The Other Partisan 2023

 We attended the 'Other Partisan' earlier this month under the banner of Wargames Developments Display Team (North). I really like Partisan, one of my favourite shows and it was good to be running a game again there as well. 

Big queues to get in for the 10am opening.

And the hall was rammed by11. I gather numbers were up this year, but as ever, things thinned out very quickly after lunch. This seems to be an increasing trend in recent years, although I didn't notice the same thing at Joy of Six last year, perhaps because I went along in the afternoon!

Here is our table. After its outing at COW in the summer, I took 'World War One in Three Turns' along as a participation game. John, James and Tim helped me run it, we took it in turns through the day, as it needs two people to run it really.

The Manouvre Group crowd were on the table next to us, lots of 1/144th scale modern vehicles.

There were many other impressive participation games, most of them much bigger than ours! Oh well, at least ours didn't take long to set up,

This one is a 15mm Black Powder participation game, Battle of Toulon in 1793.

And the wonderful Star Wars 'Battle of Scarif' which has been around a few shows.

This 'Giant Risk' game really caught my eye, a sort of 'Battle of Dorking' type late nineteenth century invasion of Great Britain.

Plucky Brits prepare to defend old blighty.

WW1 in Three Turns has some takers. John and Tim take Harry Sidebottom through his paces. The hat is my original hand made WW1 Service Dress cap, it is in pretty good nick for something well over a hundred years old with beautiful hand stitching inside. 

Pwll Melyn, 1405, another participation game courtesy of the Lance and Longbow Society.

L&LS were set up next to the Northamptonshire Battlefields Trust table.

Which rather incongruously had Chris Kemps 'Operation Totalize' NQM game set up next to it!

This was primarily eye candy, the actual game bit was Joe Eakins taking on Wittmans three Tigers. I managed to destroy them all in five shots.

NQM QRS and game intro.

As always at Partisan there were loads of big demo games. I ran around and took photos of some of the ones which caught my eye.

St Mere Eglise.

A big game featuring a balloon hanging over the table!

Once Upon a Time in Siberia, set in the 1920s.

Siege of Hennebont, 1342.

Operation Resolute. A huge 20mm Cold War game.

Buccaneers eye view of the proceedings.

The Plains of Lalsot, 1787.

And a very chilly looking winter game.

'Fox killed in the open', a Beda Fomm game.

The Defence of Calais.

Here is Calais, being bombed by a wicked Stuka.

Never Mind the Billhooks at sea. 

James and John running WW1 in Three Turns. We had steady trade all day and ended up running the game 12 times. Losses varied between 19,000 and 26,000, and the majority of participants did manage to break through the German lines eventually.

The players all appeared to enjoy themselves and it was good to be running a public game again after a long break.

A 1918 tank attack putting in a strong effort against the German third line.

And a hideously unfortunate attack where almost everyone was forced back to the start line be weight of fire, leaving just a single battalion to assault the third line. They rolled a 6 and the Germans ran off. Medals all around! 

This was the actual action bit in the NQM game, the Firefly on the left taking on the German tanks on the right.

I was fairly disciplined with my shopping, mainly picking up more magnetic basing supplies and some books on the US campaign against the Westwall. I was on the hunt for some supplies to go inside truck models and was very pleased to come across these. It saves me picking apart some of my existing supply base models to free up some oil drums and ammo crates.

Early war Miniatures resin vehicle cargo packs. These are just amazing value compared to buying individual oil drums and ammo crates.

In each £3.50 bag you get four groups of five oil drums and four piles of ammunition crates, half cast in dark resin and half cast in light, not that it really matters as I'll be painting them

They fit neatly into the back all almost all my open backed trucks. This big Lancia can even take two. This will be a very easy way of designating fuel and ammunition supply columns, and I can also use them as terrain. The only trucks they don't fit are my Peter Pig Gaz AA - the fuel drums are OK but the ammo crates are too long. They fit in my Zvezda Gaz AAs, so problem solved.

Another great day out, and I'm looking forward to the next one.