It's been a fun week after I commented publicly at the 60% rise in the door price to Partizan. Of course the True Believers (who probably only go to the largest and most fashionable shows anyway) were on me like a pack of Yorkshire Terriers with OCD, damning me to hell and demanding to know - even after 5 days - how I could not bat an eyelid at spending large sums on figures, yet complained about a £3 rise in ticket prices to a show, which let's face it is pretty much the same every time and which, as is the modern trend offers eye candy and the same traders, year in and year out. There was even one comment basically asking how I dare say such things when there were companies out there relying on shows for income.... Err, how would they otherwise exist, in that case... Absolute nonsense in an age where we al pretty much shop and browse online. There was the usual 'Stay away, and let the rest of 'us' enjoy it', that collective angst reaction, as someone seeks to...

Wargames shows are a raw-nerve topic... If you like a show, you'll probably defend it to the last - I understand that. For around 30 years, like many of my circle, I  rabidly supported and gave my time to one show, but at the same time, I visited around 12 shows per year, all over the country from the age of 14. Every show felt different, but what was always at the core of the convention experience was the sense of being amongst your people. I don't mean race, gender, political view - none of that meant a fucking thing - but rather gamers, be they wargamers, roleplayers of that rarest of beast back then the the jack-of-all-trades who played everything, anytime, anyplace. Resellers were in the minority and there were, for a long time 'big box' companies were  not a common sight, but over time they have become the norm. Meanwhile the smaller companies don't bother turning up, a situation which is now spreading to  the medium sized companies who seem to be staying away...

    Well, Vapnartak was , in my humble opinion (and you foaming at the mouthed fan-boys can bite me, if you disagree) was at the best bland. I heard more than just I saying this. My wife didn't even bother going to see her many friends in the hobby, which is saying a lot. Of course, if people come through the door and pay their £5 (cash only please) it's 'a great success'. I remember another great and now no more Northern show having a similar take on things whilst their Rome burnd and the bring and buy got fiddled... But that could never happen here could it? I confess that I looked at the list of traders and thought 'How bland...' and went twice around the tabletop sale, where, an entire section of tables were manned by dealers, who really should - if they were not already, and if so, I apologise - be in the main hall paying as traders, and incidentally filling some of the yawning chasm which I photographet just after 12:00 as we decided to call it an expensiv...

  As I grow ever older and tiptoe towards the grave whilst at the same time doing my level best to not catch the eye of the Reaper, who spells the end of collecting and playing with toy soldiers, by systematically going through my Filofax, editing the entries in the contact list, I feel ever increasingly like a dead man walking. Indeed, I have little doubt that there are a few people - most of whom never met me in the flesh - who would like to see the 'walking' part of that erased, because I say and write things that they don't like. Increasingly I feel like a revenant when at a wargames show, floating amongst the living. Felt perhaps, but unseen until another spectre of gaming past recognises a kindred spirit and we perhaps embrace and converse in ghostly conspiratorial tones about this ior that, sharing memories of when we too, were vital, young, kings of the world, our painted armies'ooooh'd' and 'aaahhh'd' over, trophies taken home to join others...

     It's 3:30 AM and, because I have a show today, insomnia has struck like a bolt from an arbalest into the forehead of a charging Pict... Ah well... I've been getting my shit together and completing various buying missions to get everything ready and shipped to my painter. Thus far, I've sent the remainder of my fantasy collection apart from my Barbarians - I'm procrastinating about buying 6 figures I need to finish it all, for no other reason than I'm a lazy bastard. At present, my Painter is working on 1000 or so Early Imperial Romand & Celts, then he has about the same number of Baron's Wars  which arrived with him this week. That just leaves the Late Romans & Picts which, I should have in the mail to him by the end of the week. I'm, picking up an order for metal Picts from Gripping Beast at Vapnartak today and the remaining 300 Pictish infantry and 450 or so Late Romans - also GB - will be with me towards the end of the week. And that's al...

 It always amazes me, when people look askance or doubt your veracity when you own large armies. Similarly, I look aghast when faced with people who believe that 30 figures constitutes use of the epithet 'army'. As I have said many, many times in the past, although I was a roleplayerright at the start, I was fast off the blocks when it came to tabletop gaming and the possibilities for fielding massive armies on the tabletop battlefield. My generation grew up with plastic soldiers from companies like Airfix or Matchbox, often in numbers which presaged the life of penury so many of would be faced with when we discovered the fresh new hobby of wargaming. That said, I think it meant that we grew up with a different set of optics and in a time before £3.00 became accepted for a single 'rank & flank' style toy soldier which, costs pennies to produce, even in these times of financial madness. Of course, if you are using a third part service for casting, the base cost goes ...