Wargames Foundry and Partizan 2018

As has become a regular occurrence, a bunch of Devon's least wanted headed north for a weekend of wargames in(or near) Newark. Nine of us went up, four from South Devon and the others from the other, less cultured areas.

An early start resulted in the now common sighting of the lesser haired Pingu in its natural state, asleep.

A quick stop at the hobbit hole(Gloucester Motorway Services) for a breakfast and a meet up with the others broke the journey before we headed on  to Wargames Foundry.

There we were amply fed and watered for a small fee, with tea, coffee, cold drinks, pastries, rolls, crisps and snacks all day while we used their table to play a multi-player Dark Ages fight using Dux Bellorum.

 Several hundred figures had travelled North in the two cars and went to battle to decide who was the one true king, Pingu or Steve.

Sadly it proved to be not Pingu as he fell in a blood sodden heap under the swinging blades of Steve and Toms masses.

 Here are the enemy and they are f-ugly! From left to right we have JJ, Tom(son of JJ), Steve the First, Chas the Knowledgeable and Vince the Demon Dice Roller. I didn't bother picturing the opposition 'cos we is even more f-ugly than they are.

After the day at Foundry we split up, the victors heading off to Lincoln to enjoy a victory curry will we headed off to our digs, via a shop for dinner and breakfast supplies. We usually stay at Lincoln Premier Inn when we go up but the price this year was a tad high at near £90 a room, so we had a look around and found a nice little place on Airbnb for just over £80 which could fit us all in. Turned out to be a lovely little cottage on a riding school with all the amenities you would ever need and very comfortable too. Best nights sleep I have had away from home for a long time. It had been a long day and we are all older than we like to admit, so we crashed pretty early and were up pretty early(except Nathan) for bacon and egg rolls and several cups of tea and/or coffee while watching the horses.

Sunday was spent at Partizan and a cracking day it was too. I caught up with some old friends, some who I have not seen for several years, saw some beautiful games and spent a bit of cash. I won't bother putting up a show report as JJ has done one far better and with much nicer pictures than I could, so I will just point you to his report of the show here. As usual though it is IMHO the best show in the country and I shall endeavour to make it up again next time.

Then we headed home in the sun. The sleeping Pingu made a reappearance, but too be fair I also had a snooze on the way back. Luckily Nathan didn't, as he was driving. A quick stop for fuel early on was turned into a quick stop for a refill of our bellies, so after a munch on KFC or a baguette we got back underway.



We had picked up a surprise present for our driver as a thank you for his services and a subtle comment on his demeanor at times 😉. A tasty snack which may be one of his 5-a-day, although I doubt it. Well, it does have peanuts in it!

Anyway, all told it was a cracking weekend, a nice trip away with decent company and a fun couple of days away. Bring on next year.

Painting and gaming

Yet again it's been a while since I posted, so here is a general update. I have done a bit of painting, I have done a bit of gaming. I have had good days and bad weeks, but I'm still alive so it's mostly good. 😉

 Painting first. Just lately I have been playing Dux Bellorum as we decided to play it as a group game on our lads weekend to Wargames Foundry and Partizan. The rules give a decent game and it's allover fairly quickly, which is good for an evening or afternoons game.

So some Dark Ages troops have come out of storage and had paint liberally splashed all over them. First up we have 6 standard bearers and 16 assorted foot, all Gripping Beast figures with LBMS shield and banner transfers.

Then we have 26 assorted foot types, a mix of plastic and metal GB with LBMS shields again. A nice addition to my previous Dux Britanniarum forces.


After Partizan I painted up another 5 standard bearers and 13 more assorted foot. All told I have about 150 foot figures done now, with about the same number still to go.





I have also painted some cavalry as a change and to give some options for my force. Firstly though I rebased the 8 I had already painted so they could all be used on the sabot bases I got from Warbases. Four each of heavy and light cavalry, a nice start for my cavalry force.

Then I painted the new additions. Somehow I had 4 mixed metal figures floating about, so they were painted along with the box of plastic Dark Ages Cavalry I had picked up. 24 should be enough for any force right?

So why do I now have 8 Footsore Romano-British Heavy Cavalry waiting to be painted? Why indeed! They are lovely figures though, really pretty.



Gaming has been a bit mixed, with several games of Dux Bellorum as mentioned previously interspersed with some games of Mythic Battles:Pantheon. Apart from that there has been not much done.



Here are a couple of pictures of our multi-player test game of Dux Bellorum. Six players, three each side with a mix of Romano-British, Welsh, Saxon and Raider forces. I won! At least that's how I remember it anyway. 😀

 Finally I managed to injure myself by falling over a box in a savage shark attack! No boxes were injured in ripping the crap out of my leg, but a fair bit of skin and blood was misplaced. Stupid box.

A Partizan and Foundry post will arrive tomorrow.

Tiger Day at Bovington Tank Museum

 A couple of weeks ago I got treated to a day out at the Tank Museum. My eldest son and his wife treated me to a ticket to Tiger Day and rather good it was too. The only running Tiger tank in the world and it's only allowed out twice a year, so it was something special. Before the tanks rumbled about we had a look around the museum as they have changed tings about since the last time I went.

First up here is a picture of No1 next to a Valentine tank. To give it perspective he is 6' 3"(1.9m to you metric types) so it shows you how small the Valentine is, even more so when you consider it had a crew of 3 men in there.


On reason to go back to the museum was to see the Tiger display, with several different Tiger variants that are not normally in this country. Here is the Panzerkampfwagen VIB Konigstiger. This beast is a true behemoth and towers over the offspring. This is an early Porsche version with the curved turret front which proved less effective than the more usual flat front Henschel version.

Then we had the truly oversized Jagdtiger, a tank destroyer that cost more than any tank it ever met. It is another impressive machine, but probably less effective than it was worth.





The usual Konigstiger is there as well, the flat front to the turret and the 3 colour camouflage make it stand out compared to the more drab dunkelgelb versions. This one lives at the museum full time but it was nice to see it next to its siblings.



The one I really wanted to see though was the Elefant/Ferdinand SPG. In many ways this was a fatally flawed design with not even one MG to deal with enemy infantry in it's initial variant. This was later rectified but it was another over-engineered machine that drained more resources than it warranted. Still it was very nice to see it and really gives you a perspective on the size of it. The one on display still has damage to it's armour from enemy fire in WW2. 

 On the day they ran a nice mix of tanks, so below are a few pictures of a few of the runners. It was rather busy as well with crowds on all sides. Sadly the Matilda I wouldn't play on the day but it was entertaining to see all the others. The list included a Valentine XI, Comet, Chieftain, the "Fury" Sherman, Kettenkrad, Panzer 68, M60, Leopard 1, Leopard 2 and the Tiger!

All in all it was a great day and I had a thoroughly enjoyable time with No1 son.