Colours Day 2 - Epiphany

I have seen the light!  On day 2, I managed to steal an hour from my game, to go around the show.  I made a beeline for the Bruce Weigle game I'd heard about on WD3.  This was every bit as good as rumoured...

The rolling hills and valleys were the best I've ever seen, and I can well believe he researches the terrain in a light aircraft!

I loved this village.  The minis are the old Heroics and Ros range, but beautifully painted and on very low profile bases.  Very tasteful.

It all looked very realistic.  The build quality was stunning.  I pestered Bruce for details of construction, and he was very forthcoming.  Such a nice chap.  I shall have a go at making some myself, later this year...

I completely failed to take photos of any of the other games, including the highly photogenic Hammers Slammers game, the excellent Marne game with many yards of hanging basket moss, the impressive yet bonkers Leipzig "skirmish" and an Eastern front game.  So... back to my Thapsus game (below) for games 3 and 4. Gaze upon the majesty of my reed banks...

Of the 4 games, Scipio won two and Caesar two, so I'm happy that the scenario is balanced.  I was also very pleased that three out of the four games came in under two hours, and the fourth just over 2, as 2 hours was my target duration (about as long as I reckon anyone can concentrate, at a show!).  

The most pleasing thing was that my To the Strongest "Lite" rules were easily picked up by the players, who were soon able to run without me, which was just as well as there were lots of visitors for me to chat to.  In particular, we had nine or ten children in total play across the four games, and they seemed to love it, each playing for the full two hours. Very well behaved and articulate kids, too, and all phenomenally lucky!  The nine year old with red hair (below) was amazing.

All in all it was a splendid weekend.  I met tons of people.  I have the worst memory in the world for names and faces, so this list won't be complete, but it was great to meet Raglan, nose-stick Matt, Barry Carter, Mark and (I think) Carlo, Henry Hyde, very nice Wargames Holiday chap, CoC Richard, Trevor Halsall, Phil Steele and John Curry, amongst many others...   Hopefully I'll be sending copies of the rules out to those who asked for a set, tomorrow.

Particular hanks to Ian Notter, Nigel and Jean for all their help in lugging 1000 metal miniatures and the terrain up and down all the steps, and helping to run the game.  Also many thanks to the team at Newbury and Reading for running such a well-organised event and giving me such a nice space for the game.