.

Firstly, the Excel centre is a great venue: easy access by car, parking right underneath (even if it is £20 for the day), huge amounts of space, and plentiful food and drink outlets. My only complaint would be that sometimes I find the lighting in the hall a bit dim, but that might just be my fading eyesight!

The queue to get in used to be an extreme annoyance - one could wait an hour - but for the last few years its been so under control that, for example, this year I arrived at Excel at 9.50, had a baguette and coffee for breakfast, and then walked straight in to the show without queuing at all. Amazing! The only question is why couldn’t they have organised it like this before!

The show itself was full of traders and demo games. There are loads of blogs carrying loads of reports on the show, so suffice to say that it took me all morning and some of the afternoon to get round everything.

The Lardies were running a stunning game of Chain of Command set in Malaya in 1942, a period near and dear to my heart (Fall of the Liongate and all that). I didn’t play, but enjoyed watching the action.

Also Larding away was Mike Whitaker with his Bloody Omaha game. Now I played this game a few years ago at one of the Evesham games days…and its a cracker. Mike had 486 figures on 144 bases on an 8x6 table on display and managed two complete play-throughs of the scenario. And people say my games are big!

Click on the picture below to see all the photos:

As per usual, I did spend a bit too much money, but it was all on absolute bargains, honest! I bought a bag of fifty brushes for £20, which should keep even an established ‘brushbane’ like me going for a bit; and then I also bought one of the “all you can see for £100” mdf sci-fi industrial set-ups from Troll Trader that I just cannot wait to get built and painted up.

The show was nicely crowded all through the day, except perhaps at lunchtime. I hear a lot of people saying that their mates didn’t go because they couldn’t be bothered, or it wasn’t their thing any more or something rubbish like that. All I can say is that they are wrong: Salute is still a cornerstone show and a must-visit for any wargamer in reach in the UK.

IABSM AAR: Hauts-Vents at Cold Wars 19

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Matthew Matic and friends ran a game of IABSM at Cold Wars this year. Click on the pic below to see a few photos, including one that shows just how much kit goes into to putting on a demonstration game of this quality…

 
 
 

I’m happy to add any other pictures or info people have about the game: usual address of admin@vislardica.com.

 

Colours 2018

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I only had time for a quick visit to Colours this year: a couple of hours first thing on Saturday morning.

Travel to and from Newbury was enlivened by the traffic caused by the Newbury Show, but I still made the trip in under an hour. The work on the racecourse/flats on the racecourse must be just about finished by now, as getting to the carpark was much easier than last year: no problems in parking and only five minutes walk from the stand where the show was based.

I got there at about 9.45am for the ten o’clock start and joined the back of what looked like a sizeable queue, but once it started moving, just before ten, it moved very quickly, so no complaints there. The price was only £6 to get in, so very reasonable.

As I was in nice and early, I had time for a look around before the crowds. The show followed the usual format of, broadly speaking, trade stands on the ground floor; food/drink and more tradestands on the first floor; and then competition games, demonstration games and the bring and buy on the second floor.

There were three Lardy games that I could see. The first was a What a Tanker! game set in the Western Desert:

This looked very well attended for all the time I was there, so kudos to the chaps putting that on.

The second was a large General d’Armee Napoleonics game recreating Plancenoit. There’s a full report on the game available here.

Finally, there was a very nice looking Sharp Practice game set in 19th Century Japan (the Boshin War):

There were also two other non-Lardy games that caught my eye:

Lots of beautifully painted tanks

Cold War turned hot!

The trade stands were, as always at Colours, excellent. I wasn’t buying anything this year (too much to paint as it is) but would like to mention one trader who did get some of my money: ABCbrushes.

This was a small stand selling…brushes…but selling them at excellent prices. I picked up a mixed pack of ten brushes (all usefully labelled “medium dry brush”, “stippling brush” etc) for only £12.50. No idea of the quality, but as I go through brushes really quickly, this seemed like a very good buy. Their website is here.

So all in all an enjoyable visit. I could have done with an extra hour or so, but other appointments called. A good show that I look forward to again next year.

Back from Salute

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I'm back from Salute now...and I must say that it was rather a good one.

First, the logistics.

No queue at all. Arrived at Excel at about five to ten. Had a quick coffee and a croissant right outside the door, then walked straight in. Was happily shopping by 10:10. Amazing performance compared to what has been the case in previous years.

Next, the venue.

The show had a much better feel this year. Okay, it was still dark, perhaps darker than I remember, and it did take half an hour or so for my eyes to adjust, but it seemed more open than in previous years. Plenty of room around stands, no backpacks in the face, and it was till bustling and crowded as ever. Very good.

Nice variety of trade stands. A few special offers:  Troll Trader especially, who took money off me for a cut price Battlefront, Battlefield-in-a-Box Bastogne Church and several very cheap Army painter spray cans.

Then, the games. Some nice looking, big games, two of which are pictured below:

I particularly covet that 15mm E-boat. It would look very nice on my table!

As for the Lardies, they ran two games: a General de Brigade game and a participation game featuring the newly published What A Tanker! rules (WaT).

I actually played in one of the WaT games, commanding a Sherman Firefly in the face of the some very formidable opposition:

How did I do? Well I think the answer is best summed up with another photo:

But then I did enjoy myself enough to buy a copy of the rules!

Anyway, in summary I thought it was a great Salute this year. Those who weren't there should feel sorry they missed out, and that's not something I say every year.

Back From Warfare

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Back from the Warfare 2017 show, held at the Rivermead sports centre in Caversham near Reading.

I like Warfare. It's a two-day show, and has got plenty of traders, a bring and buy, a fair number of demo games to wonder at, and vast numbers of competition games to raise a quizzical eyebrow at!

