Out and about at show's and event's pt 2 Partizan.

Well that's three weekends down for my attending events and show's, just one more to go next weekend in this batch at Wales Comicon in Wrexhan North Wales, more about that event next week though.

Sunday 29th May saw me at the first of the years two Partizan show's held at Kelaham Hall in Newark, Nottinghamshire, the same venue as GCN/COGS holds their Hammerhead show.

I was at Partizan running a Flames of War demo game with the assistance of Martin one of my fellow COGS members who came along to help me out. The Partizan show hosted by Newark Irregulars is more a historical based gaming show than our own Hammerhead show, however its still a great show to attend and I have been going to this show for many years now.

Martin and myself arrived at Kelham around 8.15am to assist Matt from Wargames Inc to get all his stock in the building and set up ready for opening time and to get the game set up and ready of course. I had time for a quick look around the show before opening and so Martin and myself headed off to the bar to get our complimentary cup of coffee and a bacon roll for breakfast.

While we were over on that side of the building we took the liberty to look around the dome at some of the traders who had finished their set up. Which meant that money had to be handed over, well it would not be a proper war games show unless you spend money before all the paying visitors get there. I ended up buying two nice 15mm western European buildings from 'Hovels', and then sucummbed to a painted pack of 15mm river sections along with some loose curved and additional sections to go with the pack from 'Coritani', did my purchases stop there, not at all, as I also managed to come away with a pack and additional loose sections of 15mm road, although this time I went for the unpainted versions as I considered the road on the painted versions just too dark for my personal taste, granted it had the benefit of saving my money, but I now have about six feet of road to paint up.

Also purchased were two bottles of Valajo acrylic paint as I was getting low on a couple of colours, and I just had to buy a few more blisters of Mid/Late war FoW German Tank Hunters to fill the gaps in my army list. This time I went for three Marder 2s and two Marder 3Ms, now apart from some aircraft this is definitely my last German army purchase, mind you I said that last month too!

While we were still setting up the game just before 10.00am Dave Wilkin from the GCN Bedford Gladiators club came and said hello, that was nice surprise, we only had time for a brief chat but it was nice to see Dave once again.

We got the first game rolling for 10.30am and soon had a couple of attendees wanting to try out the game. We were doing a scenario set late war with about 900 points per side. Martin was using models supplied by Matt, a British tank company with a selection of platoons made up of Sherman Vs, Sherman Firefly's and Universal carriers. I was fielding a German tank company made up of platoons of Panzer 4s, Stug Gs, an armoured Grenadier platoon and a pair of 3.7cm AA guns.

All in all a good set of games, we had about eight people play in total up to about 2.00pm when it went really quiet, I even managed to get Andy Joyce, recently ex Games Workshop events manager, who had popped in to say hello, to play one round using my Germans.

We had another wander around the show after we stopped playing around 2.15/2.30pm, it had gone quite all over the venue by this point unfortunately, we did manage to go and look at the stalls we missed earlier in the day, but thankfully for my wallet no other purchases were made.

All in all a good show as it always is, however it did seem very quite at times and the attendance was not as high as I have seen at previous Partizan show's, mind you saying that Triples in Sheffield last weekend seemed a bit low on attendance too, obviously the state of the economy is taking its toll as people just don't have the spare cash to go to all the show's that they may have once attended. Never the less, Partizan is well worth a visit if you have never been to one before.

More from me next week as I report in about my trip to Wrexham to put on a Lord of the Rings SBG game at that event.

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Out and about at show's and event's.

What I have been up to recently and where have I been, I will tell you.

14th and 15th May.

This saw me at Maelstrom Games in Mansfield Nottinghamshire once again.

I actually go to Maelstrom quite a bit as I only live about 20 minutes away in Chesterfield. This visit was to support GCN club 'The Tempus Fugitives' who were holding one of their very successful 40K campaign weekends at 'The Eye of the Storm'. I will point out that I did not attend as a player, I only went along for the afternoon and evening on the Saturday and for Sunday afternoon. Being as two of the GCN council were at the event, Gareth Williams and Stuart Mackaness, it made sense for me to go along too and see if we could discuss a few i9tem's that needed our attention, that and it got me out of a load of work that needed doing at home, so I arrived mid afternoon and ended up staying until 10.45pm!

Its always nice to meet up with Stuart and Gareth as they are really nice guy's to get on with, which makes working with them that bit extra special.

