The Joy of Six 2017

Some things are small but perfectly formed: Mini Coopers, Fiat 500s, Lambrettas, Kylie, Clare Grogan, Lichtenstein and now I’d like to add the Joy of Six show in Sheffield to the list. If you do not know already this show is the brainchild of Peter at Baccus Miniatures and is to promote 6mm gaming and it does this very well indeed.

As I have mentioned already on here I was there with the Neustadt Crossing game along with fellow South London Warlords Daren, Dan, Warren and Jonathan. After meeting up at the hotel in Sheffield, Warren had got the train up and Jonathan was meeting us there the next day with the rest of us arriving in Dan’s car, we headed off to meet up with Peter and other gamer types at a ‘beer and curry’ night that he had arranged. This a nice idea to get people together before the show, although the curry wasn’t the best – sorry Peter, general consensus from us – the pub was cracking and a good time was had by us and we did have a great laugh at the meal.

The next day saw us having to make the 5 minute drive to the venue which in the end took us nearly half an hour due to Sheffield’s lovely one way system! This meant that we arrived quite late and were a bit rushed getting everything set up. We just about got set up in time and managed to have a quick mooch about the show before the doors opened. The show in itself is in no way large, but the quality of the games on display was of a very high standard indeed. Traders were obviously limited to those who supply 6mm kit and they seemed to be doing brisk business all day. When I managed to get over to see Andy at H&R later in the day he looked completely knackered as they’d been so busy but I did get to have a quick chat with him and there are some very cool things in the 6mm Modern pipelines – the upcoming Danish Centurion and M41’s are superb and they have a Finnish Sisu coming out too, so very happy days for me! I also had a good look at Commission Figurines range of 6mm MDF figures and they were actually quite appealing, I liked the new ACW ones in particular.

We had an absolutely cracking day at the show and we got to speak to a lovely bunch of people, especially the gents we met at the curry the night before. I also got to say hello again to Per from the fantastic ‘Roll a One’ blog which was nice too. Not only were those that came to look at our game a lovely bunch of people but whilst checking out the other games too there was a really nice vibe, everyone had time to chat, terrain tips were swapped and there was none of the snidey comments you can get from people at other shows who don’t dig 6mm. Indeed it is possibly the friendliest show I’ve ever been to and you actually had time to have a good chat with people whilst also getting the game done too.

Yes, the game. Unfortunately Comrade Noakesavitch and I failed once more to liberate Neustadt for the workers. We had hatched a seemingly brilliant, simple and effective plan the night before in the pub and it lasted about 3 turns before we realised why its not best to hatch brilliant military stratagems after a few pints. Highlights of the game were, for Warren definitely, a Harrier taking out both of our Hinds in one go after rolling double snake eyes and us driving a company of BMP’s through an artillery barrage (which didn’t go well). Also the plucky escort Scorpion taking on some T-62’s and coming out on top deserves a mention, fanny magnets all round for the crew of that vehicle. We didn’t get the bulk of our armour into action though and would have obviously triumphed once they engaged the filthy, capitalist-imperialist lap dogs. We have sworn to triumph one day, maybe next time eh Dan? And hopefully there will be a next time as it was an absolute pleasure as always, I haven’t laughed so much in ages.

Bloody Royal Artillery

Rock hard Scorpion takes on Red Army

This was awarded for taking out a Swingfire!

miG ignoring Leopards as after Lynx!

Now you see them….

… now you don’t

We have been invited back for next year and will definitely be doing so. I would highly recommend it to anyone who has even a passing interest in 6mm gaming and can see it growing in popularity and maybe size. We’d all like to thank Peter and co for putting the show on and hope that it will be on the calendar for many years to come.

Here’s pics of some of the games that took my fancy, unfortunately the ones I took of Per’s game haven’t come out well at all (sorry Per!) but you can find some here: https://rollaone.com/ and well worth it they are too!

Deeside Defenders: 1st Bull Run, using new Fire and Fury Brigade rules which they were enjoying apparently which bodes well as Des has just secured some copies for us to use in the near future. A cracking bunch of lads and a lovely table.

 

Robert Dunlop and Sons: Messines Ridge 1917 – not sure of the rules. This was a proper busy table, it gave Dan a headache apparently but I thought it was fantastic, captured the Western Front well which was headache inducing I reckon! I have seen their games at shows before and are always well worth it.

 

Baccus: Siege of Manchester, 1642. Again not sure of the rules, quite a neat little table this with all of the 200-odd buildings cast in resin specifically for this game.

 

Mailed Fist: Last Train to Berlin, 1944 – Iron Cross rules. This was the game next to us and sported some great terrain. They were using an adapted version of the rules to enable the use of larger units. Cracking armoured train and town.

 

Dan Hodgson: Waterloo, 1815 using Polemos Rules. This was hands down for me the showstopper game. I was just gutted I didn’t get more time to study it more, or even to get involved. An absolute beauty.

 

Cold War Commanders: Landjut ’85, Cold War Commander rules. This game had just about everything a Cold War game could have from Soviet Attack Hovercraft to airliners, if you could think of it, it was on there!