Joy of Six 2019

Across to Sheffield for the annual celebration of all things tiny. The show has settled down into a nice routine now, based in the Hallam University buildings - though we were on a different floor again this year. Quite handy, in fact, as one end of the room was the cafeteria, though as usual I went for a meal and a pint at a nearby pub, the Head of Steam.

All the usual suspects were at the show, along with a large number of games, about 50/50 participation and demonstration. I didn't get involved with any of the participation ones - with a fairly limited amount of time at a show, and lots of purchasing decisions to make, I begrudge spending an hour or more sitting at a game table. They all seemed to be getting a fair amount of custom, it must be said. All the expected vendors were there - Wargames Emporium with GHQ, Heroics and Ros and Baccus, and Scotia Grandel who also carried the new 2D6 range. Sadly the new releases aren't quite ready yet, so I confined my model purchases to a fair few GHQ packs for early war - the Panzer 1A which is a new release, the command tank version of the Pz 1, some Panzerjaeger 1B and Sdkfz 221, 231 and 232 armoured cars. To face them I got British A9 and A10 Cruiser tanks, and some Mk VIB light tanks.

I continued to circle, trying to decide what more to buy, if anything. Leven were there as always, but I don't really have any burning need for buildings right now. In the end I got some hedgerows and fencing from GS Miniature Workshop - they are based in Manchester and always attend JoS, and I always buy some stuff - you can never have too many hedgerows. I left about three and had a fair trip home - another good day out.

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.

Long Range Desert Group

At Salute Heroics & Ros announced three new ranges - UK Paratroops, Afrika Korps and the Long Range Desert Group. Sadly they did not have the figures available at the show, but I was able to order examples of all three on-line before they went off for a break.

The first range which I have painted is the LRDG. This consists mostly of vehicles: Chevrolet trucks fitted with a variety of weaponry, and some jeeps. There is also a small number of troops on foot. As with other recent H&R models these are very nice, with good detail, and the figures are well animated, though small by comparison with (say) GHQ or Baccus. However H&R would argue that they are probably more in scale with the vehicles, and they paint up well.

I based the infantry, and a radio car with no crew and standing figures, but I left the rest of the vehicles unbased for now. This is because I think it is more likely, give the nature of the models, that they will be used in individual or skirmish type games where bases may be less appropriate.

Fog from the air

At Fiasco in November I picked up a pack of Baccus Fallschirmjager Nebelwerfers, and with a bit of a gap in the Pulp figures I decided to paint these up. Pretty quick, just four weapons with four crew each, and like all the new Baccus figures these are nice models. I based them on the usual 1" square metal bases, textured with AK Terrains acrylic diorama paint - an alternative to Basetex, it is a little more runny and so easier to get into the difficult nooks on the base, though it is correspondingly more low-lying. I finished them off with drybrushed earth colour and various flocks and scatter.

Leven Old West buildings

At Fiasco in Leeds, back in late October, I bought one each of all the Leven Old West buildings - 18 in all. Actually a few more than 18 buildings, as a couple of the packs had multiple items. My overall intention is to build a town on a large base, maybe a couple of feet square, but I started out by painting them all up individually.

As usual the Leven buildings are a pleasure to paint, with nice details which show up well. On many of the buildings I was able to include signs (Saloon, Doctor etc) which I simply found on the web and downloaded to print. I think these really enhance the look of the whole thing, and help to establish scale and period. One of the "buildings" is the entrance to a mine, with rail tracks and general clutter - this is another nice model, but it may be a little tricky to include it in my townscape.

Fiasco 2017

Over to Leeds today for Fiasco at the Royal Armouries. This is my third or fourth year - it is not too far to drive, a bit over the hour, and it's also well timed as there's not a lot of other shows going on right now. I parked up and had a quick look around, then went looking for lunch. The docks area around the Armouries is very smart, all big new buildings or modern conversions of original warehouses - but it's a bit soulless. I walked over the Ayre and up into the older part of Leeds. I found a bar/club called Revolution - no doubt very trendy at night, but for a rack of ribs and apint on Sunday lunchtime, just perfect.

Back to the show along the Ayre - someday we might come over on the narrowboat and moor close by. But that is well in the future. For this year's show I had a few specific items on the list, and I got them all. The first target was some Old West buildings from Leven - I have an idea to create a western town as a sort of diorama. I'd like to try playing a gunfighter game at 6mm, but so far I am struggling to find suitable figures, and I had no more luck today. While I was at Leven's stand I als picked up an extra building, as I often do, just because I liked the look of it. In this case it was a big British pub, called The Push, apparently based on a real building in Beverley.

After that I wanted some more Chicago buildings in 28mm, having built a couple last week. I found some 4Ground kits at Colonel Bill's stall, and I got a garage and a shotgun shack. I was tempted by a large warehouse, but at £80 it was just a little too much.

My other targets were smaller. I got a pack of gangsters from Pulp Figures - Bugs Malarchy's Mob - who will obviously be fighting around the new buildings. And I went to Baccus and picked up the Fallschirmjager Nebelwerfers - they had sold out at Salute, and I didn't get to Joy of Six, so I wanted to get hold of it, though I am not currently painting WW2.

I got away after three, and home by about half four - it was a lovely day for the first day of winter, so the drive was no problem - a good day out all told.

Hold your horses

More Baccus ACW troops, this time dismounted cavalry for the Confederates. I assume that these would all have been skirmish troops, and that is backed up by the way the figures are arranged in their strips. Baccus supply line infantry in rows, side by side, so you can mount them without splitting them up. Skirmish troops (and others, such as command units) come in a line, one behind the other like a queue, so you have to cut them apart and base them singly. That's how these troops came, so they made up into eight skirmish bases, two of which were command. You also get two strips with a horse holder and three empty horses, so I mounted these on circular bases (2p pieces); I expect them to come in useful as markers if nothing else.

Grey Guns

Onwards and upwards with the Baccus 6mm ACW. This time the Confederate artillery, just five guns in the Confederate Army pack which Baccus do, and which I bought at Salute back in April. I have probably painted a third of the figure I bought that day, and let me tell you that is pretty good going for me.

Union Zouaves

Painted some more of the Baccus ACW, this time the Union Zouaves. I wanted to make them look a little different from their Confederate equivalents, though they could quite justifiably look very similar. Anyway for these I chose to model them on the New York Fire Zouaves, with red shirts and dark blue trousers. For the base I used AK Terrains acrylic textured paint, an alternative to Basetex. It is slightly easier to apply and "paint", though it seems to be death to brushes. But the colour choice is odd - there is a very deep chocolate brown, which I used on the Confederate Zouaves, and a Dry Earth which I used here. That, however is a very pale sand colour - they don't seem to do a mid-earth tone. I brushed it over with an earth shade and it looks fine flocked, but still rather arid. It would be nice to have one with a more temperate feel.

Battlescale buildings

A new supplier of 6mm buildings, Battlescale Miniatures. This is run by a guy called Steve Clay, who is on several Facebook groups, and is based close to Stoke. I thought I would try some of his stuff for my ACW project, and as a change from Leven, and I must say it is pretty nice. The resin is quite shiny, and very hard, with no apparent bubbles or flaws. The surface detail is good, and I painted them up quite quickly, mostly layers of drybrushing, with a few little details to finish them off. The models I got are the Dunker Church, which was on the battlefield of Antietam, a Farmhouse with Annexe, a Gambrel Barn and a Timber Clad Homestead. Unlike soldiers, where uniformity is expected, buildings need as much variety as possible, so a good new source of supply is always welcome.