Phalanx 2016

I set off early this morning to Phalanx at St. Helens run by the local wargame club, the St. Helens Spartans, this is the third time I have been there and despite having the Satnav I still found it a chore to get to. I took the logical routes the last twice and got lost, this time I knew that if I went to J21A and turned right I would just be about there, I ignored the Satnav which told me to get off at J24 because I knew better, but I didn't. J24 she screamed, nope 21A then you can pick up from there, J23, no, J22 bloody well no, J21A off and took wrong turn, oops, although a Satnav cannot say "I told you so" I knew what she was implying. I obeyed her instructions on the way back.

I have some photos of the show, not many and they are rubbish, partly due to the lighting and partly due to me not being David Bailey, the lighting was bad, so bad I checked to see if I had on the right glasses when I walked through the door. I also think my camera needs resetting, I am sure I touched something at some point. Anyway first stop was The Last Valley, I got the long hedges I wanted but he had not brought any half lengths, so a tad disappointed I got some small tree's which will be perfect for an orchard, he knocked a couple of quid off the trees so fair enough. My last hope now is that my friend Matt will pick them up for me next month.

That done I decided to do the rounds of the traders before going any further, I got some bits and pieces and talked myself into getting that Marder and Achilles, I was lucky on the latter as they only had one as it is usually a mail order only piece, so a win there, but it was pricey.

I then stopped by to talk to Michael and Simon Curtis of 1st Corps and Curtey's miniatures, the lads should be at the next WAC gaming weekend and we may even cross swords. I saw some beautifully painted medieval archers on the stand along with some excellent Airborne jeeps and lo and behold they do squad packs of late war Germans and British, these too were nicely painted and had a lot of character. The Germans particularly intrigued me as they were late war and in shirt sleeves, so I bought a pack, a bit chunkier than the Artizan Germans, more akin to Black Tree, but perfect for the summer of '44, they are also working on adding more to their WWII range so I shall be keeping an eye on these. I will get a British squad later as well.

The games, there were quite a few but all looked more or less what you would expect on a club night, only the Sudan game stuck out for me. Only one person engaged me in conversation while I took my mostly useless photos and he was doing some weird modern game akin to Nato meets Chaos, not my thing but he was hard to get away from. I did another quick swoop at 11.15 hrs, I had been there an hour at that point and even then several tables had been abandoned or left with one uninterested punter sitting on the corner head buried in a new purchase.

Sudan 1

Sudan 2

Yes, brrrrr, Frostgrave again.

Ronin Hood.

This was beautiful

I keep promising myself to have a word with my next door neighbour as he is a photographer or at least get him to look at my camera, the array of settings just dazzles me.

My haul.

 Apart from the terrain and vehicles, the haul includes the 1st Corps German squad, more summer grass, pin markers and green paint for bases.

I decided to build my last building this weekend and set to with a will, I have made a hash of it and it is taking twice as long as it should. Not Charlie Foxtrot's fault I must add, but mine, I did not heed the instructions or warnings but just went ahead as I knew better. My building is the wrong way around as I put the wallpaper on the wrong sides, and because of this I then had to put the nice etched wood floor in the wrong way around, so I then had to print off a new wood floor and stick it in. I have put it all to the side while I cool down and take out my frustrations on the keyboard.

Aaaaargh!