My Adventures With Miniature Soldiers: Pydna at Partizan

OK so this is a little late at 2 weeks after the event however this event cemented my return to miniatures.

Do you think he will notice the coffee stain?

I had been dithering over going to the Partizan show, I had been before, many years ago, I like the venue and it is just under an hours drive but the thing that tipped the balance was Mr Simon Millers call for folks to volunteer as a participant (General) in his demo game for his new rules.

Generally I have found that going to shows on my own can be a bit of a trudge. Sure I am enthused by the wealth of eye candy but I am not interacting with anyone, I have the odd chat but it is a generally solo experience while surrounded by the hundreds of others who are there. So I thought about and and then volunteered. The rest, as they say is history or in this case a re-write of history as the Macedonians won in our game.

Simon had been billing it as a monster game with thousands of figures and he was not wrong as this is the sight that greeted me on turning up.

The table laid out

This photo does not do it justice as these are all well painted 28mm figures. Thousands of 'em which may lead you to think that such a large game may suffer from being unmanageable. I can tell you it is not, certainly when using Mr Miller's rules.

On with the battle and I found myself in rather exalted company, facing the boys from Claymore Castings and standing next to Keith from Aventine Miniatures whose figures I believe were well represented on the table.

The game itself was pretty fast once we got going and the rules seemed to me to be a mixture of Command and Colours with the Activation randomness for a General to issue orders. These are both of the rules that I like. The gaming area is laid out in a grid and all movement is via squares. This appeals to me, I am not a great fan of the micro measuring of distances that some players indulge in. Maybe more of that in a separate post. Combat is simple but effective and uses a standard deck of cards. All in all a great game and a great day out, helped not least by the fact that I managed to take the winning combat, Keith having done all the actual hard work...

As it is I will be looking to volunteer to General at other games and if my painting is felt up to scratch by the organiser even contribute some miniatures.