Durham Show 9th June Preview Photos Part 1

As promised, I will now preview photos that I took at the Durham Show on 9th June 2007. Probably the highlight of the day was talking to and meeting that jovial figure Andy Copestake from Old Glory with his 40mm American Civil War display.

Andy Copestake's display game was set in the fictional battle of Humpers Farm. All the buildings were scratch built by Andy. The trees were by Last Valley. Figures painted by Northumbrian painting services. These figures are so nice and there is so much detail on them.

Confederates on a small hill overlooking the farm.

Soldiers guarding the stables.

The main artillery gun.

Close up of the Confederates. The Flames of War stall is visible behind it.

More confederates with a general on horseback.

On another note, Andy Copestake is a T.W.A.T. That is, he is a member of the Tantobie Warfare and Tactical Society. Anyone wanting information should email Andy Copestake at Old Glory UK on info@oldgloryuk.com.

Next up is Steve Spence's 28mm WW2 display game. It is set in Arnhem. In this game the Allies have found the Germans after some investigation. Steve Spence is a member of the Durham Wargames Group and lives in Grimsby. He was also a member of the Grimsby Wargames Society for a short period. Here are some of the photos from his game.

Allied Soldiers in Cover.

Allied Soldiers hid behind a bush preparing to attack.

German Defences. Soldiers in hard cover.

Close up of an Allied Field Gun.

My favourite shot. German soldiers, an officer inside hard cover with jeep outside. A view of the rear german defences.

Trees by Last Valley. Figures by various manufacturers. Painted by Steve Spence.
The figures actually live in Grimsby somewhere.

More Durham photos soon. Not quite sorted out all the photos yet....

Wargames Photos from Monday 18th June 2007

I said in my previous post I would post today photos that I took at the club on Monday 18th June 2007. Normally I would either post them the same night or a day later but with my cold which has been making me feel like not doing a lot at all, busy at work as well as being slightly distracted by my present problems there, those photos as well as the ones I took at Durham had fallen by the wayside. I haven't even done any of my other photos even in a picasa gallery as on our website. So, here goes.

There were a few games going on that night. Did not take any photos of Tony Walmsley's 15mm Seven Years War as had done some in the past. The games I did take photos of were:
20mm WW2 Rapid Fire! game with Tony Crute and Steve Graham;
15mm Colonials between Dave Tuck and Dave Hewins;
20mm? World War 1 game between Mark Alcock and Paul Robinson. Paul was using Andy Sharpe's British on this occasion. They used the "schwerpunkt" rules. The game was played on our large table downstairs.

First up then are the photos I took of the World War 1 game.

A Close up of one of Andy Sharpe's WW1 British Soldiers. Andy painted and based all his figures.

WW1 Germans attacking the British position in the Village.

Close up of Mark's WW1 Germans. Mark's Germans were painted and based by Joe Dunn, our resident professional figure painter. This photo was cropped to focus on the German figures.

British eye view of the German Attack from the Village.

Overview into the Centre of the table at Dave Hewins 15mm Colonial figures.

The Colonial Fort and Canal.

Close up of some of Dave Tuck's 15mm Colonial Figures. "Fuzzy Wuzzies" I think.

Overview of some of the scenery in Steve Graham and Tony Crute's 20mm WW2 game using the Rapid Fire 2! rules.

Steve's 20mm Shermans. As someone who used to play Allies in WW2 and maybe will do again someday, I know that Shermans would be easy mincemeat for this next tank....

Tony Crute's 20mm Kingtiger. Looks awesome, doesn't it? All the figures at the club as usual are excellently well painted. The full collection of photos from these games will be galleried on the website within the next month or so.

As I am about to finally prepare my Durham display for which I am also overdue, I will post photos from the Durham show this Saturday. Not till I've watched Doctor Who first though.

Wednesday Day Of Rest

Day Off again. Not done a lot. A little tidying up. Got a letter from the bank this morning telling me I had missed a credit card payment, which was true. I had. Unfortunately hadn't seen my last statement for well over a week as it was under all the letters and other things somewhere in the front room. Had to search through it all to track it down again. Eventually I found it and went and paid more than my minimum, which I always do plus some Gas and Electric.

Tomorrow night I will post some of the photos I took at the club from Monday last when Paul had his World War 1 game.

Update On The Past Few Days

Watched Doctor Who and Doctor Who Confidential on Saturday. It was excellent though it doesn't look good for the Doctor at the minute. It's down to the lovely Martha to try to put things right. I'm sure the Doctor will sort it out eventually but he will need some help. John Simm as The Master was great. He was not taking anything seriously. Had some great one-liners. The Baddies always do. Looking forward to this Saturday.

