Woking 54mm Games Day 2025

 After skipping a year in 2024 the Woking Games Day for members of the Little Wars Revisited Forum was back and held on March 8th.

The venue we used before, Christ Church in the centre of Woking, is closing for a major building project so wasn't available and the costs have gone up over the years.  While I ran Imperial Miniatures I subsidised the day as we never managed to get enough attendees to fully cover the costs of the room hire.  Now I am retired I can no longer do that.

So, instead, the Games Day was held at my house.


We had 7 attendees (1 just for the morning) and 3 games.

In the Games Room we had Anthony's Battle Masters game using a mix of 54mm Lord of the Rings Figures and Britain's Deetail and Patrick's Songs of Blade and Heroes Norman skirmish Game.

In the adjoining hobby room, I put on Waddington's Little Big Horn using Britain's Deetail figures and a neoprene mat blown up to 6' x 4' and printed by Deep Cut Studios.

Everyone seemed to enjoy the day and we were able to have lunch in the garden thanks to the wonderful weather. After we finished, Patrick and William left to battle the traffic while Anthony, Dave, Alan and myself chatted for a while for heading into Woking for a meal

Photos of games:

General shots of the games room and players

The Battle Masters LOTR game.

 

 Battle of Little Big Horn

The Norman skirmish - all the terrain is scratchbuilt from Plywood, towelling, etc.

Command and Colours Ancients with 54mm

 

 

 A very long time project has been collecting 54mm Punic Wars figures to replace all the blocks in the C&C Ancients boardgame with figures; using one figure per block.  I had managed to collect a fair few figures and then become stuck as the Hat figures were no longer in stock anywhere and I struggled to get things like slingers.

Eventually, I found some metal slingers and some other figures being sold off by Rupert at Drum and Flag and then the Hat figures came back into production and I was able to put together all the figures I needed.

The effort of painting everything was a little daunting, but then I hit on taking a leaf out of Norm from Battlefield Warrior blog and undercoating each side a different colour and playing with them like that while I worked through painting them...

I undercoated the Carthaginians white and the Romans grey and finished all the bases to make all the figures look consistent.

The edges of the bases are painted the appropriate colour for the block type - green = light, blue = medium, red=heavy.  Things like auxilia and warband have a white stripe down the middle of each side as their blocks have a white edge around the colours.

My regular opponent Anthony and I played the first game last week using Trebbia as the scenario and it worked well and looked good, even with unpainted figures.

The game was very close and I lost 6 to 7 as the Carthaginians, not helped by the ambush by Mago not turning up.

The game has certainly inspired me to get on and paint another set of figures...

Cavalier 2025

I attended  the Cavalier show in Tonbridge last weekend.  It was my first show for a while and the first time at Cavalier for possibly 7 years (since we last ran a game there) - I might have made it once in those times but don't remember.

Anthony and I were running the Relief of Fort Pippin Toy Soldier game to promote the Little Wars Forum that I run where a force of dastardly Prussians have attacked Fort Pippin and the British relief force has to set out from Chigley to relieve the fort. 

The rules we used are the Portable argame - using our favourite "instant death" version without strength points.  So, if you take a hit you either save and retreat one square or die.  if you can't retreat you also die.

This make a quick game and is very suitable for a 10 turn 4-player participation game.

We had a lot of interest in the game and met some other 54mm players and other Portable Wargame users.  I was very pleased to put a face to a name with David from the Ragged Soldier blog who had come from Suffolk to the show.  We have interacted in the past then I bought a few books from him and we have commented on each other's blogs.

I didn't get a chance to look at a lot of the other games but there seemed to be a decent standard and a decent mix - the organisers were very careful to pick a mix of games for the show.

Other members of Guildford Wargames Club were there with the Zeppelin Game that was run at Warfare.  In fact, with 6 on that game, 2 members manning the Society of Ancients stand and Anthony and me nearly half the club was there running games!

The show is (like a lot of smaller shows, it seems) smaller than in previous years when I used to trade there and there was a distinct lack of many figure manufacturers.  Warlord were there and I bought a 2 Curassier units and the 2 sets of TYW leaders for my epic scale TYW project.  The council have changed the parking to short term, which was a slight pain, and I unloaded and then moved the car a short distance to the station car park which was £3.50 for the day.

Numbers dropped away after 1pm and we started to pack up at 3pm along with most of the others present.

All in all, a good day with a lot of chatting about Toy Soldiers and meeting some new people.

Glacis build finished

 

As I was on my own today I decided to try and finish off the Glacis so the fortifications are done.

Bit fiddly and I have fingers covered in superglue but it is done.  I still want to cut a couple of end pieces to finish it off - but pretty happy with the build.

I am thinking of covering it with Railway grass paper initially and then adding some flock - that should hide the joins and strengthen it.

Next is cutting the polystyrene supporting the glacis and the painting all the ditch pieces.

Dendermonde - starting the Glacis

 

Spent some time yesterday working out the Glacis and how it would fit around the ravelins and across the ditch.

Cut most of it, but have run out of 4mm MDF (more on order) to cut the side pieces and one more top.

Next will be the back wall and walkway above the covered way.

Then cutting lots of 2mm slopes as triangles and trying to make them fit!

Demi-Lunes for Dendermonde

 

Finished the 2 Demi Lunes guarding the walls.  There will be a bridge from the gate to the demi-lune in front of it and then a road running through the demi-lune onto a temporary wooden bridge to the Glacis.

Walls are a bit bodged but they will be covered up by texturing.

The next stage is to cut the polystyrene to form the ditch properly and paint it.  I then need to make some ramps for the various bastions, ravelins, etc.

After that I hope to work out the Glacis and at least get the base cut this month and then work out how I am going to make the (rather large) grass slopes.

WSS French unit repaint

 

Finished repainting the first French Unit that I bought on Facebook - also added 4 grenadiers to bring it up to 24 figures.

Repainted coats, facings and faces to match the style of my other figures...

I very carefully sorted out some grenadier and officers to expand the units with and put them to one side but still can't find the bag! I did find 8 grenadiers, so I have 4 more painted for the next regiment.