I have made the Big Time!

 

Some of my fans

I see today that I have reached over 1000,000 hits, which was fantastic news for me but when I looked at my stats, I see that I suddenly had a very big fan base in Singapore, so a very big thank you to them. 

I am now thinking of sending out signed copies of my picture to celebrate my new fan base. So if you would like a copy send me £5 and I’ll send you it first class. T-shirts and mugs to follow might even think about a OnlyFans page. 

Broadside Games Show 2023

It was the hottest day of the year, well it was in London, when I made the half hour trip down the A2 to Gillingham, Kent for the Broadside Games Show run by the Milton Hundred Wargames Club. Yes my second show of the year, but I thought that I should try other shows and see what they can offer. When I reached the Medway Park Sports Centre the car park was full as there was an college Sports day on as well, but I managed to find a parking spot and it was free.

The venue was right at the back of the sports centre and it was easy to find your way there. Paid my £4 entry fee, which I must say is a really good deal, I entered the hall. This was around 11.30am and it seemed busy.

So first thing was to look around the trade stands and there was plenty to offer buyers. After there were no 20mm plastic soldiers on sale at Salute I found a stand that sold mostly plastic figures, called 1-72 Model Figures, so out came my short shopping list and brought myself three boxes of Hat 1/72^nd figures. They are the French in Greatcoats, Brunswick  Avantgarde and Prussian Volunteer Jaegers.

As it was a lovely day, I went outside to have my lunch.  Now the thing here is that there are no facilities for you to sit down and eat/drink which on such a large building seemed funny. But I went outside and watched the athletics while having lunch. Once finished I went back into the hall and boy was it hot in there, but I started to look at the tables layout. There were a hand full of demonstration games and a nice area where people were selling their second hand goods. There were 12 wargaming tables, some really small and some very large. This is where I meet the Posties, Ray and Big Lee. Lovely to see and talk to them again. 

They had a game on called a “Skirmish at St Frances Cove 1784” The game went well for the smugglers I believe.  Here are a couple of pictures.

 

I left the show about 1.30pm and I was so glad that I went and to finally spent some coppers. I shall go back again next year all being well.

Retired Wargamers Reloaded "Eagle & Lions at Carenten"

Salute 50

Last Saturday (22 April) . I have not been to a wargaming show since October 2019 at SELWG (Crystal palace) So I thought that it was about time to go to my first one since then, after all celebrating 50 years of wargaming is such an achievement. Well done Warlords.

Left my house at about 10.00 am on a chilly Spring day. Started the journey first by bus and then onto the Queen Elizabeth line. I arrived at Excel London and joined a long queue which went down very fast and was inside the hall by about 10.40.

Having not been to a show as large as this for some while, it was so nice to see how busy the show was. It did have a short shopping list that I took with me but soon found out that I was not going to get what I needed. So visiting the trade stands first which there was not many, as I always do, it became clear that the main supply of figures were in fact 28 mm. I could not find any traders with HaT or Selects 20 mm figures. Oh well maybe at SELWG later this year. Going around the wargaming tables, there was a lot of very good layouts and I must say that there were loads of demonstration games going on which were always seem to be busy. 

At 1 o’clock I met up with the Bloggers meet and it was nice to see the faces of some that I followed.

 

Picture from Bob Cordery

I was slightly disappointed that I could not spend my cash but I am so glad that I went and had a good day there. Here are some of the fantastic layouts that were there

"Cold Doings in London" London Wargame Guild

"Never Mind the Billhooks" Wargames Illustrated

WWII "Chain of Command" The two Fat Lardies

"Zulus Ntombi River" Hornchurch Wargaming Club

Loughton Strike Force

Happy New Year from the General

A Very “Happy New Year” to you all and let’s hope that this year will be even better for us all. Well 2022 became another tough year with the Coronavirus still hanging around as with the war in the Ukraine and don’t forget about the cost of living is still rising.

Wargame shows are mainly coming back to normal, so fingers crossed for this year that I can get to see one of them. The output of plastic figures have all but dried up for my period but once again hope, that there will be a few new Napoleonic sets for me this year fingers crossed.

On the painting front, I have failed to complete any units again last year. It seemed that I did not have any hobby time, so I must change that for this year. On the 17^th August 2020 I stated painting the 2^nd Dragoon (Scots Greys) but they have been on the back burner ever since. But once the New Year is over, it’s my intentions this year is to finish off the 2^nd Dragoon (Scots Greys) and complete some odds and ends that have been stored away for many years. I will also like to start painting some more regiments but we will see what happens.

So no New Year Resolutions from me again this year. If you look at my performance last year it was slightly better on my blog for postings. So thank you so much for looking at my blog over last year but hope that this year there will be more posts for you to read. 

Presents to Self

 

I might not be doing much in my wargaming hobby, but I have brought a couple of Christmas presents for myself from ebay. They are the "Conflix Models" by Bachmann and they are added additions to my village collection. They are both in 28mm scale which I do not mind with my 20mm figures. I have brought another Merchants House (above), which now gives me two of these and the other one is of a Ruined House as below.