On Sunday night I emailed Steve Spence the photos of his Durham game. He replied the following day to say he thought they were superb and could he use them on his website, to which I said yes. Also managed to get his website address. When he does put them up I will put a link to it from this blog. I still intend to do a full gallery of the Durham Show soon.

Quick Update

Went to the Dentist this morning but arrived about 10 mins late so had to reschedule. I had been late as I had been having a fight with the back door as I was unable to lock and close it. When I went out I put the chain on and put something in the way of the door till I came back. Didn't really have a choice. Let Andy know there was a problem with it. He came around 7ish to sort it out which he did. The door frame and the door are old and rotten, the door frame especially. Till it gets sorted properly I am not going to use it for some time.

I will post my pics of Monday's games in the next few days. They came out really well including the photos of Paul and Mark's WW1 game using Mark's and Andy Sharpe's figures.

Time To Show Who Is The Master

Watched Doctor Who and Doctor Who Confidential just before typing this entry and it was excellent. The rumours I had heard weeks ago and strands of storyline from early in this series have finally come together. The rumour was that John Simm, fresh from Life on Mars, was going to be The Master. It was true but the twist did not come till the end of the episode.
Derek Jacobi was brilliant as ever as the kindly, mad but ill professor who later turned out to be The Master who had forgotten who he was with a watch identical to the Doctor's with him inside. There has been a mysterious Mr Saxon present from the beginning of this series telling Martha's family all sorts of stories about The Doctor to discredit him. Mr Saxon is probably The Master's alias with the this episode set before The Master went back in time to the present.
Looking forward to next week.

Photos For Hire?

Today I didn't do much at all though I meant to. Been either laid on the bed or sat in the chair in the front room watching telly and full of cold. Slight rumble of thunder earlier. It rained all day. It still is raining. Sniffing and sneezing everywhere again. Coughing really hard a lot more frequently now. Gotta hit that lemsip a lot more. Gives me some relief.

Emailed Henry Hyde to ask if he was interested in an article with photos from the Durham Wargames Show and to ask him to let me know either way whether he may use my photos or not from Partizan. He is not using my Partizan photos this time and is not interested in the Durham article as it would be more suited to a monthly magazine. Thanked him afterwards for at least letting me know.

Been looking a bit into .mobi domains name today. They can be viewed on the net but they are designed mainly for viewing on mobile devices. As I am planning to buy a large amount of domain names for other projects, I may buy a .mobi name in there too. The Grimsby Wargames Society website on a mobile might be an interesting idea and experiment. There are other .mobi sites but not many to do with hobbies etc. Haven't tracked any down to do with wargaming yet. .mobi names are still really new and they were only able to start registering them from last September.

Keeping Out The Cold

Yesterday was a really bad day. Had a thumping headache, could hardly breathe, struggled to keep my eyes open, bunged up and sneezing a lot and blowing my nose every 5 mins. I may as well have been in the twilight zone. Felt that bad I didn't go to the club last night. Instead I was in bed for 7pm, shockingly early for me. Woke up several times during the night the first time being half past midnight. Bit of a rough night but did get a decent amount of sleep. Shame I missed the World War 1 game last night at the club but I'm sure there will be another opportunity.

Had a lemsip this morning which helped me feel a bit more human. Able to breath better and didn't feel too tired. Didn't blow my nose too much either though I still coughed hard occasionally. I was aching everywhere when I woke up this morning though but compared to yesterday today was really nice.

Just An Update on The Weekend

Apologies for not posting anything since Thursday. I have been busy, rather tired also as well as not getting a huge amount of sleep and back to work today. Also yesterday at Durham was not only enjoyable it was an incredibly long day. I will post a fuller update on my Durham trip in the next few days. Took loads of photos as usual and not been through them all though most came out really well. In the day it also included chatting to Duncan Mcfarlane of Wargames Illustrated; Neil Whitmore the secretary of the Durham Wargames Club who had emailed me before the event; Nigel, a former member of our club now living there and a member of their club and Steve Spence, who is a sort of Honorable ex-member of their club but also a member of ours and currently living in grimsby; Tony Barr of ERM, another familiar face; The Flames of War lads; One of the lads from Command Post who I recognized from Partizan. My favourite highlight had to be meeting and Chatting to Andy Copestake of Old Glory who had put on a 40mm American Civil War game. While there I also bought a new ruleset that I had enjoyed playing at the club but never had a copy of the rules of - Blitzkrieg Commander.

