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It’s July again and that means it’s time to rent a car and get our arses down to Stafford for Barrage! We were up bright and early and into our temporary chariot to make it there in good time, factoring in enough time for a hefty breakfast.

This was our third outing to Stafford and whilst our lovely friend Samantha has moved there were still many familiar faces to greet us. Having a good feel for the venue also didn’t do us any harm and we were one of the first stalls visitors would pass to get in.

We try to have something new ready for Barrage and so far it’s always been a Tiny Tank (#1, #2). I’m not sure if I’ll do a fourth design but I definitely wanted to do a third. After all, we’ve got three distinct small turret designs. I recently got hold of a third party SNES controller and used it to play a bit of Metal Slug. In the game I’m terrible with the tank but I love the design! It’s supposedly loosely based on the Type 61 or the Type 74 Japanese tank but frankly I can’t see the resemblance. It does look an awful lot like the Bonaparte from Dominion: Tank Police though…

Anyway, I wasn’t going to go for anything with tracks that were quite so… scaly but more leaned towards something that hinted at the style. Several jigs were involved in making the design happen (cutting the same track shape over and over isn’t exactly easy or fun!). However it cast nicely and I’m proud of the result:

As always our lovely friend John was as excited as a kid at Christmas and grabbed the first copy as soon as he had a spare moment. His enthusiasm always keeps our spirits up during Barrage; we have a good time but it’s hard work!

Barrage is usually fairly busy but this year was extra impressive. The tournaments were well attended, as expected, but the general footfall overall was excellent. We got to meet some passionate hobbyists (both old and new) and ran into many brilliant people we’d met before. We might not know all your names but we’d recognise you anywhere!

Our racks emptied fairly quickly (always a good sign!) but we stayed open right until then end to give tournament players a fair crack at our stuff. That and packing up is so utterly dull that we’d rather put it off another half hour or so!

This year’s selection of traders was particularly good. There were stands for everything from terrain to airbrushes and some options for both new and old minis. I had a good rummage in some bargain bins and even found something in the Bring and Buy that I couldn’t resist. Normally I’m pretty disciplined about buying minis – I have more than I know what to do with as it is but… well… I’m not made of stone!

Jenny picked up several wonderful minis from Tritex Games, my personal favourite being the pirate snail. She also got her mitts on a laser cut MDF lockable book thingy from Lasercut Architect (LCA) and an escape room style single-use game from Magic Geek that she plans to play with her fellow podcast hosts!

I saw a box of tempting old Necromunda minis and managed to resist their siren song almost to the close of the show but ultimately my will roll was not good enough and I took home a Redemptionist model. There’s something about shotguns with underslung flamethrowers that really calls to me. I also had a bit of a dig and found most of a Space Marine Devastator with a heavy plasma gun. When I first got into this hobby malarky they were brand new and I’ve always rather fancied them. 50p well spent!

However, the real prize was a Hellhound box from the Bring and Buy sale. It didn’t contain a tank though, instead it contained a small Space Marine army with the price tag of ten pounds. We all have to have a story about a legendary find and I think this is mine!

We did of course eventually pack up and then it was back into the car and up to Rotherham. Admittedly we stopped at a tiny service station for a bit of a nap because my gods, I was tired. Assuming we’re still in the general area we’ll be back next year!

A huge thank you to the whole Barrage team for making the day such a success!

Saturday saw us taking on a new show – the excitingly named Ambush! in Driffield.

The hall being used for the show was rather lovely, possibly because it’s often used for wedding-related stuff. Various games dominated the centre although I was particularly drawn to the enormous Warhammer 40,000 Apocalypse game:

Our hosts were the ever friendly Mighty Lancer Games and they took excellent care of everyone, as far as I could tell, although we spent most of our time chatting with various customers! That said they were particularly excellent for picking us up from the train station (and dropping us off at the end). Our stall packs up fairly small but we usually need a taxi to get anywhere quickly.

Ambush! is a two day event with free camping for traders but I am done with camping. I have done all the camping I ever intend to do. I’ve spent literal weeks camping both for work and family things and I’ve had enough. I can deal with the sleeping arrangements and the lack of electricity but the thing that drives me up the wall is the lack of floor. I like a floor under me when it’s time to stop working!

Most people aren’t as nuts as I am about that though and Ambush! continued into a second day. We couldn’t be there but we did leave our stall in the trusty hands of MLG to make sure tournament players could get something from us at sale prices. Did I mention that when we go to shows we implement substantial discounts on the selection we bring? ‘Cos that’s a thing we do.

If there’s another one next year then chances are we’ll be there!

I love terrain. So very much. It’s something that jumped out at me reading Da Uvver Book back in ’98. There weren’t that many photos but the stuff on show just sparked my imagination like nothing else.

Back then GW had a book entitled “How to Build Wargames Terrain” (1996) and I got my eager mitts on it. I was amazingly disappointed. It had an excellent section on tools and materials but most of the builds documented were either primitive, uninspiring, or lacked depth. The spaceship wreckage on the cover? Barely anything on it. (It turns out that there’s a great article on it in White Dwarf #202!)

My main complaint about the book, at least when it came to sci-fi stuff, was that the builds suffered from Blue Peter syndrome. Essentially it was too obvious what the source materials were for some parts. Ironically on the builds this applied to they also did an excellent job of disguising some of the other raw materials.

The thing being that we’re great at object recognition (unlike, say, koalas…) and if something is too easy to spot it’s difficult to unsee. One of the ways to get around that is to simply add other details to draw the eyes. The tower in the back is just a kitchen roll but the extra strips around it and the hatch on top are enough for our brains to accept it as a tower.

This is precisely the lesson I’ve taken to heart with my own builds. Give the piece things to draw the eye. Armour plates, rivets, damage, and of course, objects!

This had lead to the creation of a whole range of suitably scaled objects because they can be added to all sorts of builds to immediately draw the eye:

Currently I’m working on a test building for an Ork town that I planned a while ago (*cough*). I’m in the process of figuring out how to effectively detail, paint, and base these buildings. The test is this brewhouse:

I love how the neon sign turned out and it totally draws the eye. How was it done?

It’s literally just a paperclip bent to shape and glued to a little styrene detail. Painting was done with an airbrush for the glow and then the arrow itself was done in a very light pink (with a normal brush). I’ve since inked the whole building so I’ll probably need to redo it but that shouldn’t be too difficult!

Next up – the mekshop!