Vapnartak 2013

With the years round of wargames shows under-way the first big one is Vapnartak put on by York Wargames Society, 'the best one day show in the North' being their slightly immodest claim, put on at the York Racecourse.

As a club, the FDWC had decided to go down en-masse with a bus load of 24 or so of us making the trip to the show (not counting the trader bods who also increased the body count from the club) with many not having been before.

All in all I liked the show with the venue being a particularly novel one and the layout over several floors and mezzanine, all accessed directly from each other and being a fairly modern building made it a bright and airy place to put on a games show.

50 or so traders plied their wares and mixed in with the usual suspects were a few I had not come across before, which was nice.

The venue was very busy for most of the day, with the time from 11;00 to around 13;00 absolutely heaving. Good for the traders and restaurant (whose fare I was particularly impressed with, though a wee bit pricey) though  did suspect that the ground floor layout presented a bit of an escape hazard as the squeeze of traders and games made a few pinch points which made travelling very stressful and I suspect prevented a good bit of browsing of said traders by the exasperated public at those locales during the busy time. I went and massaged my karma in the bar for an hour which was a haven of peace (comparatively) and beer.

Though a lot of traders I was a bit surprised what appeared to be the relatively small number of games on show. I think this was more to do with the size of the venue as there were about 34 games on offer not including the various tournaments on upstairs including Warmachine, Malifaux and Impetus which gave Joe Public a bit of sport to watch too.

A couple of games caught my eye in particular, the first being a stonker put on bt the Lance & Longbow society, which having read about the games planning and preparation in a recent issue of the society journal 'The Hobilar', was nice to see in the flesh.

I also liked the games put on by Bunker(?) and the League of Extraordinary Keigspeilers, which  also caught my eye.

Many others were good too with lots of effort as usual going in to getting them to the show.

All in all an enjoyable 'day 'oot' and definitely a bit different. All involved in our minor Scots raid of York enjoyed to day and the bus was a good bit heavier on the way back over the border with the loot plundered to the tune of a couple of tons of lead and mdf. My own haul including a plethora of Perry mini's, Ainsty castings and Sarissa kits plus an assortment of other bits and bobs gave the whole affair a good finish.

A well done the York Wargames Crew is I think due, as the venue and the sheer amount on obviuosly took a fair bit of organisation and running. As Terry Thomas would have said...'Good Show!'