Joy of Six 2018

Having missed last year because of family illness (I have been to all the others since the start) I was keen to get there reasonably early, and despite the best efforts of some Cycling Fun Day I was able to navigate Sheffield's ring road and arrived in the venue about half ten.

There was a slight change of location this year - although it was in the same building we had moved out of the atrium (the "Heartspace") into a more conventional area, two long rooms connected by doors, with a canteen at the far end of one of them. Personally I htought this was an improvement - while the Heartspace looked spectacular, especially from three floors up, the layout was actually quite awkward, with games squeezed around the stairs, and some relegated to rather cut-off side rooms. Here everyone was in essentially one large space, and I don't think anyone will have felt they were out of the way.

The games were all good looking as usual - with the impression of large-scale battles given by this scale. For looks I would pick out the Manchester ECW board - it wasn't huge, but it was covered with buildings representing the city and the bridge to Salford during the siege. Most innovative I think was the Cold War Commanders (using the rules of the same name). They had a long table with three battles side by side. The terrain represented the same area on each (Wesel in Germany) but in different time periods - 1959, 1973 and 1989. They fought a Russian attack in each period simultaneously, using the appropriate troops and vehicles, but under the same CWC rules.

Purchasing was of course the most important aspect. I started off at H&R, just a chat really as I thought I had their latest stuff on my painting table already. But a casual question revealed that they had some brand new Fallschirmjager, not yet on the website, so I bought some of those. I went to the Baccus stand, but sadly the Panzer IV they had on display is not yet ready for sale - the gun barrel is true scale, which means it is too flimsy to be practical as a wargame model, so it will be out soon.

It wouldn't be JoS without a visit to the Leven stand, and despite not having a building project on the go at the moment, I had to pick up 4-5 assorted models. Down to the other end of the area to Wargames Emporium, where I got some of the new GHQ Lloyd Carriers (with and without 6lbdr guns) and some German Leichter Ladungstrager (essentially tracked quad bikes with trailers). I got a couple of Ospreys (Market Garden and the Valentine Tank) from Christopher Morris books, but my biggest purchase was a bunch of scenic items from GS Miniature Workshop. I got four of their "canopy woods" as well as an assortment of walls, hedges and palm trees.

All in all a very good day. I had lunch in the Head of Steam, though sadly they don't do rack of ribs any more. The trail to and fro over Snake Pass is tedious, especially with all the cyclists out int he sun, but worth it for a unique and very well run show.

Hastings

Hastings

Manchester/Salford - ECW siege

Gilly 1815

Austerlitz

Bag the Hun 

Normandy 1944 (Iron Cross rules)

Normandy 1944

Zeebrugge Raid 1918

Horka 1708

Weser Cubed - three battlees in one

Weser Cubed - 1989 foreground, 1973 middle, 1959 far end

Battle of Britain - Check Your Six.

H&R Paras

Following on from the Heroics & Ros LRDG in the last post, I have now painted the UK Paratroopers I bought at the same time. These are new figures, and like all of the later H&R releases they are very nice. They are much "slighter" than the likes of GHQ, Baccus or Adler, and as such they are probably closer to true scale humans. In theory that might be a problem, but in practice I have no qualms in using these in the same force - when you are looking down on them from a scale thousand feet in the air, the differences are unnoticeable. What they do have is very nice animation and good character, and they add a new set of options to the other lines.

In this case that's exactly what I am using them for. I already have a reasonably sized force of UK Paras from Baccus, so what I ordered from H&R was the oddments around the edges. I got recently landed men gathering their chutes, and men getting kit out of drop containers. There are some riders on tiny "Wellbike" motor cycles, and a variety of combat engineer types - flamethrowers, satchel charges, pole charges. There are a variety of jeeps, and some "cut down Morrises". There are in fact the well-known Quad tractor, used with the 25lbdr gun, with the bodywork removed to make it light enough for a glider. H&R do two versions - one has a tarpaulin over the load, the other has a group of men sitting on the tarpaulin, hitching a ride. This is a good example of the "character" I mentioned earlier. The last items were some command figures - some pointing, some with clip boards, radio men, the usual mix.

All in all a nice little batch, fun to paint, and they'll fill out my Para forces nicely.