WMMS

Well Scott I agree it was nice to get back into the swing of things as a club but, this has always been for me a venue where we get together enough club members to stage a full demonstration game. Nevertheless, on the whole Owen's revamp was well received although we were not exactly rushed off our feet and Owen did most of the game running while I did my best to bend all his rules out of shape ;D

Putting our rose tinted glasses to one side for a moment, let us remember some of the shortfalls of this venue. Firstly parking is still and probably always will be ridiculously difficult. Owen got us there just after 0900 hours and there were precious few spaces then. Secondly there was an acute shortage of seating with each trader or games table originally being rationed to one chair each. I trawled the building for extra chairs and came up empty apart from acquiring the second seat from an unattended empty table.

On the plus side there were plenty of participation games and demonstration games present including the Catch the Pigeon, or as we used to call it when we ran it many years ago; Not Monty Pythons Flying Circus.

I was horrified by the prices of many items, especially the successor to Andy Dumelow who wanted 17/- (85p) for each badly painted 15mm Napoleonic figure on his stand and £1 each (20/-) for those with a more modest covering of paint. This was all the more galling as I had at long last had enough work to save up a few pennies to spend and as a result found myself desperately trying to find something I wanted at an affordable price.

I was sorely tempted by the 1/72 metal WW2 aircraft but, have as yet little use for them as Rapid Fire or Crossfire have limited use for aircraft. However at £2.50 each for die cast versus £5 or more for an unpainted kit I thought they were better than good value. I so badly wanted the massive boxed set of the Korean war in 1/72 with an over 200 plastic figures mix of nations, although they seemed to have forgotten the British and Commonwealth troops. Only thing stopping me was knowledge that I already had enough painting to see me to beyond the grave (I am to buried with set of acrylic paints, brushes, water, light etc.) and Owen pointed out that overall the saving on the collective price over individual boxes was only pence (decimal or real).

Disappointingly I spent only £3 10 shillings with the latter being the acquisition of two badly needed d20s as a result of clearing out of all the small change in my pockets. Seriously, it appears that traders are not taking along the mix of gaming periods that they used to and shows are in my humble opinion the worse for this. I guess it will be back to ebay or internet shopping for those items I really want, nearly said "need" but in truth it is the desire to improve my troops rather than need that drives my collection forward.

Overall, a good day out and nice to be back at the coal face for a short while. Petrol prices being as they are unless I drop on a solar powered car that runs under heavy British cloud cover, it is unlikely we will be traveling to many other shows.