Author: Mike

Another year over

Thank you to everyone who came, be they trading, running games or just attending. Thank you too to our sponsors, Footsore and the Rift, for their support.

The awards this year went to:

The Steve Frisby Memorial Trophy: North London Wargames Group for their Viking Longships game – we’re convinced you must have been sitting in on some of our crazy game brainstorming sessions!

The Nick Hawkins Memorial Trophy: Huntingdon Wargames for their Carthago Delenda Est 54mm Punic War game – fantastic figure conversions on an impressive-looking game.

See you next year on Sunday September 1st!

Show Awards

As for the past three years, we will be awarding the Steve Frisby Memorial Trophy for the best game in the show, as voted for by our members. (OK, to be fair, ‘voted for’ translates to the chairman running round the show at 2:30 and canvassing the opinions of any members who haven’t passed out from exhaustion, but you get the idea!). Our criteria tend to be that the winner is a game we think Steve would have enjoyed, and that we as a club wish we’d have come up with!

Past winners have been:

  • 2015 – Huntingdon Wargames Club – Catch The Pigeon
  • 2016 – Forest Of Dean Gamers – Martian Practice
  • 2017 – Lenton Gamers – Oppy Wood

In addition, last year we introduced the Nick Hawkins Memorial Trophy. This is a little bit different, in that it is entirely 3D printed with the exception of the plaque: the base and stand are printed in a wood effect filament, and the plane itself is one of Nick’s own 3D design files of a Hawker Hotspur. We’ve chosen to award it to the game we consider the best build, be it the best scenery or the cleverest bit of engineering, in memory of some of Nick’s fantastic looking tables.

Past winner:

  • 2017 – Stand To Games – Forager

Dr. Harry Sidebottom returns!

We’re very pleased to announce that historian, best-selling author and wargamer Dr. Harry Sidebottom will be returning to the show again this year, with, no doubt, copies of his latest novel, “The Last Hour” in hand. He has been writing historical fiction set in his favourite period, the Crisis of the 3rd Century, since 2006 with the Warrior of Rome series, as well as a well-received book on Ancient Warfare. He’s also a very entertaining after-dinner speaker (as those of us who attended the club Christmas dinner a couple of years ago can attest), and is a keen wargamer, so see if you can entice him to have a go at one of the games on offer!
Catch his latest chat with Henry Hyde to hear more.
Harry will be on hand to talk about all of the above at stand To8, between the Concourse and Studio 2.

 

Tournament update

Due to a lack of take-up, we regret to announce that the Gaslands, SAGA and Magic tournaments will not now be going ahead. Those who have already entered will be issued refunds via Paypal shortly. Our thanks and apologies to Andy from Ainsty Castings and Mike Hutchison, author of Gaslands, for their help in organising the events thus far.

The X-Wing tournament, sponsored by local game store The Rift, however, continues as planned – there are still spaces available, too!

Tabletop sale!

Slots are available for the tabletop sale now: see the sidebar for details.

We’ve revamped things for this year slightly. First off, there are now five, rather than four, one hour slots, starting at 10am rather than 10:30am. If you’re booked in for the 10am slot you’ll be able to get in a little bit ahead of time to set up. Secondly, we’ve changed the prices slightly – the average cost of a table is still the same, but they now range from £7 down to £3 as you get later in the day. As before, this doesn’t include admission.

We would ask, as a courtesy to other traders (and we’re aware our store won’t let us restrict this in software) potential traders could restrict themselves to a maximum of three slots initially.

SAGA Tournament

This year, we’re going to be running a SAGA Melée again at Hereward: this time, Andy from Ainsty Castings has very generously agreed to be the ‘man in charge’ for the event.

You can sign up here – entry is £10 including show admission. The rules pack will be updated shortly, just as soon as Andy gets it to us.

Gaslands Tournament!

We are beyond delighted to announce that this year, we have invited Mike Hutchinson, author of the hit post-apocalyptic driving/combat game Gaslands, to come and run a tournament at the show.

If you haven’t come across the game yet, we strongly recommend it – it’s a massive hit at our club, and winner of the UK Games Expo award for Best Miniatures Rules (both judges’ award and public vote).

If you’re interested, you can sign up via the link above or on the right: entry is £10 including show admission, and we will be using the Gaslands Organised Play rules that Mike has drafted.

Footsore Miniatures

We’re delighted to announce that our headline sponsors for this year’s show are the fabulous Footsore Miniatures.

As well as producing (from the hands of sculptor Bill Thornhill) several ranges of fantastic Dark Ages figures, they also produce the brilliant Gangs of Rome game and its supporting  cast of miniatures.

They have promised us what sounds like the perfect giveaway figure for this year’s show, and as soon as we have a sculpt to show you, it’ll be up on the site.