I was made very welcome, as I always am, I watched a few of the games and had a chat to some of the attendees on both days, everyone was enjoying themselves and it was a very friendly event. I love the social side of these events and am happy to watch games and chat to players and other attendees, yes its nice to play, but its also nice to chill out and just enjoy watching other people having a good time. I was invited to stay for dinner which was very nice of the organisers, we had a good chat in the bar afterwards and got some GCN council business out of the way, and it was just a shame I was driving or the bar would have been hit a few times for some beers.

I have been going along to Tempus Fugitives events at Maelstrom since they moved their events there in early 2011, basically to offer a little moral support and have a chat to Stuart Mackaness the GCN Club Coordinator and anyone else who will listen!

If you have not been to one of the campaign weekend organised by Stuart for the Tempus Fugitives I can highly recommend the events, not only are they great fun to attend they are extremely well organised and professionally run, make sure that you have a closer look at what Tempus Fugitives have planned for the future at Maelstrom Games, you will not be dissapointed if you look at attending one of their events.

21st and 22nd May.

This saw me at a large war games show in Sheffield, 'Triples' held at the English Institute of Sport near the Meadowhall shopping mall.

I was there with two of my COGS club mates, Dave Wise, (who is the GCN project leader for the COGS/GCN Hammerhead show), and Terry one of our more enthusiastic members who is always willing to help us out at show's and event's.

We were at Triples running a participation game called 'Blood Feud' a small skirmish game that Dave and myself have written the rules for and played on a two foot by two foot board using small teams of models based around the Victorian/Edwardian period using various fairy tale characters, like Goldilocks and the three Bears, Vampire teams, Werewolves, Lunatics, Pychopath's, Samurai, monster teams of all shapes and sizes and team's of (relatively) sane bounty hunters etc. It's a quick fire game that is easy to learn and pick up, and can be played in around thirty to forty five minutes, a game lasting around an hour is a long one!

On Saturday we had about twenty five show attendees playing, and about twenty people playing on the Sunday, which to be honest well surpassed our expectations. For future reference we will be be publishing the rules and all associated cards required for the game in the not too distant future, and as such we had to give out contact details for the numerous people who were interested in purchasing the rules when they are ready.

So that side of things went very well, what else did I do...

I met up with Steve Nolan on the Sunday, Steve is the GCN treasurer, we had quite a along chat about Hammerhaed 2012 and GCN presence at shows later this year and in 2012, its always nice to see Steve and have a chat as he is a top bloke.

I went and spoke to quite a lot of people and traders at the show about Hammerhead, advertising and the GCN, and to spend some cash with a few dealers, well you can't go to a show and not do that it would not be right would it.

I spoke to some very nice gentleman who were members of a club in Scunthorpe who had recently begun the process of joining the GCN after a number of years being put off, good news indeed and hopefully they will be in our ranks in the very near future, and a gentleman who is a member of two clubs in Huddersfield and Halifax who also expressed an interest in the GCN and what we could offer and asked for further information, so all in all a pretty good outcome.

Oh yes, and I had a very lengthy chat on Saturday with Andrew Hubback the editor of the Miniature Wargames magazine to see if we could see about possibly getting GCN community pages in that publication, although Andrew needs to talk to his boss about the possibilities, they are quite keen to do something with us, however its looking very positive, so watch this space as we may well be able to advertise all our clubs in yet another magazine, now how good is that!

What did I end up buying, are you interested, if so read on, well I bought quite a few bits and pieces, including two boxes of the brand new Immortal Miniatures Spartan Hoplites, and one of the new boxes of Wargames Factories Classic Greek range of Amazonian Warriors, so that should be my Ancient Greek army sorted out as I already have four boxes of Immortal Miniatures Ancient Greek Hoplites.

My early Imperial Roman army is now finished as well as I purchased a box of twelve Roman Cavalry from Wargames Factory and the new Hail Caesar rule book written by Rick Priestly from Warlord Games.

On the 15mm front I purchased two boxes of the new Panzer 4s from the Plastic Soldier Company and my collection of Flames of War scenery is growing apace as I also came home with several bags of hedges, gates, walls and a variety of small copses of trees, along with three very nice and extremely cheap resin ruined buildings, granted they need a bit of a repaint/touch up but for what they are they were real bargains. I still need more 15mm scenery but this little lot will go a long way to filling my gap.

Overall a very interesting and satisfying weekend, and hopefully one that will bring in more clubs to our network and see us expand Hammerhead and the GCN network even more.

One last thing to mention before I go and collapse on the sofa, Dave, Terry and myself will be demoing our 'Blood Feud' game again at IMPs the 'Sheffield Irregulars' event on Sunday 17th Juy in Sheffield, more details on that event to follow in the near future.

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