Bijou rant 2

Dear internet,

It is Lose NOT Loose. The first is what you do when you don’t win, the second is the opposite of tight.

And if you start a sentence with the word ‘So’ read it back but without the ‘So’, if it still makes sense then delete the ‘So’. Try it out, please.

That feels better.

Joy of 6, 2019

Just a quick one as it has been a couple of weeks since the show and I’m sure everyone has read bigger and better reports from others but here’s a few thoughts on this years show.

The first thing that was obvious to us was just how much the show has grown since our last visit 2 years ago. I think I preferred the new layout and even though there were two rooms at least they aren’t lots of smaller ones like there used to be which cuts down the chance to miss something. As usual there was a real lovely vibe about the place and everyone was keen to share info on terrain and painting tips as well as generally just being friendly which is one of the great things about the show.

There seemed to be more traders this year too, and great to see Richard there with the Scotia kit. He very kindly indulged me by allowing me to look through some of the modern kit that doesn’t have pics on the website which resulted in a nice sized purchase (I’ll be posting about the swag in another post) and it was a pleasure speaking to him properly after conversing via email and messenger for ages. The only other purchase I made was for a few Swedish infantry from H&R, but I did manage to speak to a knackered looking Ian quickly at the end of the day (I hope that Andy’s wife is on the mend soon) and TOW mounted Land Rovers might be coming at last. Bart bought some fantastic looking French mid-C19th 3d printed figures from a Polish company -http://www.gmboardgames.com/blog/en/ – that really were spiffing, the horses were particularly good, which piqued my interest. If they do an Austro-Prussian range I don’t think I could have resisted and their metal ACW kit was really nice too so something to mull over for future projects (like they’re ever needed!).

The games were of the usual mixture of quality, range and period as in all shows and the two absolute stand out ones for me were:

‘Poltava’ put on by Per Broden and the Wyre Foresters club, for lots of ace pics check out Per’s excellent blog here: https://rollaone.com/2019/07/08/poltava-1709-at-joy-of-six-2019-the-grand-finale-of-the-towards-moscow-trilogy-tmt/. It was great to see the real thing after following the build progress on Per’s blog, this table truly was not only a masterpiece and really showed just what can be done in 6mm but an obvious labour of love. Bravo gents and thank you for sharing it with us.

Coming a close second was Robert Dunlop’s WW1 Battle of Gnila Lipa from the Eastern Front. I’ve seen quite a few of Robert and his lads games at shows and I always love them. They are great for showing the vast scale of the industrial warfare that defined this conflict and always tempts me to have a dabble. I managed to have a good chat with one of Robert’s sons (sorry forget which one!) about the huge Marne game that they put on actually at the Marne a few years ago and he told me a story that made my weekend. Apparently they were able to point out to an elderly English chap the unit which his father was serving in and exactly where he would have been in the battle which apparently had a profound effect on him and he seemed to become more spritely as he followed the course of the action. Great stuff.

Honourable mentions go to James Mitchell’s ‘Culloden’ which was a gem of a game9sadly my photo didn’t come out well enough, sorry!), Dan Hodgson’s Star War’s ‘Battle of Hoth’ (sadly only lacking in Pew-pew sound effects) and the Battle of Kolin 1757 put on by the Legion of Blokes which not only had great figures and terrain but truly inspired, hand-made, ‘table tidies’ to boot. Hat doffed gents.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Our game went over quite well I think, it was the XXX Corp Hell’s Highway one we did at Colours in September, even though we didn’t get many quotes from A Bridge Too Far this time we still had a cracking time and ,weirdly, we even recruited a couple of new members for the club which was nice! Thanks go to Bart, Dan, Jonathan and Daren for making it such a great weekend and we already have plans afoot for next years game. The plan is to do a Western Desert dust up but swapping WW2 forces with Modern ones, so Caunter camo’d Chieftains and Challies with South Africans in Ratels vs Afrika Korp with Leopards and Marders and Italians with Centauro’s – watch this space…

Lastly a massive thank you to Peter and his Baccus crew and volunteers for the show for not only coming up with the idea for the show in the first place but making it such a success, here’s to many more.

 

Hello again…

Well another bit of the old ‘writers block’/lost mojo for blogging so I thought I’d just do a quick update to try and get the juices flowing again and to check in with anyone that still might be interested!

I do have a piece half written about a game back in May at Martin’s which was a lovely ACW affair and I’m due to take part in an Antietam game tomorrow so I reckon next week will be ACW week (there’s another game from Martin’s to write up as well). I’ll be whacking up a brief bit about the Joy of 6 show interfrastically too.

I know I’ve said it before but I really should get back in the swing of doing the Club Night write ups again, if anything they keep me writing and things posted. On the workbench front I have been slowly beavering away on painting some lovely AB WW2 20mm figures for Comrade Noakesavitch (a US platoon and support teams for Chain of Command) which has put the mockers on me doing much else recently but I’m keen to get back onto my 6mm Napoleonic Saxons – I want to finish off a playable force as soon as possible and will be investing the dosh from Dan’s figures into building a Prussian force as opposition. I’ll also be cracking on with some 6mm Modern stuff for my Alt-History project that has been sadly neglected for ages now (I am re-painting the Poles and have some new kit from Jo6 to get started on too).

In other news I have been over to visit Jonathan in France and we had a couple of big FFT3 games, one of which we tried out a random activation mechanism which didn’t quite work but I think I know why so will be doing a quick piece on that too – as the club will be closing for the annual summer break soon it is good to have something in reserve!

Anyway, enough of this drivel here’s some pics of Dan’s new Yanks (as it seems I’ve improved somewhat I’m going to have to re-do my own German figures now!).