SELWG 2009: Crystal Palace

I've just got back from a day our at the South East London War Games club annual show, which was canceled last year due to venue problems, but is now back.

Lots more information about the previous shows and the club on their site. Anyway, if you live within striking distance of London this show is well worth going to. Not as high profile as Salute, which is in the Excel Centre, but every bit as big with lots of stuff to see and do.

I took a friend's son, Oliver, with me, and he got to take home a Warhammer 40K box set for his Xmas present from me. Oliver also had a whale of a time playing Weird World War Two game featuring giant mecha, and got given a werewolf figure by the nice guys running the Westwind demo game for doing so well.

He enjoyed this so much he went on to play another game with them, playing the other side.

Oliver then went on to play a Russian Revolution aerial game and enjoyed himself with the nice crew who were running it from the South East Essex Military Society. The game was called Wot, no parachute, and Oliver played and really enjoyed trying to shoot down the enemy bomber. Actually it was nice to see quite a lot of youngsters at the show, and that they were being encouraged to join in the games, which can't be a bad thing.

I wish I had taken a camera, but I'm sure that the SELWG site will upload pictures of the day in due course. Hey no sooner said than done I found that Bob's site has photos.

No BattleTech stuff of note at the show, but I've already got plenty of unmade mechs in a box to paint on a rainy day, so that didn't bother me at all.

I bought some Peter Pig stuff for their AK47 Republic rule set. I was lucky to play in a demo game of AK47R, which was a hoot. We sort of won, I think, or least didn't loose too badly. The owner of Peter Pig Games ran the demo, and he was an absolute gem, showing patience and humour to help us newbies understand the rules.

I plan on doing a Somali based Black Hawk down inspired game using these rules, and after reading on Bob Cordery's site here:

I've been inspired to start thinking about doing some inter-war period games around the Spanish Civil War using the AK47R rules modified to suit. So I bought a Gaz truck and T26, because they were cute and would fit the period quite nicely. I know that is a bit random, but hey it's a hobby.

Finally, I succumbed to some Pendraken 10mm World War One armies, and bought a British and German starter pack.

 Not going to use AK47R for these, but rather the TooFat Lardies ruleset Through the Mud and the Blood. My Uncle-in-law writes military books and gave me one on the Somme, which I found to be a real eye opener to the period, which is mostly seen as portrayed in the TV series Blackadder Goes Forth.

Needless to say I have another shoebox of miniatures to paint up.

What else? I saw some excellent looking games. South London Warlords presentation had players getting into role as Zulu warriors with leopard print head bands. I really thought the Southend-on-Sea Wargamers 1984 game was impressive, and wish I had time to stop and chat with them. Finally, I was also totally impressed by Operation Peace for Galilee run by Crawley Wargames Club. Amazing looking game.

There was also a very nice 15mm Flames of War Russian game, unfortunately the name escapes me, but the terrain boards were superb.

So that was just over three hours of entertainment for the two of us, and I would like to thank all the clubs and the organisers for putting on such a good show. Next year how about advertising it a bit more, as you deserved to have a lot more people through the door for a show of this quality.