As for Thursday night spent several hours at my friend Andy's house sorting out his pc's. Because there was a lot to do I went friday night for 5 hours to do some more. I was up at 4am on Saturday to catch my train at 06.26 and arrived back in grimsby for 8.50pm. I am now bunged up and full of cold, with a little hayfever but never mind.

Club as usual tomorrow night and looking forward to hopefully joining in a World War 1 game and also looking forward to seeing Paul's figures in action. I know Paul has also been feeling a bit under the weather recently.

To Boldly Go Somewhere Else

Tonight I had planned to go to the Star Trek CCG Tourny at the club had it not been from a phone call from my mate Andy, who needed my help sorting his pc's out and installing software. Apart from the fact I had the software he needed, doing such things is one thing I am better at than him. I also had some spare blank CD's and DVD's handy. So I abandoned the tourny and went to Andy's for a few hours this evening instead. It didn't all get done so I am going tomorrow afternoon. Hope there was enough for the tourny. I did email Mark to let him know I wasn't coming.

Didn't make it to the sunbed today. Am determined to make it tomorrow. Bought a new Tripod for my camera today. Bigger and stronger than the other one. The other one still has its uses such as being able to go on a wargames tables and get in close and low so will still be keeping it. This tripod has more maneuverability with a head that can go up and down, being able to turn 360 degrees. It extends into 8 sections to a decent height so should be able to take decent photos of aerial shots, overviews of games tables and take shots of games rooms, being able to look down and take photos of figures at various angles from a height etc. It cost me £15 from Maplins. Click here to view the exact tripod on the maplins website. Not got used to the legs yet but it will be tested at Durham this weekend. Having a decent tripod goes some of the way to help me produce really good photos generally, for the club and website.

Surprise! We were on TMP again. Well thats never happened before has it? :) The news item can be found at:
http://theminiaturespage.com/news/734801/

The batteries for my MP3 player, which hasn't been used in ages, are being charged up as I speak. It will give me something to listen to on the train. After that my camera batteries will be charged up. Tomorrow will be busy as I will be preparing for my trip to Durham, sorting out Andy's pc's, shopping and of course it is Payday tomorrow too.

D-Day and Big Game Nights Monday and Tuesday

Just in case anyone may have forgotten today is the 63rd Anniversary of D-Day. The day when Allied troops began their invasion on the Normandy Beaches on June 6th, 1944. Been watching some programs about it today on the National Geographic Channel also. Hope to tie in my next update of the website into D-Day somehow. Several new galleries were uploaded to the website in the early hours of this morning.
As I have not done an update for several days here goes. Bearing in mind also that I am still on holiday and spent a good bit of it so far either on the pc or sat relaxing in front of the telly doing very little. On Monday I bought some epoxy glue from Dave Hewins shop to attempt to stick the leg on my mini-tripod on though I did not stick it back on till Tuesday.

Monday night at the club there were several games on:
Mark Alcock and Paul Robinson as the French against Dave Hewins on the Anglo-Spanish side in an 1809 25mm Napoleonic game;
Andy Hamilton and Tony Walmsley playing 15mm Seven Years War;
Martin Buck and Ron Skeet playing a 20mm WW2 Skirmish game using the Nuts! rules from Two Hour Wargames;
Myself, Dave Tuck and Steve Mercer playing 15mm American Civil War. This time Steve and myself were on the Union side with Dave as the Confederates. The scenario was based on an actual battle: The Battle of Greenbrier River in Virginia 1861. The result of our game had pretty much the same result - inconclusive.
I was only able to take photos of our 15mm ACW game and the 25mm Napoleonic game downstairs. Here are some of those photos from Monday.

Dave Tuck's Confederates in cover at the Start of the game.


The Union men near the River belong to myself though Steve did let me borrow some of his to make up the 2 brigades between us. The Union figures in the foreground belong to Steve. All the Union figures came in at one spot on the table and were attacking the Confederates.



Paul Robinson's 25mm Napoleonic French with a mounted General up front.



The best photo I took on Monday Night. I have seen all the others and this is the best one. Dave Hewin's Dragoons. I think they're British, judging by the red on the uniform. Took a photo similar to this at Partizan.

On Monday Night also Dave Tuck bought me a mini-tripod which unfortunately didn't last very long. All I did was screw the camera into the top. Had to do it tight as usual so the camera wouldn't move. Didn't expect it to fall apart on me. Apologised and gave the tripod back to Dave. Intend to get a new mini-tripod either rubber or metal before Saturday. Received a few emails which I replied to from Neil Whitmore of Durham Wargames Group who was checking if I got his directions to the venue on TMP. Neil also sent me a map.

