A couple of weekends ago I went to the Other Partizan show in Newark with Bill of Under Fire. It is probably one of the best shows in the North of England in terms of the variety of games and traders in attendance. The only probable is it is held in what amounts to a large farmer’s shed so it got very loud and clatter-y when it was busy.

Rather than do a general show report I want to write about the three games I played. Firstly, I played in the Wargames Developments game of the Great War in three turns. In each turn (1916, 1917, 1918) you get a full division and have to pick a tactic to use as you try to break through the three lines of trenches to end the war by Christmas. Each strategy that you pick from affects the chance of success, but you aren’t privy to the odds when you decide. A running total of casualties from each attack is kept. In 1916 and 1917 I managed to get to the second line of the trenches but was unable to get any further. In 1918 with the help of the tanks I managed to get to the final, third row and break the Hindenburg line. After each attack you roll for medals and recognition depending on your successes. I was fairly modest in terms of medals received, in the papers quite often and ultimately knighted for my efforts. Across all three attacks I lost at total of 20000 men, which sounds horrendous but is less than the average of 25000 men that a typical British division on the Western Front lost in that time.

As for my second game I was very pleased to see my friend Rupe had made the trip down from Northumbria to put on a game. To go with his range of 1848-49 Hungarian Uprising figures that he releases as Keelman Miniatures he has done a great little skirmish board with a bespoke set of rules. The board is set up to refight a nighttime raid to take out a cannon covering a river crossing. There are raised walkways as well as significant swampy sections. The board itself is painted to look like it is at night so is mostly desaturated shades of brown.

It looked great and was very atmospheric. The rules revolved around the concept of ‘will’. This psychological factor governed movement, reactions and firing. It could go up and down as the game progressed. The dice and card activation system gave a nice bit of command friction into the game, and the rules fit on to one side of A4 too.

Hopefully they’ll be made available on the website soon as they are a great system for any black powder era skirmish game. I took on Rupe as the Hungarians against a mixed bag of defenders. I got to try out all of the systems in the game, shooting was not that effective at range as can be expected but melee was nice and decisive. Leaders felt important in the game too. I managed to get enough troops to cover the causeway to stop the defenders reaching the cannon in the end. A great game and I look forward to being able to play it again.

Finally, I caught up with Chris of Not Quite Mechanised fame. I had missed his session on the NQM rules at this year’s COW, so he very kindly ran through a couple of turn with me. The game has been developed over many years so it has become a finely polished and fast moving set of grand- tactical/ operational rules. Fast play, simple mechanics and plenty of interesting player decisions so it ticks all the boxes for me for that level of game. I can see myself getting the rules printed out and trying it at home with my Crossfire based figures.

So that was a great day out at Newark showground. Nice to chat with everyone and hopefully I’ll get to go back next year.

Cheers,

Pete.