Horse and Musket Gaming: 2026

Friday saw me board a train at King's Cross for the trip to Lincoln to stay with the Elders (big sis and her husband). The plan was to use Imp City as the stepping off point for the Other Partizan. Visits to the Elders are always culinary treats and I picked up some haslet from a local butchers on the Saturday.

Lincoln city looks oh so pretty

Turks Head squash at a local greengrocers

El Urens lodged here.....

....above a pie shop. To be fair, I don't know if it was a pie shop in his day.

On Sunday morning Sis dropped me off at the Newark Showground and I joined the short queue to get in to Partizan. I milled around the entrance 'tent' where the Northamptonshire Battlefied Society, the Society of Ancients and Chris of Not Quite Mechanised ('NQM') fame was located, where I met David B (a.k.a. David in Suffolk https://russetcoatcpt.blogspot.com ). I was chatting to Chris about NQM. It intrigues me as a game because it seems to do something different from the usual low level tactical or skirmish games. I resisted buying the rules though as "I don't want to have to get into a whole new collection". Later on it dawned on me I already do have a WWII collection: Continuation War Finns and Soviets. So would probably just need to buy a few vehicles and artillery pieces. Hmm! Maybe one for the to-do list.

A bit later on we met Neil of Aufklarungsabteilung . It was great to put a face to the name and have a good chinwag. That's one of the great things about these events. We also bumped into Ray and 'Big Lee' Lee from Posties Rejects. In fact we bumped into them a couple of times. There was some mention of stalking, but I'm not saying anything more. On legal advice. Towards the end of the day we saw Postie himself who looked like he was in a rush. Sadly we did not spot anyone in a yellow hoodie (i.e. Steve J.who wasn't certain to go anyway) or Mr D.Crook (who had been and gone early).

The show itself was very large, perhaps not Salute size, but very large. And it was very busy. Neil and 'Trebian' have less than positive things to say about the show on their blogs. I can understand where they are coming from. There were lots of large display games which I thought looked excellent. An incredible amount of work clearly went into them. And I thought the participants seemed friendly and helpful. I probably spent less time at the participation games. As for traders, the only ones I was vaguely interested in were Warbases*, Baccus (but they're note really compatible with my H&R 6mm figures) and Lanchester books. None of the books caught my eye, except the Blandford book on the SYW - good condition but £40 was a bit rich for me as it would only be a nostalgia purchase given there is more information available on line and I have books with plenty of battle and uniform info for the period). If there was one piece of constructive criticism that I would make is that the names of the games could be displayed on the show guide - it shows the name of the organisation putting the game on but not what it is. The information boards at the tables are not always visible through the crowds, so it's difficult to give correct attribution.

* Stupidly I didn't go armed with any information on what bases I needed.

We did stop by the stand hosted by Dr Andrew Bamford for a chat. For those of you who do not follow it, Andrew is one of the main presenters of the Prime and Load podcast which is dedicated to 18th century warfare. So if you are a right-thinking wargamer** you will want to listen to it. As I was about to leave I noticed copies of the book edited by Andrew on British amphibious warfare - Torch, Husky and Overlord were built on foundations laid 200 years before - so I bought a copy. Who knows, this might spark off ideas for a new mini-campaign.

** I mean, who wouldn't be into the 18th century?

Anyway, here are some pics of tables that caught my eye.

Fabulous looking ECW game

Offboard reserves for an Arab-Israeli Wars game. I was struck by the mix of NATO and Soviet vehicles in the same army. Plus some ex-WWII Wehrmacht stuff.

WWI aerial combat

I REALLY liked this! Even as someone not majorly into WWII I could see what this represented. I bet many junior officers would recognise it from infantry school. Not that I was ever a Rupert.

Info board for the above game.

A fabulous game representing a siege and battle set during the Isle de Re expedition in 1627. I suppose this is a precursor to some of the 18th century descents on France.

Close up of the above

Mons 1914 - British defending the canal. 6mm figures with 2 or 3mm buildings. This is much closer to what most people will achieve in normal games.

18th century India

Probably my favourite display. Though it's hard to choose. Sicily 1943

I love the British (Empire) column siding down the hill.

Lots of detail. "I could never remember the password. Knew no Gerry would carry a [parasol]".

Citrus grove!

You're not getting our Löwenbrau!

Wider view of game above: Malplaquet 1709. Bourbons and allies to the right. Habsburg's and their allies to the left.

A timely recreation of the Battle of Hastings using Paperboys 2D. I understand it was a 1:1 figure ratio! And the good guys pulled off a draw.

I really like the backdrop to this. Obviously the models are great. The backdrop gives it depth and also the sense of poorer light in the grey of the morning.

Detail in the above.

1688 The ~~Dutch Invasion of England~~ Glorious Revolution. The host explained this was the engagement at Reading where, in the real encounter, the one Irish regiment and one English regiment under James II, provided less than stellar service to the soon to be ex-King.

British Empire v Vichy French in the Levant (code for me failing to note whether it was Syria or Lebanon)

I showed my pics to my friend 'Lincolnshire' Tom and on seeing this one he immediately said "Is that a [insert name of this contraption]? They were made in Lincoln." He can find a link to Lincolnshire in almost any topic.

Waddingtons Little Big Horn boardgame. This was a 'side order' for a more conventional tabletop game of said battle. Somehow I failed to get any photos of the wargame. My brother had the Waddingtons game, and it was probably my first introduction to playing with toy soldiers with rules.