It was my favourite wargames show, Partizan, at Kelham near Newark yesterday. A good time was had by all, even if it was a long day. Plenty of good games to look at and people to chat to. I bumped into Mark, one of my oldest wargaming buddies - and we realised that this summer brings up thirty years since we left school and therefore since we last wargamed together. That's a long time. It was, as ever, good to see him. Greyer and more wrinkled (just like the rest of us I guess!), but still the same twinkle in his eye and enthusiasm for the hobby.
There were some spectacular games - James Morris put on a very attractive game pitting Abyssinians against Italians in 1935, which my lad helped play. Very attractive, and both protagonists seemed to enjoy themselves. The Perrys, plus Jervis Johnson, Aly Morrison, Dave Andrews, and, er, I forget who else, put on a very attractive Wars of the Roses game (with loads of figures - each of the 'battles' had, probably, 100 figures in) - anyone wanting to do GW's creative effort irreparable damage yesterday would have done pretty well by lobbing a single grenade into the Carriage Court! They were, as always, having fun, and happy to chat about anything and everything wargaming. Paul Darnell had made a couple of his usual nice terrain boards, and he and, um, Mark (?) had put on a Macedonian versus Greeks game - very attractive. It had been going to be 1880s Sudan, but they had a change of heart at 06.15 on the morning of the show! If I hadn't been told I wouldn't have known! There were other good-looking games too, but I can't remember who put them on, and I don't seem to have a floor-plan to work it out.
I bought very little - just five pots of paint! And, apart from the Perrys' wars of the Roses plastics, I wasn't really tempted - even though there was quite a bit of 'new and shiny'. I guess my 'wargames butterfly' days are over - I do seem to be very focussed these days, and without effort. I did have a good look at some of Gripping Beast's Polemarch Successors, with a view to using them in my Pyrrhic army, but I'm not ready to buy any lead yet. I still want to do a few more figures for 'Fire in the East' - mainly Roman skirmishers - though I think I shall need to expand the Sassanids slightly too, because otherwise, they're going to be struggling in games where I've got everything on the table.
My rules - I really need a name, but am completely uninspired (all suggestions gratefully received!) - need some markers for the table-top, to indicate things like disorder and whether units are 'shaken'. I could use cardboard counters, or coins, but either seems like a particularly attractive idea. The obvious solution is to use casualty figures - and one could - but somehow, paying about a quid each for casualties rankles a bit. James Morris had a nice idea, which was little 'tokens' (made from pennies I think!) with a discarded weapon for a 'single' and a bigger (2p?) with a couple of weapons on for a larger denomination. There was an attractive Punic Wars game on with a similar idea using shields stuck to similar little bases. So it looks as though I've found an easy way to make markers. Sassanid ones will be particularly easy - my big shields for the 'larger denomination' markers and the small ones for 'singles'. Romans will be slightly more involved - and more expensive too, as I'll probably end up using LBMS transfers on them - they will look good though!