One of the two shows I go to every year is S.E.L.W.G. (South East London Wargames Group) held late in October at Crystal Palace Sports Centre in (funnily enough) South East London. This is a very risky place for anyone with cheque book / credit card as there were 69 traders today present plus a large "bring and buy" (flea market to you Americans). As usual I went with the intention "of just buying one or two figures to fill in the gaps in my units".
Naturally this plan "did not survive first contact with the enemy". I am attempting to build some forces to fight WWII Eastern Front actions with CDIII (this makes me a bit of a rarity in this country as Rapid Fire appears to have a strangle hold). Since I started this project I have discovered that I am all fingers and thumbs when it comes to building plastic kits. The first stand I came across (Battlefield miniatures) had a box of made up 1/76 kits for £ 1.50 ($2.40) apiece. Okay, so the quality was nothing to write home about but I picked up a couple of those little Sonmas from the old Matchbox kits (used by the Germans in anti-partisan actions), a Flakvierling from God knows where, and two of the light trucks from the old Airfix Airfield Recovery Set. I figured a bit of paint and they could serve the Wehrmacht. Plus they had back issues of Wargames Illustrated for 75p ($1.20) - well you couldn't walk away from all those gaming ideas could you? Well I couldn't anyway.
Next stop was was B.B. Wargames who again had ready built WWII equipment for sale from 4.75 ($7.70) to 9.95 ($12.90) these are well made plastic, resin and metal kits with a good spray - job ( I was buying early war German and Soviet equipment so the tanks were in basic grey or green with a flat earth sprayed on the lower regions - later war equipment was in the correct camouflage patterns) - one Soviet Armoured Brigade later (Mr. Visa was wincing already) I was ready to roll, These guys are very nice people and have a website, and as Hal would say "highly recommended".
Looking around I came across the Redoubt stand - the big news for those of you who liked their A.C.W. train is that they are producing an ironclad in conjunction with Front Line Wargames. This ship (USS / CSS Goliath) measures 20" long by 7" wide and has everything you need to land shore parties (a detatchable longboat is included), bombard forts or fight other craft. It is made in three pieces (stern with covered paddlewheel, centre section an open fighting area, and bow where there is covered gun battery with turntables). This is a big model and for those of you with room to deploy it will make a great centrepiece for a game. It comes with (I believe) 30 figures - a marine officer, a dozen sailors to man the guns and a dozen marines - and yes I know that only comes to 25 but they haven't finished designing them as of today (10/24/1999). The price will be 195.00 ($154.00) for the ship and crew. The crew will be available separately as ACX35 Ironclad Crew for Y19.00 ($30.80). 1 would think that it could be used in other theatres as well (colonial actions possibly?) although it is not a "Sand Pebbles" type riverboat.
Passing the A.B. Figures stand my eye was caught by what I originally thought was a well painted 15mm wargames army. Looking at the notice above it I realised this was something very special - a French line infantry battalion in 1809 at 1: 1 scale (yes 1: 1 - this is not a mis-print). 792 figures in the march attack pose complete with N.C.O.'s, officers and even a band. They were formed in the traditional three ranks. Each half-company (I am not into Napoleonics so forgive me for not knowing the correct terms) was on a base about six inches long by two inches deep so the whole thing was about six feet long. It impressed the hell out of me - my painting rate is about six 25mm figures per day (if I have the inclination to paint) - this exercise would take me a lifetime. I have no idea if the chap who did is now painting a British battalion to square off against them - now wouldn't that be something to do with the Chef de Battalion rules?
Raventhorpe had some new vehicles in their Ready to Roll range. For those of you who are into 1/76 WWII and prefer to game than build kits these are for you - they are one-piece vehicles cast in resin with excellent definition priced from £ 2.95 to 14.95 ($4.85 to $7.90). They had a Pz.IV with side skirts (RTR55 - L4.95), a French P107 half track used by the Germans in Normandy RTR36 - E4.50/$7.20), and a Fiat 626 truck (RTR35 - £ 4.95) which was also used by the Germans. All of these vehicles are of high quality and once painted look good on the wargames table.
