Cavalier '15

Today I went off the Cavalier, the show run by TWWS in Tonbridge, Kent.  It usually marks the start of the show year.  I tend to go to Cavalier, Salute, Colours and SELWG.

It's a reasonably short 45 minute hop round the motorway for me so fairly accessible.

The show is held in The Angel Centre, a sports centre in the town centre...why do wargames show organisers insist on putting wargamers into close proximity to fit, healthy people trying to exercise!!

The show was reasonably busy in the morning when I arrived...not packed but it seemed fairly steady till 1-ish when I left.  By this point it definitely felt quieter (I could get to the Bring and Buy without the judicious use of elbows) but this may have been due to a lunchtime lull. It'd be interesting to hear if it picked up again after lunch.

I hadn't gone with any great spending plans...in fact I was resolved not to get tempted by anything new.  I did nearly succumb to a couple of things... Hydra Miniatures Retro Raygun figures nearly won me over.   Initially I'd been looking at these as I'd thought their robots would be ideal for a post apocalypse game, but the whole Pulp Sci Fi setting looks fun ( and anything which features Comet the Galacteer Space Chimp is going to win every time!).  I can see myself eventually getting some but not at the moment. 

I also nearly bought some Tumbling Dice 1/600 aircraft. I'd recently read about the Finnish/Russian air war in WW2 and had been thinking these sounded like an interesting set of forces to collect when what should they have ready painted and just sitting there waiting to be bought but a set of planes for each side.  Luckily they were a little too pricey for me so I decided that at some point I'll get the unpainted sets but I may regret that decision when it comes to applying the tiny decals!

In the end I only bought a pack of 4Ground buildings and a few Peter Pig Early war British and Russians to bolster the existing troops I have . 

There were a fair spread of companies vying for my money and I had a chat with Keith from Armies Army who seemed to have steady flow of people checking out his figures.  There was a pretty good range of games on display... as usual a few suffered from the problem of people being more engaged in the game than in talking to the punters ( a bit of a pet hate) but the standards were all very impressive.

Here are a small selection of photos... as usual apologies to the clubs who put the games on as I couldn't remember who did what/

This was  Zombie game being shown off by a new company

An unusual James Bond skiing game, escaping from the enemy agents and helicopters.

Tonbridge Wargames club's Crossfiregrad game

 

A very nice looking Vietnam game

...and flying above it was this impressive bomber complete with a string of
bombs dangling below it, heading for the unsuspecting
NVA (sadly they don't show up well on the photo)

WW2 Bolt Action game, Allies attempting to stop the launch
of the V2 and capture the rocket scientists

An ECW which seemed to be using Musket and Tomahawks rules... interesting idea!

An ACW game... I assume this was the new Cigar Box game cloths...looked really nice