I am officially in ‘grumpy old man’ mode because the hip arthritis has rendered me incapable of travelling to Newark for The Other Partizan this coming weekend, let alone then tramping round the hall judging games and glad-handing old friends.
So, in honour of this most excellent of wargames shows, I dug out a selection of old photos taken at the very first one I attended, back in September 2005. I was blown away by the quality of the games and the friendliness of everyone there, but I was not prepared for the gloom of Kelham Hall which made photography… challenging! The next time I ventured north I was, of course, Editor of the newly-created Battlegames magazine and somewhat better prepared in terms of tripod and lighting, but this first foray relied on me holding my breath for long exposures!
One thing that is instantly noticeable is the quality of terrain groundwork that clubs produced, and the effort put into creating unique terrain boards for the shows. Just look, for example, at the Coa and Troy games seen here, and compare them to the many games we now see that rely on commercially-produced battle mats, off-the-shelf scatter scenery or commercial 3D printing. That raises the question of whether the hobby is actually making progress or not in that regard – or should we see the mass access to B+ terrain as preferable to the scratch-built terrain-making achievements of a small, elite group of highly talented show game producers? Whither the evolution of the hobby…?
I hope that some of you do make it to the show on Sunday and, as Dame Vera Lynn sang, “Won’t you please say hello to the folks that I know…” and, of course, please post lots of pics either in the Chat areas here, or your blogs or elsewhere on social media so that I can see what it was like!
Henry
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