Grand Manner (UK Tel 0121-552-5268, USA from RLBPS Tel 815-874-5351) are a fairly new concern who have been advertising in the glossies for the last few months - they make 25mm buildings. This was my first sight of them and they are very nice. Their new piece for the show was advertised as AWI / ACW but could easily be used for an F & IW battle. I am not sure what the proper name for the piece is so let me describe it - a wooden stockade about 8" square with a stone building in one corner about 4" by 3". The upper storey was wood and overhung the ground floor by 3/4" all around. It had if I recall a wooden shingle roof Price was 124.00 ($64.00),
At the 1st Corps stand were some flags by CM13 Designs. Currently they do French and British flags for a number of units between 1812 and 1815. Rob Baker told me that the chap who does them is now working on French flags from 1804 onwards and ACW flags. These are all in 25mm and are the best flags I have ever seen. Have you ever looked at the hand painted flags in Wargames Illustrated but not felt confident enough to do it? Well these are the answer to your prayers. They are printed on good quality paper but still have a hand painted quality (including shading) - 12.50 for a King's colour and battalion colour. This makes them about three or four times as expensive as the Signifier or Old Glory flags but these are in a different league entirely. These really are "highly recommended".
There were also 29 games in progress. Unlike the U.S. where I understand there are good number of participation games at your conventions these tend to be in the minority at British shows. Most spectacular were the South London Warlords who had a game entitled Wacht am Rhein (Battle of the Bulge) complete with rocket firing US aircraft tankbusting. These were a bit out of the ordinary in that they were not mounted on the normal stand but were each connected to the table by means of two brass rods that ran down the smoke trail of the rockets. Had to be seen to be believed.
There were two 15mm SYW games back to back (Minden and Rossbach) each of which were lovely. There was also a Quebec 1759 so the 18'h Century was well represented. SELWG themselves had a game featuring a late war cross-channel special-forces raid in 20mm - this came complete with a cargo ship that was at least two feet long and looked very good,
For the last two years SELWG has been very crowded. This year the club tried to solve this by using another area in the basement for the first time (the signs were all in the same direction as the women's changing room - I thought my luck might have been in but no - it was a large gym just opposite). This housed a number of traders and the Bring and Buy. Any of you Americans who think the British are polite and reserved have not seen the feeding frenzy around these tables (three deep in wargamers for most of the day). The Bring and Buy was the scene of my big regret of the day. I did not bring my cheque book and at the very end of the day when the melee had subsided a bit (only one or two deep) I saw a box with 24 Front Rank Austrian infantry with a really nice paint job for £ 20.00 ($32.00). And I had already spent my cash! Did I kick myself, or what?
As I said at the beginning SELWG is held in late October at the Crystal Palace Sports Centre. London at this time tends to be cold (in fact I have never been to SELWG when it hasn't been cold and wet on the day) so when you arrive wrapped up against the cold you can imagine the sweat you break into upon entering. This is because on the other side of the large building are Olympic standard diving and swimming pools and they are heated to the normal temperature for that kind of building. You have never seen so many traders sweating!
Next year Crystal Palace will be being refurbished in October so SELWG are casting around for a new venue. News of this new site should be in the wargames magazines early next year. I hope that the venue will be of the same quality (but a tittle cooler!) as SELWG have consistently put on a very well run show at Crystal Palace and they deserve every success in the future.
Oh, and did I buy "the one or two figures" to round out my 25mm SYW forces? No, not after blowing my wad on WWII 20mm vehicles! Still I (like you all) have more than my body weight in unpainted lead stashed in the cupboard and I will not miss them for quite a while given my speed of painting!
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© Copyright 2000 Hal Thinglum
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