I went both days: Saturday in the afternoon and first thing Sunday morning. I'm told Saturday morning was absolutely jam-packed, with the traders doing roaring business, and a three stack high bring-and-buy being emptied almost as soon as the items could be out out., but when I was there on the Saturday, it was just right: enough people for a good buzz, but not enough to have to fight your way through the hazards of backpack hell and wargamer fug. First thing Sunday morning was quite empty, but the halls were filling nicely as I left just after eleven.

The demo game that really caught my eye was a huge 28mm ACW game from Earlswood Wargames Club covering one bit of Gettysburg (Lee's right hook):

There were several other big battles elsewhere in the hall, including a nice ECW game, a couple of big Ancients games, and even Team Yankee played, as far as I could see, in 15mm on Saturday and microarmour on Sunday.

I didn't spend too much money: and that mainly on undercoat and a few bits of scenery. Unusually for me, however, I did buy something from the bring and buy: five 15mm late war Panzer IVs which I got for only £26. They're only averagely painted, and a bit over-washed, but five camo-ed tanks for about what you'd pay in the raw is well worth it...especially as they will serve as a second platoon on the rare occasions that I need more than five Panzer IVs.

£26!

All in all, a couple of good visits to a great show.

IABSM AAR: Heavy PaK Front by Mark Luther

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Another great 6mm IABSM AAR from Mark Luther. This scenario involves the Germans advancing into a hail of fire from Soviet anti-tanks guns...and then there's the JS-IIs to contend with as well. I'll play the Soviets please!

Click on the pic below to see all:

For those who are interested, I will be at Colours tomorrow, Saturday 16th September, probably for most of the morning.

For those wishing to join me, you can find details of the event by clicking here. At only £6 entry, it's got to be worthwhile, either as a shopping trip or a chance to see the demo games. I personally can't stand the venue, but the show is always good.

Warfare 2016

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I went along to Warfare today: usually the last show of the year for me.

Warfare takes place at the Rivermead Leisure Centre in Caversham, Reading, and just about takes over the entire centre for the day. There is a huge trader hall, and then an even bigger hall full of competition and demo games. There's also a smaller hall that houses the Bring & Buy, and the rather noxious squash courts which is where some more competition gamers are caged.

It's one of my favourite shows of the year, mainly because (a) it's close to where I live and (b) it's got a huge trader hall and I can shop to my heart's content. The only downside is that it's usually packed, which means that parking, even in the huge Rivermead car park, can be quite problematic.

So what was this year's show like?

Well my overriding impression was that it was quiet, very quiet. I only got bashed by one backpack (a square FoW carrying case, doubtless holding an SS German army with US Para allies) and hardly saw anyone I knew.

There were also some key traders missing. Peter Pig weren't there, which was annoying as I needed a single pack of figures that I'll now have to mail order; and there wasn't really anywhere to buy Battlefront figures either - just a couple of buckets/racks of old, discount figures.

Chain of Command

As for Lardy games, the guys from Evesham put on an amazing game of Chain of Command based around one of the key battles of the Bulge which, I think, won best demo game.

So a quiet Warfare this year...which meant, at least, that I didn't spend much money!

CDS AAR: CDS at Call to Arms 2015

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Last week, I mentioned Dan Wade's superb blog Wade's World of Wargaming. Well, last year, Dan put on a Vietnam demo game at Call to Arms using Charlie Don't Surf!  and a mash-up of a couple of scenarios from the CDS scenario pack, Surf's Up!

Dan reported on the demo game, and how he later played it through to a conclusion at home, over a series of blog posts which (and I hope he doesn't mind) that I have combined into one glorious battle report.

Click on the pic below to see his superb terrain and figures:

CDS AAR: On the Road in 2012

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As I've said before, I like to think of this site as an archive of activity for the TooFatLardies company-sized wargames: IABSM, CDS, Q13.

As such, it's great to be able to archive/commemorate/celebrate the efforts of Abingdon Wargames Club in 2012 as they took their demo game of Charlie Don't Surf on the road to various wargames shows.

Click on the picture below to see a brief collection of words and pics from their UK tour...

Warfare 2015

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A most enjoyable couple of days spent at one of my favourite wargaming shows, Warfare, which takes place at about this time every year at the Rivermead Leisure Centre in Caversham, near Reading, Berkshire.

As always, one hall was devoted to a large 'supermarket' of traders selling everything one could ever want. Not too crowded this year, although there were, of course, the usual rucksack bearing numpties who don't seem to realise that being bashed with a sack is not an ideal way of spending one's afternoon. I understand the need for rucksacks, I hasten to add...but for Pete's sake take them off and carry them when manoeuvring narrow aisles between stands.

One trader I must single out for a mention is Commission Figurines, who did me a cracking deal on some mdf ruined buildings for Stalingrad/Berlin. Their website is at www.commission-figurines.co.uk . I also bought a few bits and bobs from GZG, and another box of Battlefront SU-100s so that I can have one box for WW2 Soviets and one box for 6DW Egyptians.

The other hall was devoted to games: about half was the usual competition area, about half was a number of very nice demonstration games. The competition area was packed and busy, but not particularly good watching unless you happen to be taking part; the demo games were good, and there were plenty of them. Much better than Colours!

"Not as boring as I expected it to be"

Unusually for me, I brought a 'date' to the show: my eight-year old daughter. She was quite happy to wander round in my wake looking at everything on offer. Her verdict: "not as boring as I expected it to be", which is high praise from someone whose idea of a good time usually involves either Harry Potter or Minecraft.

So, in all, a good show, even with the usual car-parking nightmare. Good to see, Neil, Tahir, John, Matt and everyone from Huntingdon, including self-appointed Mother Hen, Tina. Recommended as one of the best show's on the circuit.