Partizan 2026

From the number of reports on blogs and YouTube, I'm a bit behind the trend in posting, but that's probably due to being one of the few wargamers and bloggers I know who isn't retired and still has to work for a living! 😠😟😞😢

Anyway...last Sunday I went to Partizan (along with every wargamer in the world - or so it felt like until just after lunchtime); it was VERY busy!

I managed  to bump into Andy McMaster of Another slight Diversion (https://blog.belisarius.org.uk/) and had arranged to meet David Barnes of The Ragged Soldier (https://russetcoatcpt.blogspot.com/) who was there with his friend Dave. I was with my mate Shaun - Frozen North Wargames (https://mrc19622002.wordpress.com/) who lives in Hexham way up north....

While I took over 100 photos, a lot were blurry or out of focus - obviously rushing - I've concluded it's best to wait until later when the rush dies down AND concentrate on the games that really appeal - it's almost impossible to photograph everything at Partizan.

So with that in mind, I will post the stand out games for me; if there is interest I will post the rest in another blog post, so without further ado....

Westbury Wargames Minden 1759

Boondock Sayntes Lucknow Indian Mutiny

League Extraordinary Kriegspielers Back of Beyond - The Mad Baron

The star for me - Graham Hilditch Friends of a Military Gentleman SYW with home cast 30mm - sadly a lot of photos were too blurry but fortunatly I grabbed some later when less crowded

What more Gauls? Or, how many Gauls is enough?

As may be gathered from the title post, the focus on completion has been the Gauls painted previously who have been based and put in the storage boxes (which are becoming quite full!) 

However, I have not been totally idle, as other things necessary for the campaign have been cleaned up and prepped ready for painting. This includes Roman baggage, Tribunes, more Celtic cavalry (as used by Romans in Gaul) and.........ships!

The game allows for both sides to receive ships as reinforcements - for the Romans 2 fleets and 1 each for the Gauls (Venetti) and British. While DBA doesn't allow for naval elements, DBM and DBMM does, so rules can easily be created. Models are more problematic. As hinted in the previous post, I'd looked at how you could fit a model on a 40mm x 80mm base - it requires some kind of "bathtubbing" with regards scales. I was very fortunate as I stumbled on the Museum Miniatures range (which I didn't know existed) - some reduced price remnants at Keep Wargaming and some on sale at Museum itself which made it affordable. So some galleys and Roman merchant ships have been added - some for Civil Wars, in particular Egypt which involved lots of naval and land action.

The Celts were more difficult. No-one makes anything suitable, apart from some coracles (which I cannot see getting across the Channel!) I tuned to Essex Miniatures who have a limited range of reduced size ships and crews. The Venetti used large solid sailing ships. The British? In the end, I gambled and it seems to have paid off. I have discovered that a few Bronze and Iron age ships have been found in Britain which seem to have been cross-Channel trading vessels in the form of large oar powered boats. 

I had bought a Viking longship and some Biblical era "slave" crew and after some thought a Medieval Cog and some suitable crew figures. With lots of hacking and cutting and filing, some Greenstuff and a bit of mix and match, I have a boat with rowers and stored mast and a large solid sail powered ship which is taller than the Roman galleys. 

I have looked at the remaining Celts - I seem to lack baggage, camp followers and command elements so may not need to paint many more. I need to review what I have. Some will definitely become Galatian mercenaries - those in Greek equipment in particular, and many intended for skirmishers will become part of warbands.

There are more Germans, Roman cavalry as well as various camps to paint and sort - I have most of what I need. I have also been contemplating my uncompleted "Known World" campaign. I reviewed the lists of armies I'd prepared and some were not listed DBA  armies when I worked on it; since then DBA lists have appeared. A quick review of what I have, what's changed and what is missing, had me hunting through boxes to identify suitable models. Gaps have been filled by selective purchases (some of them cheap) or by figures already purchased - always satisfying.

Anyway, onto the completed Celts.

Cavalry

The Minifigs and Essex figures

Donnington and Irregular (and a lone Minifigs)

Freikorps 15 old and new

Fanatics in the nip!

"Solid"

"Fast"

Skirmishers

Ancient Nostalgia

I mentioned in an earlier post that the 15mm ancients for DBA that I had rediscovered and am currently working on, had originally been destined for a sprawling "known world" campaign. Looking for my Italian Wars folder for a map of Italy based around the game "Machiavelli", I chanced upon the folder with my ancients bits saved and collected. It includes some sketches which I know Jonathan likes, so thought I'd share it on the blog - there being no new painted units to show...

It would have been in the mid-1990s as I was very keen on DBA and had been building armies slowly for several years. It was sometime around then that I started to develop ideas for my "Known World" campaign of around 105 BC. I was very influenced by an old boardgame I'd bought and played many years previously, Imperial Governor:

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/7934/imperial-governor-and-strategos

It is a typical hex and counter boardgame with a rather fanciful mix of powers - Rome, Carthage, Macedonia, Pontus, Syria and Egypt with leaders of different eras and even states mixed together.

Looking in my folder, I had obviously worked on converting the game map to my own purposes and adapting the rules. I had even drawn out the map in a small and large version, a fact I had forgotten!

The larger version was split across three sheets, the west:

And east:

I had also planned out the armies, influenced partly by the colours in the game. Please don't use as an accurate historical representation, even though many images and colour schemes were derived from the WRG books. Pontus in particular has variations on green simply because this was the colour of that state's counters in the game (so I cannot think of them except as "green"). 

Roman legion variations

Numidians

Seleucids

Ptolemaics

Mithridatic Pontics

My DBA armies were painted based on the sketches.

I think several things happened; I tried DBM which proved something of a disappointment and yet again I got sidetracked into variations, in this case the various Roman civil wars and lost focus to some extent. I know I was still painting DBA armies when I moved to Wiltshire in the mid to late 1990s and the last army I painted was the early Germans, having just  finished the Celts. I found the primed Parthians and more Germans which date from then recently. I can see I was looking to include in DBA things like hordes (which have been included) and naval (which have not) and at that time I built a lot of things like camps and terrain. Hence the sketches for my Roman marching fort:

Individual matchsticks were carved into the "pila muralis" - now you can buy them in strips from Essex Miniatures....

I was also planning ships and how to fit one on an 80mm x 40mm base....

Oddly, I have just completed two commercial models from Museum Miniatures of ancient galleys modelled to fit on such a base, so was surprised to see the idea has been long in the planning!

My rediscovery has in many ways helped with maintaining the enthusiasm for the current project and made me wonder if a "Known World" Campaign will eventually reach fruition?