Vapnartak – York 2013

And so another wargaming year begins in the North with the excellent Vapnartak Show from York Wargames Society at the great Racecourse venue. This year I traveled down by train so I could get there early and spend the whole day and then call in at the York Tap while waiting for my train! I managed to arrive at 9.50 and was hopeful of getting the free figures only to find the doors were already open and all the figures had gone! Obviously not a 10am start then… 🙂

This year was more of a social visit as I had very little on my list to buy. On that front it was a great success. I met the usual WD3 crowd and even partook of Mr Peeler’s DBN Borodino game (of which more anon). As usual it was good to catch up and chat. I had hoped to meet a few people from the BKC/CWC forums but as no one knew what anyone else looked like I fear we passed/ignore each other at the designated meeting time. Next time!

The show seemed to follow what may be a recent pattern. Busy ’til about 1pm then a tail off and pretty well quiet by 2pm. Couple of traders commented on this too. It wasn’t empty at 2 but the peak was definitely passed.

I had several wonders down the table top sale area and for most of the morning this was pretty jammed. It seems to be working as a bring and buy alternative. A few seemed to have the usual over the top prices but most seemed happy to shift stuff and haggle. I do fear some of the real bargains will be appearing on eBay soon though…

The above was at about 13:30 and although there were a few empty tables there were still plenty of people passing through.

There was the usual good selection of demo games. Some I’d seen at other shows in the latter half of last year and others seemed familiar from York last year but the standard was good and in places excellent. I concentrated the photos on the ‘new’ stuff to me and the few that really grabbed me.

Mr Peeler’s DBN Borodino was excellent fun. Using 15mm figures and the DBN rules this allowed Borodino to be refought on a small table and in a few hours. Things were going well for the French until I took command of the dice and proceeded to roll a good string of 1s which pretty well crippled the attack! Excellent fun and a good bunch of chaps for the East Coast Wargamers.

The highlight game for me was The Bunker Wargames Holiday Centre ‘The last stand of the Rani’ which had some excellent figures and terrain.

The other game that really grabbed me was the Ilkley Wargames (I think/hope) 40mm Prince August Old School/New School game using Sam Mustafa’s Maurice rules. A very striking game.

It was good to see the usual section for younger gamers to keep themselves occupied (though there were quite a few kids involved in other games) and there was an excellent little Dr Who game:

There are more pictures of these and other games in the York 2013 Gallery .

Purchase wise I was quite restrained. I needed a pack of GHQ T34-85s to allow me to do another battalion for my Syrians. For once I was able to resist a large Baccus purchase and just grabbed a single pack of 1806 French to enable me to re-base (yes, EB, re-base!) the three units of 1806 French I have and add the extras to fit my 6mm ImagiNation basing style. And Andy at Old Glory kindly brought along his stock of Jackdaw figures for me to look at. I wanted some ‘specials’ to add to the huge pile of 25/30mm C18th stuff I have for my ImagiNations. Seeing as he’d bought them it would have been impolite to not buy anything so I grabbed the French High Command, the On the Road command and camp followers pack and the ‘Ball’ pack so I can have some posh people in the rear watching the action!

And finally it was good to yet again meet Ian of the Blog With No Name and collect my ASL Scenario Pack (LFT7) I won in his recent draw. Nice to see Ian and sorry we didn’t catch up later and have a proper natter.

So, overall another good show from the York crew. Thanks!

NB. As usual, all mis-labelling of photos and errors in the text etc. are mine alone. Feel free to correct and I’ll update accordingly!