February goings on

February's shenanigans began with an early morning wake up on Sunday 2^nd for a 90 minute trip to the Vapnartak wargames show held at the Knavesmire stand at York Racecourse. A decent show by any measure, it occupies four floors of the stand, with most of the traders occupying the ground, first and second levels, with demo, participation and competition games mixed in here and there, plus more on the third level.

Taken before any of the public were let in.

No action at all in this shot.

As you can see from these pictures, it’s quite well laid out and there is a decent amount of space between stands, something that other shows in the past have lacked, especially Partizan when it was held at Kelham Hall. With a good amount of traders, there was pretty much something for everyone, and I know I lingered far too long at Dave Lanchester’s book stall for my own good, but that’s for another time. Of the demo games I saw, two caught my eye.

Look at the size of that thing!

Rather tasty looking too...

The “Down on the Adriatic Sea” game was a nice set up (Fiume 1920), topped by the frankly ludicrous pre-dreadnought at one end of the table and some really pretty looking forts. Then there was the Entebbe game, which, for me, looked absolutely brilliant. Whilst there was no sign of Elizabeth Taylor, I did feel that if I were at put a game like that on, I would add three competing camera crews. Impish, I know, but there was an indecent rush to dramatise the operation in the months after and there is the opportunity to be a little bit silly here and add a bit of humour for the players.

Attendance at the show was good but, like all Sunday shows, just after 2pm, Thanos must have clicked his fingers and pretty much all of the punters vanished, leaving the traders to have a wander about amongst themselves. Some things never change.

The venue remains one of the better ones, airy and well lit. Show food will never win awards but it must be said that York’s is at the better end of the scale. That could not be said for the bar. Now a bar at a show is always a welcome thing, but three 500ml bottles of a decent Theakston’s Pale Ale tipped the wallet at £17.40! Ouch!

This was sipped very, very slowly...

February saw the release of Locke and Key on Netflix. An adaptation of Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez’s supernatural comic book series, this follows the Locke family as they discover that the ancestral family house is home to magical keys that can unlock doors (and people) in ways that are both good and bad. All is not well, though, as there is an entity after the keys for its own purposes. This one interested me from the trailer as it promised a dark, horror filled supernatural tale that, at 10 episodes, had enough room to breath but not sprawl about for seemingly endless episodes. My good lady, not a horror fan at all, viewed the trailer with some trepidation and warned that she’d give it a go but reserved the right to drop out at any point. She needn’t have worried.

You see, whilst Locke and Key is a supernatural drama, the horror elements promised in the trailer (and the source material which, I’ll admit, I am not overly familiar with) just aren’t as prominent as advertised. Yes, there are some mildly scary moments but it pulls its punches when it comes to delivering genuine scares. The story is good and I can’t fault the production values. The cast are, generally speaking, very good, with just a couple of instances of scenery chewing that kind of fit but also take a bit away from the beats of the story. Where the show really falls down though is its reliance on familiar tropes – the high school kids, whilst rightly focusing on the nerdier bunch of friends, ticks pretty much every box when it comes to jocks and “popular” girls. There are nods to modern day social media that have been added cos, well, it’s 2020, but some dramatic character beats are glossed over – the mother’s alcoholism being a prime example. Then again, the show has an issue with alcohol as one character polishes off a half of a bottle of whiskey and seems just tickety boo when dealing with an attack on the family just an hour later. I know the younger of us can handle booze better but that is pushing the bounds of reality. Oh, and Keyhouse, the family home is a lovely building but suffers from that familiar plot device – even with the doors open, you can’t hear shouting downstairs when you’re upstairs. Come on, it’s not that big a house! With enough story threads left open for a second season (still unannounced at the time of posting), Locke and Key is a decent show and worth a watch. It never feels like it is overstaying its welcome and the premise has promise. Give it a go if this type of show appeals.

My good lady and I have also managed to catch up a little bit with a DVD boxset: Blakes 7. We watched the first series last year and came to the general conclusion that whilst they accomplished miracles on the budget, it had not aged well at all. Still, there are four series in total so we said we’d get through them eventually. Series two is pretty much a direct follow up to the first, with just a couple of cast changes: Brian Croucher takes over as Commander Travis and we lose one of the main group near the half way point of the series – no spoilers but to be honest, it’s no great surprise given that the character was left on the shelf most of the time, so in the words of a Newcastle Upon Tyne resident, he had to gan… (Sorry, not sorry!).

