16th October, Crystal Palace

SELWG 2011
It's good that SELWG now seems back in its accustomed spot and its accustomed venue. Good, this year, too, we had a quick trip down (I followed the AA route this time, and for once, it was good*). Also, this year the stand was being done by the A team - so all we (middling) Northerners had to do was turn up as the relief column and bring some current issues of Slingshot.

(Lost Battles masterclass: always a crowd in attendance while the game was being run)

The display part of the pitch was the Battle of Bibracte (Caesar against the Helvetii) done on the Professor's compact battlefield (though with 28mm figures, not 15s as I had originally suspected ... )

(Phil and Eric's layout for the compact battle of Bibracte)
Bibracte was a brutal affair with a lot of grim face-to-face combat as Caesar's legions punched through the centre of an initially aggressive barbarian army. There was little in the way of manoeuvre in the original battle, and the armies seem to have comprised mostly of 'heavy' infantry battleline troops. A good choice to try out the Lost Battles combat mechanisms!


The Society was very fortunate also to be allocated a pitch next to the Tunbridge Wells club's Hail Caesar Outremer game (set around in the period of the Third Crusade).

(Hail Caesar on the parched plains of the Holy Land)

I hope the pictures capture the easy eye-appeal of this game. I thought the sandy terrain tiles set off the figures (15s, mostly Essex that I saw) very nicely.

I'll indulge a few more shots ...


I have seen Hail Caesar games at many of this year's shows since it's launch at the Society of Ancients BattleDay earlier in the year (and subsequently at Salute, of course) ... but mostly they have been with 28mm Romans and Brits on improbably large (often mostly empty) tables - so this was a refreshing change to the formula and really caught people's attention.


Still sprawling, of course (such is the Black Powder ethic), but much more manageable ... Bless 'em, the chaps also played quite a lot of the game during the course of the day, and it was possible to watch and see the mechanisms in action. OK - I give in ... it was 15mm crusades game with nice figures and simple but effective terrain (and regulars will know that ticks a good number of my boxes). Great stuff.

Otherwise, SELWG is the victim of its own success in a way. The show's team try to collect the best of everything, and although they usually succeed, it can mean that a lot of the wargames on show have been seen before.

Some things, of course, do merit a good look. Herne Bay's 'Crush the Kaiser' was a bit swamped in the huge (and artificially lit) cavern of Salute, but was a lot more engaging (for me at least) in Crystal Palace's more intimate and bright surroundings - well that and SELWG allowed me to pay more attention to fewer games.

(Herne Bay's crush the Kaiser fascinates a youngster)

The other nice thing with SELWG is they make a bit of a fuss with their awards, and usually make some good choices. Well, they gave my 'Greyhounds in the Slips' a runners up prize last year, so they can't always be relied upon ... And there were some spectacular winners.

(SELWG: the Prize Givers' progress)

(Budapest again - but looking a little snowier this time)

(the Hun but not yet in the sun)

But I can't fail to mention Arbuthnot's whatnots ... A truly spectacular table meshing the war in the Pacific with aeronef nonsense (is that what it is?) ...


Now I'm sure it won't upset anyone if I come over a little confused (I've never been shy about being a historical wargamer who simply does not get the joys of made up stuff) ...

Give or take more transparent acrylic cluttering the table than a picnic Pimms party, the scenery was truly spectacular and drew attention away from many a nearby table. I'm sure there was a fantastic historical game in there somewhere, struggling to get out.

If this sort of stuff does float your boat (no pun intended) there's loads of pictures all over the net after SELWG. But here's some from source (close ups)

Ah well. I would really love to see these guys tackle something like Salamis. With Triremes.

(some nice post war 20th century stuff)

A really good day out. We tried the Sat Nav thing on the way home ... it promised to avoid the traffic and wove us into West London seeking the North Circular - a truly bizarre route to the East Midlands that actually did get us to the M1 within an hour (way quicker than my previous trips home from Crystal Palace) ... Hmmm ... does this indicate that the technology works?

Next time out will be the UK DBA League's final round ...
The DBA English Open in Portsmouth.

Yes, you can come. See you there!

*I'll put it in small writing as a footnote, but in this instance, I may have been wrong about the AA's route, and it's not far off what Chris C used to recommend. Hmmm.

(flashback! Welcome to Jerusalem from 2008 ... those were the days!)

Reading, 20 -21st November

(a scene from Sunday's AMW game)

WARFARE 2010

This year, Phil Sabin combined with Eric and Alan on Saturday for a Lost Battles interpretation of Caesar's enterprise at Bribracte.

