Crusade 2017

It's the last weekend in January so it must be time for the Crusade show, hosted by the Penarth & District Wargamers! This year there was a new venue and IMHO it was a massive improvement. The show itself was superbly organised and the club members were hugely helpful in terms of loading/unloading, etc.

As with many wargames shows there were a number of re-enactors. This fine fellow, from the 41st Regiment of Foot, was a pleasure to chat with. Colin and I couldn't resist playing with his musket!

Present arms!!

The musket had to be prised from his arms!!

The show itself was fairly busy throughout the day and it was a real pleasure to catch up with some friends (Hi to Chris, Stu, Scott, John and Dad-John, etc!!). It was also good fun to wander around and have a chat with a few of the traders; having done quite a few shows now you really do see how it's a community of its own!

I managed to have a quick wander around with Chris Harris (see his excellent YouTube channel here) so here's a few pics of games that tickled my fancy.

First up is "What a Tanker!" from Too Fat Lardies. Chatting with the Lard Islanders it appears they've used the CoC dice mechanism to manage the manoeuvring of tanks. It seemed quite detailed (e.g. keeping track of whether your main gun was loaded and with what kind of shell, how far your turret could rotate, etc) but plenty of people were playing and having fun.

TFL tanks rumble across Normandy

Nick explains the game

The Skirmish Wargames Society were playing WHFB using 54mm figures. This was very impressive and the photos alas do not really capture the spectacle.

One game that I thought was stunning was this one, set in the French Indo-China War - no, I didn't know much about it either!?! The level of detail was incredible! Lots of little vignettes, etc.

The intel...

The main gates of the airfield

There were at least eight large aircraft on the table!

Plenty of action in this area

There was even a model brothel!!

The show has a good range of traders too, although I bought very little this time. I thoroughly enjoyed chatting to the gamers and modellers who stopped by the Charlie Foxtrot stand.

So... a good day out and well worth attending.