Partizan Wargames show 2024

Combining a visit back home to the UK to see family and have a holiday I was able to find the time to visit the Partizan Wargames show held in Newark. I had the choice of timing the trip to coincide with the Partizan or Salute show. From comments made by fellow wargamers it seems I made the correct choice.

We made the trip up 2 days beforehand and stayed in Lincoln. This gave us the opportunity to have a good look around this lovely city with its castle and cathedral

This is the third time I’ve managed to get to the show and it was a real shot in the arm or impetus for my own hobby plans. Partizan has a reputation for staging stunning games and this year was no exception, I’ve seen it called the best ever by some on the net. The standard of games on show was stunning and I cannot remember ever seeing any better.

For my part, the best thing of all though I think was catching up with old friends and putting faces to people who I’ve talked on the net for many years. I spent a good few hours in really nice company

The standard of the games on show was breathtaking and the photos I’ve taken do not really do them justice. Its odd looking back at the photos I took – and I took a load – they are almost all close ups of the figures that drew my eye rather than a broad view of the games themselves. One unfortunate consequence of still travelling is that I have a limited ability to upload these so I’ve decided to just concentrate on those games that were my favourites.

Ray Rousell has a very comprehensive set of photos here that highlight just about every game there I think https://onelover-ray.blogspot.com/ and there’s also a video report by Alex ” Storm of Steel” Sotheran here – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fq1vUpguVg

I regret I’ve not enough time or space to do as others have done and showcase everything. It was all simply too good and too much and if a table doesn’t feature its not because I didn’t think it worthy. In the end I chose to display what interested me most

I’m going to start with a look at Dave Docherty’s colonial game (North Riding Wargames club) – I was lucky enough to have a long chat with Dave . We’ve never met before but often talked on line or by zoom while taking part in the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge. Dave took me through many of the game’s mechanics

an iconic square

This is the kind of picture that makes you buy figures!

A thin red line

I think Dave told me he bought 20 boxes of Perry Plastics

Next up is the Mexican – American war by First Corps

This Mexican cavalry looks colourful enough to grace a Napoleonic table

Many of the ACW generals who came to prominence cut their teeth in this war

First Corps Farcebook page highlights the making of this square

With all those Mexican flags I nearly mixed up my pictures with Yarkshire Gamer’s Mentana game. Looks like I only have close up pictures rather than the whole game itself! Again I’ve missed the bigger picture and Ken’s stripey unit that graced the AHPC page! Had anice time talking to Ken and yet again reminded him that I really would love to see his Italian Wars figures on the table.

My favourite flag in Ken’s collection

The next game was equally stunning but totally different. This was an Indian Mutiny game by the Boondock Sayntes who have a reputation for putting on spectacular games. I’m pleased to say that despite the attraction of this game I resisted the temptation to buy some of those lovely Iron Duke/Empress Miniatures figures. Had a good chat with Jean here who gave me the background on how some of the buildings were made and an idea of the game’s setting

As is usual Simon Miller’s games just keep getting bigger and its always a joy to follow his progress on the Big Red Bat’s blog page https://bigredbat.blogspot.com/.

With my growing ECW armies and plan to finally get myself playing rather than just reading his “For King and Parliament” rule set, my approach here was to take close up of Simon’s units as for the moment at least, my ECW project is next in line at the painting table. I must confess though that the prospect of painting that many cavalry is likely to be prohibitively expensive in metal so Warlord Games plastics are likely to be a prominent feature. I do however have a few metal units in storage and collected some cavalry from First Corps on this trip

Imagine the hours spent painting these

Unfortunately most of my pictures of Steve Jones AWI game seem to be out of focus but I did manage to snap some closeups of some of his units. Regrettably pictures of his recently superbly painted French were blurred. That was a great shame as Steve’s a superb painter whose collection has a consistent appearance even though its been painted over many years. Steve has a great eye for setting up a table

The penultimate game pictures on show are those of the breathtaking Rome V Sassanids game put on by the Bodkins. Talked with David Imrie here and complimented him on his 100 year war medieval range – I have a decent quantity awaiting paint. Again another period that’s a source of temptation

There’s nothing like a good cavalry scrap

Ancient tanks!

Finally the game that won best demo game in show by Phil Olley. I’ve long admired Phil’s blog https://philswarcabinet.blogspot.com/2024/ and for me one of the highlights of the show was spending some time talking to him. I’m not sure my pictures do justice to the quality of his display. To have won a trophy in such illustrious company is a testament to his ability with the brush and ability to set up a game. Well done Phil

a showcase for Hovels buildings

just wow

Phil told me these were Fireforge plastics

Flags by Mark Allen

I took loads of pictures as I’ve mentioned but not really captured the wider aspects of the games, part of that I suppose was deliberate looking for paining ideas.

All that remains now is for me to get the 6 kg plus of metal that I bought into my baggage allowance and home. I made a quick early visit to Dave Thomas’ stand for some Perry 100YW metals. I picked up figures from First Corps (Knights and ECW cavalry), Some Lansknecht and Moors by Artizan from Northstar. More Footsore Welsh and a few Baron’s war figures, along with a pile of Front Rank 100YW figures from Gripping Beast. I was staggered by how much it weighed having forgotten or not given much advanced thought to how many mounted figures I bought!

I wonder if I can make it back next year again – I has such a good time – on that note I’ll end end with my favourite from the many pictures I took….