Doubling the value as ever, on Sunday, David Edwards and Kevin Large offered an AMW try out game, featuring a skirmish between Byzantine and Turks.

Stalwarts from the Shows North crew travelled down both days to man the stand, joined by Daivid 'Championship' Barnsdale .... (RJC was busy winning the 28mm FoG competition, but popped over occasionally to update us). Graham Fordham was fluttering his flags in the same tournament, local veterans Duncan Head and Bob Robertson joined us for a chat and I had a penetrating debate about realism with FoG author Richard Bodley-Scott over lunch.

Valuable networking and a sociable and useful weekend.

During the first hour, it certainly didn't feel that way ... we were on the last rank of non-tournament tables in the bowls hall (The Society of Ancients has long been relegated - along with most of the games - from the main hall in the quirky way this show has developed) ... and only one person stopped to chat. It seemed it was going to be a long weekend. (some of the stuff going on at Warfare 2010)

I'll indulge a snippet or two from that chat as it has some themes that might be interesting ... the visitor was a recently 'ex-ed' ex-member who felt that Slingshot's recent attempts to cover 'everything' had resulted in it being thin on the main ancients game - which he thought was Field of Glory (because that's what everyone he knows now plays bar the half dozen or so DBMMers you see at competitions). He didn't really see the point of covering rules nobody uses (AMW, Armati, Impetus .. to name but three ...)...Now, I'm not repeating this to be argumentative (as I indicated at the time, since my locals don't play FoG or DBMM, but do play Armati and AMW, generalisations just do not apply) ... I make it because it touches on perceptions.

118 players played ancient/medieval at this year's Britcon ...just over 300 names appear on the FoG tournament rankings list (though many have only played one event): maybe regular ancients 'tournament players' in the UK generally constitutes around 200 wargamers? So about 1/5 the size of Slingshot's UK readership ... just as ancients enthusiasts are a minority of wargamers, tournament players are an even smaller minority of the ancients fraternity.

Tournament players may be very visible, and at times very vocal ... but it cannot be assumed that what they do is what everyone else does. (Saturday's excellent reconstruction of Bibracte)

For example at Salute this year there was a whole host of ancients games - none of them played using FoG. On the other hand, at Reading, on the competition tables, it looked more like about 80% FoG. Very different proportions of very different games.

To have extrapolated from either, on its own, what most people did would clearly have been a mistake.

Unfortunately, within wargaming, there are no real statistics or surveys upon which to build anything other than a summary of unrepresentative opinions ... Sales of publications such as Field of Glory far exceed membership of clubs like ours (and sometimes this can lead authors/publishers to jump to conclusions about relative value or popularity ... but I see far more mint copies of FoG booklets on the Bring & Buy than Slingshot, so I wouldn't read much into it).

Statistics apart, I do think it a pity when historical wargaming and tournament wargaming diverge to the extent that they have.
I do think it a pity that the games newcomers can try amongst the display and participation tables are so blatantly not the games being played on all the tournament tables. Sometimes I think the tournament players are seeking a purer test of gaming ability, the display gamers are showing off their overblown collections and the participation tables looking to garner players by offering a cheap thrill ... that is, sometimes I think we are all getting it wrong.

Back to Warfare, maybe I worry too much ... Saturday's historical wargame, Phil Sabin's Bibracte looked splendid (Phil's smaller terrain system previously used at Cavalier, but with the 25mm forces squeezed-on ... giving the battle that crowded look I, for one, really like). It worked well as a game, too, and entertained a number of participants and visitors. (more from Sunday's Byzantines/Turk AMW game)

Possibly more resplendent, Sunday's game was a chance to join in one of those game nobody ( err - except everyone I know, I guess ...) plays - AMW ... so might be doing something to redress the imbalanced impression all those FoG and DBMM tables might give. (WotR fluttering flags in an English clash on Graham's table - FoG comp)

As it goes, we did very well from Warfare, gaining quite a number of new recruits by the end of the weekend. Through the games and publications scheme, a number of non-members left with a chance to explore ancient a medieval topics the Society of Ancients way. Good stuff.

Thanks to everyone who stopped by ... whether with compliments or problems which need fixing, all are appreciated.Someone came over just to ask me to pass on his thanks to the SoA team for all the work we do ... he thought it marvellous that we could achieve it all just on volunteer input. Well, I guess it is - and consider it done!