Vapnartak 2011

I went to Vapnartak in York yesterday. It's only 45 minutes from my house, which makes it a nice easy show to get to and the venue is pretty good. I really liked the Merchant Adventurers' Hall when it was there because of the atmosphere of the place, but the racecourse is much better in terms of lighting, space and parking. So, how was the show?

Socially it was brilliant. I met up with Andy (Another Slight Diversion), Meic (an old friend from my digging days in Wrexham), Mike with his newly sculpted Ottomans (very nice and can't wait to see them come into production: for a preview check the Baccus forum) and many others. I had a great chat with Peter Berry on the Baccus stand and Tony at East Riding Miniatures. All in all, the social side of things was really good and it was a great pleasure to meet up with people that I only see occasionally.

The down side to the show was that it was very busy in the morning and seemed rather overcrowded, which made looking at things difficult with people barging past all the time. The crowds thinned out greatly in the afternoon, which made it much better.

As far as demo games went, the show was rather disappointing. None of the games particularly inspired me. I found the wall-to-wall nature of the predominantly 28m games rather tedious and not particularly evocative of the periods being represented. Looking for the positive, The Lance and Longbow Society game did not suffer from this. I think it was Mortimer's Cross this time around and it did look like a game that one might wish to play. There was a demo of the forthcoming Viking Age rules from Gripping Beast that looked interesting. Again, it was not wall-to-wall figures and the table dressing of pigs and sheep was nice to see. The League of Extraordinary Kriegspielers had an interesting looking game going too with a nice town layout. The problem with this game though was that I found it hard to see what was going on for the backs of the players. Another major gripe of mine was that no one at any of the games even greeted me when I approached the table to have a look. A simple hello would have sufficed and might have given me the opportunity to ask questions without interrupting the game play. Instead, the players kept playing and the onlookers were ignored. As such I wonder why the players actually bothered bringing their games away from the clubs into a public arena.

On the buying front, I limited my purchases significantly due to lack of money. I bought some Figures in Comfort foam trays for my troops. You have to keep the troops happy or they will not fight well for you! I also bought a packet of each of the new Vikings packs from Baccus. They are beautiful little pillagers and I am looking forward to getting paint onto them so that I can field them en masse. Lovely stuff.

A Thrifty Gamer at Vapnartak

I dragged my poor, long-suffering wife along to Vapnartak in York on Sunday. I like this show because York racecourse is a good, light and airy venue and there is more space than at many other shows, as well. I forgot to take my camera, so no pictures of the show. Sorry. On the other hand, I was not struck by any of the games particularly. There was a reasonable selection of games on offer with most being 28mm figures. They looked fine as far as they went, but they also looked remarkably samey. Perhaps I have become jaded by wargames shows, but nothing stood out and all the games looked remarkably like a lot of other games that I have seen at other shows. There seemed to be very few participation games available either, not that I could have taken advantage had they been there, what with my wife being there and all that. However, a trend towards fun participation games would be nice to see for future shows.

While at Vapnartak, I did have a long chat with Pete Berry on the Baccus stall, which was both productive and illuminating. I could tell you what we talked about, but then I would have to kill you! Meeting with the traders and socialising is really the main reason why I go to shows these days. The demo games, as mentioned above, more often than not just leave me cold and there are too few participation games for my taste, so that just leaves shopping and socialising, which is not really a bad thing but it does make me feel old and jaded.


















My spending at Vapnartak was somewhat constrained by the presence of my wife, which was a blessing really. I am, after all, trying to be thrifty. So, what did I buy? Well, one packet of eight 6mm limbers for my 18th century artillery. We have been playing a lot of that recently and do plan to play more so I felt justified in providing my troops with the means to move their cannon. I also bought half a dozen foam trays from Figures in Comfort. While this is not particularly thrifty, I like the trays and they protect my figures well. With the drive to paint more figures, I believe that I should store them properly to protect their new paint jobs too. Therefore, the expense of the foam trays is justified for that reason and qualifies under the drive to spend my money more wisely.