Vapnartak 2023 - York Wargames Show.

Held at the York Racecourse (North East England), this annual ritual for many gamers is the first wargame show of the year and so is always popular as we emerge from our brief winter hibernation.

In terms of trade / wargames, I previously felt it a very unbalanced show, with a strong emphasis on traders and little tabletop eye-candy going on, but this year, I got the impression that more games were being showcased. 

Spread over three floors and trade stands everywhere, there are several choke points throughout, where the volume of attendees makes movement around the venue hard work, especially for anyone carrying a disability or injury ….. bizarre why some insist on wearing their backpack, doubling their body mass! The good Mrs. Wargamer was side swiped by one a couple of years ago and so has taken up karate - be warned!

My past few visits have left York falling from my list of shows and yet, here I am again, drawn like a moth to light and after this year’s visit, I’m really glad that I did go - perhaps it is just that buzz from the first show of the year, confirming that wargaming still has a pulse.

Of interest though is that we find ourselves as a nation, sliding ever deeper into budgetary restraint with the financial crisis of high inflation and high energy costs biting ever deeper. How will this effect a show that by reputation is trade focussed?

Please use the ‘read more’ tab for a quick tour around and chat.

Red Blitz, the new OST module.

Old School Tactical is a WWII tactical level game designed by Shayne Logan and published by Flying Pig Games.

Red Blitz is an expansion module, taking us to the east front in 1944, the significance of which for the series is that it expands the order-of-battle of the core system (and Stalingrad) which is set in 1941 / 42. (Important - ownership of volume 1, the core east front module, is required to play these scenarios. You will also be short of 2 x T34/85 for scenario 4, you can grab them from the Stalingrad module - or just use proxies).

It also uses what are termed ‘Pocket Maps’ (think Squad Leader or Lock ’n’ Load game boards), rather than the single big board, which is part of the systems signature.

The rest of this post offers a brief description of what the package gives us and a discussion on the scenarios. Please use the ‘read more’ tab if interested.

Choosing Napoleonic pocket armies and scales.

Being an advocate of going with a single scale for storage reasons, I find myself, when looking at Napoleonics, of being in the odd situation of having accumulated three different scales in the unpainted stash to choose from.

All have been collected during and since the pandemic and each stock is large enough to easily do the core of a pair of armies. I need to choose one and sell the other two, releasing both space and funds and getting the Napoleonic project at last under way.

Further I would like to settle on a set of rules, but rather like the differing scales, I have a few sets in the front of my queue to choose from.

So, the rest of this post looks at a process of choosing a scale and a ruleset, sticking with it and investing the time and effort it needs to reach fruition. Please use the ‘read more’ tab if this is of interest.