A Trip to Partizan!

Sunday 2nd June was the occasion of the 27th Partizan, held at Kelham Hall near Newark. It's a show I'd never been to before (because Newark always seemed so far away) but this year I decided to make the effort and hop on the A38 (and the A617) to get there. I roped Gary in to go along with me, as it had been several years since he'd been to Partizan as well, and even better he offered to drive, which saved me from the Sunday drivers!

So what was it like?

Well, having never been before I can't compare it to past Partizans, but compared to the other shows I regularly attend this one ranks up there as a pretty decent day out. Kelham Hall itself is a lovely looking building, which makes a change from the usual sports hall. There were plenty of traders, several of whom don't normally make the jaunt to our neck of the woods, and lots of games on display (more on those in a minute). The downsides of being at Kelham Hall is the relative lack of space - there are plenty of rooms available, but as those rooms were not designed to accommodate several hundred wargamers (including some fairly sizeable ones...) plus trade stands and display games, it can get more than a little crowded and cramped once all the punters are in (a lot more than usual at wargames shows anyway!). Luckily, myself and Gary were pretty close to the front of the queue so we were afforded a bit of time to browse with freedom of movement. The other downside was that the combination of smaller rooms with more people packed in, big stained glass windows and blazing sunshine outside (for once!) meant that it got pretty warm pretty quickly inside, which is uncomfortable at the best of times but proves even more so when some of our more "fragrant" brethren show up!

But all that aside, it was an enjoyable day out and (for me at least) worth taking the trip. I grabbed a few photos of some of the more interesting games that caught my eye, but without much room to manoeuvre it wasn't practical to get shots of every game at times.

The Battle of Raphia, hosted by Simon Miller aka "BigRedBat" and friends.
You can see more pics at the BigRedBatCave

Guy Bowers and the WSS team ran this Samurai skirmish participation game.
I was asked to join in, but had to decline

Bramley Barn Wargamers put on a nice looking Cold War game, which I stood and chatted to them about
for a bit. I've no interest in the Cold War, but their terrain was nice and they were a friendly bunch...

...unlike the "Like A Stonewall" club who, as always, ignored everyone (or at least they did while I was there) and seemed to regard the public as an inconvenience interrupting their game (which was The Fetterman Fight of 1866, by the way)

A nice, straightforward Very British Civil War game

I'm not sure what this game was, but it was Lincoln Miniature Warfare Society at any rate!

Possibly my favourite game of the day, this was a Sherlock Holmes game using the "In Her Majesty's Name" rules 

A familiar-looking fine four fendered friend!

Naturally, the day wouldn't have been complete without parting with some hard-earned cash, although unusually I went with a very limited shopping list and actually stuck to it. I picked up a copy of "In Her Majesty's Name" from Caliver Books, a copy of the new Crooked Dice "7th Voyage" rules courtesy of Ainsty Castings plus a couple of 7TV bits I was after, and finally another new game purchase - Dead Man's Hand hit the gaming table last week, and it's turned out to be a cracking game, so I took the opportunity to pick up a few Wild West lawmen of various sorts as my own 'gang' (but more on that some other time). 

As an added bonus for the day, myself and Gary were among the first 500 visitors, so we each received a free figure! This year's offering was Martin Schwarz, leader of the German mercenaries at the Battle of Stoke Fields 1487 (as the battlefield isn't far from Newark!)

~ ~ ~ 

Anyway, in other news, a lot has been going on which has put the blogging on the back burner for a while. I've actually got a build up of stuff I want to post about, but I've been spending what would be my blogging time doing actual hobby stuff (I know, I'm shocked too!) Once I've caught up with everything, I'll eventually get round to making a few posts. 

In the meantime, ciao!