On Monday I used a sunbed for the first time for 6 mins then 8 mins yesterday. Did not go today. Paid for a course of 80 mins on Tuesday which can be used anytime. It cost me £25 which I checked to see if I had before I did it. I seem to be getting slightly redder slowly which means any tan may not show up for weeks. Am off again tomorrow and friday. Thing is though because I always put sun cream on, when I leave the tanning place down Alexandra Road I come out smelling like I've had a bath in coconut oil!

Tuesday night was basically going to the club to take more photos of their games which this week was a game of Warhammer 40K, Battletech and many of them playing the 2nd game in their Blood Bowl League. Did write it all down but lost it. Hope that piece of paper is still at the club. The photos came out really good. Tried the white balance on my camera on Auto for once which meant I didn't have to worry to much about the lighting.

Today I started tidying up my front room. Stuff piles up after a while: Newspapers, letters, Magazines etc. Got a lot of it done. Will finish it tomorrow. Whilst doing it I came across a large pile of Fitness magazines I have some interest in - I am interested in trying to keep and stay healthy and a large pile of Maxims I forgot I had. These of course not only had their supplements but a Maxim 2007 Calendar I didn't know I had. Maxim of course has loads of pics of gorgeous women in it. Put most of these magazines away except for the latest issues. The Maxim Calendar is now on my wall and is sight for sore eyes to say the least (Ahem).

Will go away now and submit my latest update to TMP.

The Grass is Greener

Well mostly it is. Didn't do a huge amount yesterday. Mainly lounged about, messed about on the pc with pictures and browsing and watching some music videos on VH1 - like I did today - blasting it through my stereo and therefore my surround sound. Went to my mate Andy's yesterday evening to discuss some plans with him regarding websites and transferring one of his domains names to me - which is nice of him - problem is, neither of us are exactly sure how to do it. I have some ideas but without his help it will not happen. It was his idea in the first place. It will have to be looked into more first.
Also uploaded yesterday the page I had made for the wargamers who play on Tuesday nights. They usually play fantasy and while they don't necessarily play Warhammer they use Warhammer or Games Workshop rules for some of their games. The photos I took on Tuesday also went up.

Received all the photos from Thomas of the Falkirk Wargames Club yesterday which I downloaded today. There's too many for a gallery so may have to cut some out.
Watched VH1 playing it through my surround. Today it was playing the 100 Chessiest songs. A lot of the songs were from the 70's and 80's and quite a few of them were classics and favourites of mine. Number 1 was David Hasselhoff's Jump in My Car! I thought that was a fun song and the video was great. The Hoff didn't take himself seriously on it, spoofing himself all the way through with references to Baywatch and especially Kitt (from his Knightrider days) in it.
Watched Doctor Who on Demand this morning too. What a great end to an interesting and slightly different story. Liked the bit at the end where he gives young Latimer the watch, which helps saves him then fast forwards to the present day and a memorial ceremony of sorts with the older, now pensioner Latimer, where he sees the Doctor and Martha who haven't aged at all.

Am about to make another Links page for the website to accommodate more international links before emailing more of them. Today also my friend Jamie cut the grass - he did offer - and I sweeped up. In return got us both some munchies and him a few cans of Tennents Super so he can let his hair down when he goes home. I tidied up the flat also. Tomorrow I plan to go on a Sunbed which is something I've thought about for a while. I like sunbathing actually but I only get sunburn in certain areas, mainly my neck. Got a bit on my chest and some colour on the top of my arms but nowhere else, which looks slightly odd. Always wanted some tan so am going to get one. At least I'll be the same colour everywhere.

Angel Season 5

Not done loads today either. Chilling out once again. That page for the Tuesday lot is nearly done. Just got one more gallery to make, stick them on the page, add the page to the site and upload it. Didn't get round to any emailing today though I did receive a private message from the Falkirk Wargames Club Forum regarding Rapid Fire! photos.

Heard nothing from Henry Hyde. He's probably busy planning the next issue. The copy deadline was today.

Going to my mate Andy's tomorrow night for maybe something to eat and a few drinks. At the time of typing this I have already had a few cans of lager as my friend Jamie has come round for a few hours. We both decided to watch some more of Angel Season 5 that I taped months ago. It's started to hot up again. I watched the episode after the one where they break Lindsey out of some Weird Hell dimension. We're already several men down - Fred, Gunn and Cordelia. Dying to watch some more but I'll wait till Jamie comes round again.

Back to those pages for the Tuesday night lot. Got loads to do on the website in the next few days. I am also hoping the weather warms up midweek next week and stays dry because I would like to go for a long bike ride. If it's hot tomorrow as the forecast seems to indicate then I will probably cut the grass at the back.