And its all over for another year

 

Saturday the 14^th of September saw this years Colours Wargames show hosted by Newbury and Reading Wargames Society. This being the club’s 50^th year we wanted to put on a great show. The club are not specifically a historical society as we have had to change with the times to keep up membership. Three floors were taken up at Newbury’s racecourse main grandstand, two floors crammed with traders and a third floor full of excellent demonstrations of recreations of battles from history in various scales. Battles included Salamanca in 28mm, Abbeyville in 3mm (a crazy scale if you ask me) and the Battle of Downham Station pitting the Prussian ArmyKorp against the home Brits. The overall winner of best in show however went to Magrathea group and their Burrows & Badgers game, Siege of Lunedin.  The Leggatts, father and son, came second with Salamanca.

Attendance numbers were significantly up from last year, to where finding a space to park a car nearly became an issue. The club have been making a pointed effort to make sure the day has something for everyone, including a board game café where families can sit for a spell and maybe build railways across Europe. This was a brand new idea last year which I admit was under used in its first year, but this year it was super popular. In this authors opinion I think clubs need to start thinking about the changing trends in the hobby. Yes it would be great to have a show that was entirely focused to just historical gaming, but I think it would be tricky these days to maintain that. If we want enough people to come and support the show, things like the board games café can encourage a wider demographic to attend, we can then show them the virtues of the more traditional tables and keep the hobby going. It isn't just wargaming, a lot of hobbies are in danger of ageing out and not appealing to younger people. I'm not saying we have a bank of XBoxes and Nintendos set up at the show, but a bit of sci fi and fantasy at the show won't do any of us Grognards any harm. The weather was on our side for the day, sunny but not too hot. Feedback from traders and attendees alike was mostly positive with everyone seeming to have a great day. 

Traders of note included Perry Miniatures, Empress Miniatures and Warlord Games. Plenty of choice for someone to obtain some brave redcoats in whatever scale your eyes will allow you to paint them in. David Lanchester books also had the largest selection of military history books you will see anywhere. (Apart from maybe in the private collections of some of you dear readers.) We had a couple of new traders as well, one of my favourites being Beowulf Miniatures. I grabbed one of their wizards towers which will look great on a Mordheim or Oldhammer table. I did manage to grab a couple of other purchases, some Lord of the Rings models for a recreation of Weathertop and some very old school Space Orks that I am looking forward to getting some paint on soon. (Once they are out of their strip bath.)

This author spent most of the day on the Bring and Buy stall, so I did not have a huge amount of time to wander the show, what I did see looked brilliant, and I did get some time away to chat with some friends (including one that came all the way from Norway!) and I also managed to go and play a game with Mrs Lead and the youngest offspring. We had a great time playing a card game called Splendor with a fellow club member and his son. It was a great game that was just complicated enough, but the boys picked it up very quickly. I have orders to add a copy to our wish list for home.

A big shout out goes to the other club members who all gave up their time the day before helping set up and on the day. Some of them have been doing this a lot longer than I have and a lot of work goes on behind the scenes beforehand as well by a few hard working individuals. Shows like this and many others keep the hobby going and allow thousands of hobbyists to have a day out and get a proper close up look at lots of cool toys. Ordering on the internet may be convenient, but nothing beats the fun of getting your loot in person.

 

Overall then, an awesome day was had by all. There is probably one or two people who weren't happy, but you can't please everyone. Now we all just need to find somewhere to stash all our new toys.

Nb. Grumpy comments will be ignored and definitely not published. Go write your own blog.

Colours 2023 recap

Well it's over again for another year. The annual show from Newbury and Reading wargames society. I can honestly say it was great fun. This was my first year attending as a club member rather than a punter and I was not disappointed. 

Our weekend started the day before the show helping the traders as they arrived to set up at the grandstand. Despite the heat, not too many issues and everyone was very friendly. It was fun to get a sneak peak of some of the stands before the day too.

On the day of the show it was predicted to be a hot day, so plenty of cold drinks and fans set up, we braced ourselves for the heat and fun. I had volunteered to help on the Bring and Buy stall and on arrival I ended up being on the booking in desk, a very busy but fun task. With very minor exception everyone queuing to book in their lead and plastic were great fun to talk to and happy to indulge my excitement at seeing all the things they were selling. Highlights include a first edition warhammer, a full set of Sharpe DVDs that immediately sold (I really thought everyone that does this hobby would already have their own copy by now!) and some beautifully painted terrain (each piece immediately sold the moment I booked it in they were that good) The shock of the day was a boardgame that I used to own called Dragons Quest. I had sold it on the Bring and Buy a few years back and as I explained this to the current owner I realised the price label affixed to the box had my hand writing on it. It was the exact same copy!

I may have been tempted by a couple of items as they came in and reserved them for myself to buy later, one in particular were some original sculpt Adeptus Arbites that I just could not resist getting.

For the afternoon the Father in Law brought my youngest to come see the show and after we bought everything he had off his shopping list. (Including Roboute Guilliman which he has decided I have to paint for him) we popped upstairs to choose a participation game to play. We settled on a Star Trek game run by these chaps who were super enthusiastic and made it a fun game. Youngest took control of a Klingon fleet and I was left with the Romulans. Needless to say I managed to play a terrible game, at one point rolling three ones in a row to fail to do anything to the Warbirds bearing down on my fleet and the Klingons wiped out all my ships apart from the fleeing transport.

The Guilliman himself,  a beast of a kit.

The traders I spoke to in the afternoon all seemed to agree they had a good day despite the heat and I personally had some good feedback from visitors about the day. Unfortunately we had to leave before the end due to family commitments and when we left there will still plenty of browsers.

The next day my body definitely did ache, but that kind of ache that makes you feel like you achieved something. I am already looking forward to next years show, hopefully it will be a little cooler though!