Tuesday 9 February 2016

Going a Viking at Vappa! York Show Report.

And thus, the annual pilgrimage to Vapnartak, York Wargames Show came to pass on Sunday gone.


I arrived at Dave's bright eyed and bushy tailed in time for Shaun to (kindly) pick us both up in the car. We headed down the A1 with only one pit stop to stoke up the engines with caffeine. Many thanks to Shaun for the lift down- very much appreciated. And thanks to both Dave and Shaun for the banter on our travels (sorry about the slightly morbid subject matter on the way home- all I can say is that it's good to get it off one's chest! LOL ) 


The thing a really love about the York show is that it always features a gamut of high quality games on display and has a fantastic array of traders. In short it's visually appealing great for shopping, if a little heavy on the old wallet. The space is also just as important. Although it can be a little disorienting due to the many floors etc it is just the right size; not too big so's to miss the traders and games and not so small that it can be wrapped up in an hour.

It's one of my favourite shows of the calender.

I have to say that with a tinge of regret, that, compared to some years the quality of the games on display was down on the last few years. This was probably a fluke but I did notice that some of the space that used to be reserved for games was now taken up by traders. This in itself is no bad thing but I think that in previous years, the balance between quality games and traders was just right where this year, it seemed trader heavy. Of course, this is just my humble opinion. Add into the pot all the variables that one gets when putting on a show and the chance that it might be different next year.

As far as loot is concerned I pre-ordered 13 packs of the beautifully sculpted, full of character Iron Duke Indian Mutiny 'Mutineers' from Empress Miniatures. There are no duplicates at all in any of the packs which is a remarkable achievement and kudos to Mike Snook for commissioning such a wonderful range and to Paul Hicks, sculpting talent extraordinaire.

Here are just a few of the packs that are on the Empress site as of now. I believe the other eight packs will be going up this week some time:





To go with the Mutineers I also bought the new Unfeasibly Miniatures Blockhaus/Fort from their Exotic Adventures range. I've tried to upload a pic of the fort but the Unfeasibly site won't let me save the pic so all I can do is supply those of you who are inquisitive about it with this ;ink:

https://www.unfeasibly.co.uk/product/blockhaus-fort-outpost-building/

Last, but quite essential I bought some Magnetic Sheets and Paper from Corantini. It is conceivable that I might have spent even more money had Magister Militum had their range of resins present. As it was I couldn't see anything on their stand fit for the Indian Mutiny and I do like to see what I'm buying first when it comes to resin buildings.

OK, onto the pics of the games. As I said earlier I think the over all quality of the games had slipped and there were some notable omissions. I do hope that this is not a downward trend, I'm probably overreacting.

Comitatus- Late Roman Reenactment:







Curteys Miniatures- Cape Wars Participation Game:


The League of Extraodinary Kriegspielers- Bukhara 1920:







?????

This was more of a Display- great nonetheless!:





Leeds Militaria Wargames Society Club-
Dragon Rampant, They're Over the Walls!





Crusade Game (???):


Sci-Fi (???):


The Bunker- The Alamo Participation Game:








Bye for now.

14 comments:

  1. The York show doesn't do anything for me, for some reason. I went, I spent at the traders I'm 100% familiar with, and then basically just ignored everything else. Apart from a cursory glimpse at the games I mostly ignored them too. Still, I made sure I got my £5 spent on entrance fee back in postage savings and discounts.

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  2. I love the York show! It's my favourite in the calender and luckily it just happens to be my local show too.

    I don't think that the games were any less decent this year but I do think that there were fewer of them which is a real shame. I do wish they would do away with the tournaments upstairs, it seems to me to be catering to a very small niche audience, where they could have more traders and games. However that being said the standard of the games up there did seem higher this year.

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    1. Amen to that re: tournaments Mr J. That would release a lot of space for demo/participation games.

      Darrell.

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    2. Removing the tournaments would release a lot of space for demo and particpation gamnes that is true. Finding people to run them would probably also happen. What is unlikely to happen is the replacement of 200 competition wargamers who contribute at least an entrance fee with an extra 200 people through the door on the strength of having a few more demos. It isnt all about the money of course by putting on the show we support the hobby and of course get money to run our club. The hire of the 2nd floor of the racecourse and trestle tables is not cheap, demo games will not add to revenue, competitors do.
      Cheers
      Nathan
      YWGS

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    3. Useful information there, ArmouredHunterMaster. Thanks for sharing.
      If there was a game that I played, I'd probably turn up for a day of gaming - Make all my purchases in advance and pick up at dinner time or the like. Its far too busy a show, downstairs, for my nerves, but the top-floor tournament area always seemed quiet and relaxed when I've popped up there for a look-around the last couple of years.

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  3. Lovely looking games!I like the port.

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  4. Lovely looking games!I like the port.

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  5. Darrell, you didn't stop to say hello..... Anyway, the Society (Lance & Longbow)couldn't do a reprise of our Agincourt game from Salute as it was Simon's daughters 21st that weekend, so we had to cancel. We tried to mount a smaller demo/participation game at the 11th hour (last Wednesday) but a large fantasy game was already earmarked in the same area. The organisers, rightly, said no to our late application, as that part of the ground floor does get very busy and very tight and it would have caused a bit of a scrum. I thought, from a brief tour of the show, it was busy, lots good looking games and most traders I talked to were having a good day. A big thank you to the organizers here, great show, as usual and great help and support

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    1. Very busy day Dave. I did pop over a couple of times but you were deep in conversation and I didn't want to interupt you :>)

      Darrell.

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  6. Thanks for sharing I didn't take any photos......I think every show has its own character and I quite like York.....my only gripe this year was I spent ages looking for some suitable VBCW gun crews and couldn't find any ! Instead I bought loads of other stuff as you know. Anyway I have ordered them when I got back.

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    1. I hope that you've found them now Matt?

      Darrell.

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  7. York is probably my favourite show in Northern England by a good bit. The games were not quite to the Usual standard- not that I saw all of them- the too busy by far - but also the lighting on the first floor was positively Kelham like in terms of stygian gloom. Yet despite that it was as ever a fine show.
    It didn't even start dying until after lunch- we were still shifting little men at 3.00 pm.

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    1. I think that the large Fantasy game ate up a lot of space- fine if you're into that sort of thing I suppose.

      I enjoy York as mush as any other show I attend. It always has a broad depth in traders and great games. I don't know why the standard of the games was down a little? Possibly just one of those things :>)

      Great that you were still busy at 3pm Andy!

      Darrell.

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  8. Nice write up for the show thanks. We made the effort this year to move some of the demo/participation games to the 2nd Mezzanine floor with the glass wall. This was done to increase the circulation space around traders. No new traders were put in place in that area. Yes the first Mezzanine floor is a bit dark especially later in the day which is another resaon to move games higher up in the venue. The competitions while not to everybodies taste do provide a service to gaming and bring an extra 200 odd people into the show without adding those 200 people to the morning scrums around traders. The game standard is not controllable by YWGS. People get invites based on their previous attendance and whether we like the look of their game if they are new. SLWGS and The Cold war gone wet 28mm Krivak where new this year.

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