Throwback – Lead Belt Nottingham 2010 – Day 1
In August I have written about my anniversary in "professional" wargaming, and during my time as editor-in-chief I visited a lot of shows and convention, and we did some tours to meet with some of the manufacturers. Our first large tour of that kind was exactly 10 years ago (well in the night from the 14th to the 15th), towards the lead belt.
For those of you not familiar with that term, the lead belt describes the greater Nottingham area / Midlands, as due to Games Workshop sitting there, a lot of other tabletop companies were founded in the surrounding area - many by former Games Workshop employees.
As we were already in touch with the bigger companies for coverage, news and such, we arranged a couple of meetings in and around Nottingham and booked our stay in a hotel in Nottingham (Jury's Inn, proper stay, can only recommend). When I say we, it was Christian/Darkover (my former second-in-command), his wife Sarah, and two friends of mine from the local wargaming club; Andre (the albanian national coach, more on that later) and Lukas (my flatmate from my student days).
A comment on “Is Historical Wargaming Dying Out?”
The US-american wargaming channel Little Wars TV asked the question, "Is historical wargaming dying out?"
It feels like an rather odd question to ask, for one thing at the current time, with a completely empty event schedule accross the board of wargaming, not just historical. But not that, but a rather enthusiastic article on The Economist about the lead belt booming - not just Games Workshop.
Decluttering the ‘bunker
With the project private home continuing further, I'm preparing moving my studio into the new house. And as I don't intend to bring "dead projects" into our new home (as it will be harder to get rid off them, as that hopefully will be our last move), so I'm progressing further with the evaluation of projects and minimizing my stock. Currently focusing on bulk projects and items, where I'll see the results of emptying up space quickly. Sold and gave away a few items already, for example the majority of my Warmachine stock (Colossals and Battle Engines), Battle Masters leftovers, and am willing to split with my early Saxon Saga and Mantic Orks.
And while sorting through the drawers and boxes of my studio, I did not only find things from the days past, like the tickets to my first Warhammer World or Games Day visit, but quite the lot of assembly instructions.
A Medieval Siege Engine
Ever since I played Age of Empires 2, the tribok or trebuchet caught my interest. In the The Outlaw King, the impressive Warwolf was seen in action. And when the Baron's War kickstarter covered a set of siege engine crew, I got them, as they fit very well the early crusades armies as well.
But as for the siege engine itself. I always liked the Gripping Beast siege engine, but that one is out of stock since I ever looked it up. Sarissa Precision covered a tribok of their own, as an MDF kit, which is a steal at 20 GBP, very inspired by the Warwolf and incredibly huge. But to huge for my use and I am not that keen on MDF for these kits, as I wanted the wood texture, that you can show like that in resin or plastic. The kits by Games Workshop for the Bretonnians or Gondor are quite nice, but OOP, so I went on looking for plastic or resin kits.
Looking back on August 2020
I ordered Knightmare Miniatures retro-style miniatures through Battlefield Berlin in April and after a lot of reminding and pushing, they finally managed to send the few casts to Berlin and it was quickly forwarded to me. I am aware of the situation in Spain and that it is niché, but seriously, 4 months and that amount of pro-activity necessary ... annoying.
The few models will be added to my greater Realm of Chaos collection, along with the bat swarms by Reaper and Masquerade to be included in the small undead warband.
A miniature Odyssey – Fresh Meat
After finishing my Summer Project in the last article, I have to say that I have developed a taste for it and would like to expand my army of Hades. All in all, the experience of a team project was very motivating and I would like to give the army a little more variety.
Well, what goes well with skeletons? Sure, zombies! For this purpose I snatched some zombies from Mantic from Gregor, who participated in the summer project with his indigenous tribes.
A miniature Odyssey – The Gates of Hades…
…have opened and the last block for the Summer Project 2020 is finished. Since I already had some practice with the skeletons from Warlord Games, it didn't take long to paint the last six of them.
A miniature Odyssey – With Spear and Shield
When you think of ancient Greece, you simply cannot help but think of a Hoplite armed with a shield and spear. Logically many Hoplites died in the battles and so it is not surprising that I painted some skeletons with exactly this combination of weapons for the second block for the summer project.
Bolt Action SdKfz 251/7 Ausf. D Pionierwagen
A bit of a sneaky release by Warlord Games, with the Campaign Stalingrad book a new plastic kit came along - the Sd.Kfz 251/7 Ausf. D Pionierwagen.
There was a Pionierwagen kit available before, based upon the plastic Sd.Kfz. 251 Ausf. C with a few resin parts added, to create the /7 variant. In this case we have the 251/1 Ausf. D as a base with an additional plastic frame, as we've seen in the kit of the Flammpanzerwagen, Stummel or mortar carrier.
Bolt Action Campaign Stalingrad
The last Bolt Action supplement I've reviewed here was Korea and that was a spin-off, which covered for the first time a conflict outside of world war 2. So considering world war 2 books for Bolt Action, the latest one before that was Operation Overlord released in summer 2019, one more reason to see how Warlord Games covers one of the biggest battles of the second World War - Stalingrad.
So far, the only campaign book covering Stalingrad, yet in a brief way, as Ostfront from the first edition of Bolt Action. Campaign Road to Berlin covers the epoch two years after the Battle of Stalingrad. But this battle and the fighting around it, had such an impact on the war in the east that they absolutely deserve a supplement of its own and Warlord Games spreads that on a very solid 176 pages. This is upper region for the length of Bolt Action supplement, and it stays with the regular price band of 20 GBP or 30 USD. And as often with the Bolt Action / Osprey books, we had an early cover (right) and a changed final cover of the supplement (left), moving from a Soviet soldier in winter gear to a sailor.
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