Friday morning saw the "fab four" of Dave,Brian,Paul and I setting off on our annual "pilgrimage" to Falkirk for the Carronade show,this year we met Mike and Chris at the hotel,booked in, and then proceeded to the venue to set up our 40mm Seven Years War game.
On saturday we again made our way to the venue,and arrived refreshed and ready for a great day.
The show seemed bigger and better this year,with more traders,catering for every aspect of wargaming you can imagine,and a myriad of games representing the diverse nature of our great hobby(way of life?).
The organisation was,as usual, spot on! every one knew where they had to be(traders and gamers) the bring and buy was "bustling" from the word "GO!",as was the catering side!
a huge thanks must go out to the Falkirk District Wargames Club for such a wonderful effort.
The general public was queuing long before the opening time of 10.00am,but because it started to rain,the doors opened early,and the "eager throng" piled in!-the "foot-fall" this year was the highest it had ever been,around the 800 mark-well done.
Early Saturday morning and we are all ready to go-which was more than can be said for some games,and indeed traders-poor show from those!!
Just before the "public" was allowed in,the gamers and traders are bracing themselves,and doing last minute adjustments to stalls and tables.
It was the same in the other hall,as well as the corridor between the two,then......
WHoosh!! the spending frenzy begins!!!
The cry was heard,"buy,buy,buy" and so they did!!!
This is the "bring and buy" hall,which was busy all day(one hour slots allocated)
Because of the nature of our game and the size of the figures,our table was like a magnet,attracting old and young like-minded gamers.We pride ourselves on talking to everyone who ventures beside our games,telling them about the figures,rules and club-in fact promoting the hobby as much as possible!-we talked all day,and we all had sore throats at the end!
This is the first year that Chris has joined us for Carronade(he lives in Yorkshire now) and he had this Tee-shirt specially made!!-he's as mad as us!!!!-however,his trip with us was worthwhile,because he won the "single figure" painting competition-good on you Chris!!
Chris and trophy!!-the guy behind Chris(on 'phone) actually fell asleep during the afternoon,and slumped onto the table he was playing at!!!!
This shows our game in full swing-we had countless comments about the figures,which was nice,we also had some negative comments,such as "well,it's ok but it's not proper wargaming" and one person criticised the flags as not being correct"-we can also take criticism,so it wasn't a problem!
"Colonel Bill" thought our game had "charm" and "nostalgia" in equal measure!-Paul,you really ought to get out of the habit of standing like that!!!!
The climax of our game was this massive cavalry battle-spectacular or what????
We were asked at the end of the day if we would be attending next year-our reply was "try and stop us!!"
This was a great week-end,full of wargaming,good banter and loads of laughs-what more could you ask for?
