Archive for October, 2005

Hannibal

Sunday, October 30th, 2005

I received the new Hannibal Punic Wars supplement for Warhammer Ancient Battles last week and have now managed to read through it.

I think it is probably the best supplement that Warhammer Historical have produced so far. The book covers the history and the three Punic Wars in sufficient detail to whet your appetite and then lists a very comprehensive bibiography in the back for further reading.

The army lists, which are the main purpose of the supplement, are comprehensive and cover the Carthaginian and Republic Roman armies along with the expected Spanish, Italians and Numidians, as well as Ligurians and Gauls.

I particularly liked the new Manipular rule which allows you to recreate the three line maniple formation of the Roman legion and gives you enough of a benefit that you are likely to do it in a game to get the best from your troops.

The photographs are impressive, as always, and there is a good summary of both the major battles of the period and some interesting smaller skirmishes to refight.

Having read it, I am even more inspired to crack on with my HAT 20mm Republican Romans and I have bought a second copy of the book to give to my Punic opponent to inspire him to finish painting his Carthaginians!

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Convention Catch up

Monday, October 3rd, 2005

I have attended two conventions this year as a trader /demonstrator. These were:

Valhalla

This is organised by the Farnborough Wargames Club and has been running for 30 years. I organised a participation display by the Guildford Wargames Club in 2001 as the first show game that we had ever run. This was Darkest Africa and went down so well that we have been back every year since.

In 2002, I was away and the rest of the club put on a Marlburian demonstration game.

In 2003 I organised a GASLIGHT Victorian SF game that won a prize for best Participation game (a surprise to me as I didn’t even know there was an award!) and in 2004 I ran a Four Musketeers participation. All with plenty of help from other club members with figures/scenery/rules suggestions.

In 2005, for commercial reasons, I wanted to run a Martian Empires demonstration game, while Ian ran the Fighting15s trade stand and sold the figures. The rest of Guildford were happy to help out with the game, but I did end up painting nearly all the figures myself and creating the scenery for the game. It was a very hectic 2 months!

The day went very well, with a lot of interest in the rules and the figures. Farnborough is a small show and in recent years seems to become quieter and quieter in the afternoons. This isn’t helped by it being held on Father’s Day.

Even so, I will continue attending as it’s close and a fun show to go to. Next year though, I will be taking a break from running games and will just be selling..

Phototgraphs from the Valhalla game are on the Black Hat website

Bifrost

This is the Society of Fantasy and Science Fiction Wargamers open day held in the Midlands. This was the first time I had attended the show, either a a punter or trader, and I was very impressed by the organisation and the whole day.

The emphasis is very much on gaming, with a Horde of the Things competition, and a lot of participation games. This meant that people seemed to come for the whole day, rather than a few hours (as at other shows) and although there were only 200 attendees, we sold well over 3 times what we had taken at Valhalla.

That is the advantage of a targetted audience show, I guess, as we knew that only SF and Fantasy stock would sell.

We were unable to get into SELWG as a trader and I am away, so won’t be attending as a punter, so the next show will be Warfare in Reading, where we first launched Black Hat Miniatures last year. And this year we will have another new range to launch as well..

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