Once again, the budget (or lack thereof) is plain to see, but considering what they managed to put on the screen, it’s not bad – think of how bad the first couple of seasons of ST:TNG look now. True, the model work varies from decent to just plain naff, and any backdrop work (Voices from the Past, I’m looking at you) is quite laughable. More serious issues arise from the acting which, outside of a couple of key characters, is rather iffy and certainly not helped by the writers wanting to prefix everything (and I mean everything) with the word “space”. Cos, you know, it’s set in space. With forty years hindsight, it seems to treat the audience with a degree of condescension that the RP accent highlights as well. Bless him, even Mr Croucher struggles to get his mouth around his lines whilst refusing to lapse into his real accent. There is also the feeling that they were trying to fill the timeslot with what they had rather than produce a show with episode lengths that matched the budget - you'll see far too many lingering camera shots and scene setting model work that just seems to be there to fill in the time. It is easy to mock a show that occupied a tea time TV slot but I genuinely like Blakes 7. The premise, the story lines and the feel of the show are just right, but it’s the execution of those that falls down – but as I have said above, they accomplished miracles on the budget and for obvious reasons, they couldn’t show too much violence or explore the more serious themes to their fullest extent. The show does, however, remain timeless for the ultimate double act of Kerr Avon (the late, great Paul Darrow) and Vila Restal (Michael Keating). The banter between these two is brilliant and you can’t help but think that Alan Rickman watched these shows when preparing for the role of Snape in the Harry Potter films.

An unexpected snow day also gave us the chance to re-watch (for me, at least) Edge of Darkness, re-released last year as a shiny Blu-Ray collection. No new content as such but the presentation is faultless and at times you forget you’re watching a thirty five year old TV show. For those who haven’t seen it, EoD is a classic political thriller, as DI Ron Craven (the never better Bob Peck) searches for the truth behind his daughters murder, leading him into the secret world of nuclear politics. I'll come back to this in a later post.

Reading wise, I managed to finish a couple of history books that joined the charity donation pile (I am trying to trim the library down a little bit at the moment. When I started encroaching onto the fourth bookcase, I realised I had a problem – and no, it’s not a shortage of bookcases, sadly…). I also purchased and finished the paperback edition of The Expanse series eighth book, Timat’s Wrath. Regular readers will know I am a fan of both the book series and the accompanying TV show (for which those of you who have Amazon Prime, you can catch up with all four seasons now, whilst for everyone else, seasons 1 to 3 are available on DVD and Blu-ray). Timat’s Wrath is the penultimate novel and you can tell straight away that loose ends are being tidied up ready for the finale. Some might feel aggrieved that familiar and favourite characters are bumped off with almost casual ease but the sprawl of story hanging after seven books means there has to be some culling and to be fair to the authors, they do it rather well. It only took three days to finish this one (the joys of public transport) and it left me wanting more. The Expanse series is one of those rare multiple volume stories that actually tells a tale, unlike say The Game Of Thrones books that are simply too long, meandering and padded to be enjoyable, at least for me. Of note with both series though and, it seems, most modern sci-fant fiction, is the fixation on food – what people are eating, the taste, texture etc, as if there is a writing school out there that teaches would-be authors that to get readers to empathise with the characters, keep telling them what they’ve had for dinner. It’s really not necessary.

And so that's it, until next time.

York - and a question

Last Sunday saw an early start for a trip to York and the Vapnartak show. It has been held at the racecourse for several years now and it's one of my favourite venues. Access is good and the catering is above average. Never underestimate the need for semi-decent scran after a half past bed-time wake up call and a couple of hours on the A1(M).
The show itself pretty much followed previous years, and it must be said that it seemed to be the same old faces in the same old places. That should be expected, after all, the hobby isn't that big, but the biggest concern I felt was that the demo/participation games seemed to be the same as last year. Deja vu indeed. There were one or two new games that did catch my attention, and not necessarily for the right reason - the Airfix battles game on set on terrain in the form of a printed sheet being one. It was one step removed from a board game and having read a few pieces on the gaming system, watching that play out didn't improve my opinion of it one bit.
Other than that, the show did see me drop a few quid at Caliver (the Team Yankee expansions for the British and East Germans - I quite like Team Yankee, even if it is very much a "Bang! You're dead!" type of game but with a few amendments and an umpire guided set up, they are actually quite fun) and Dave Lanchester Books (a lovely volume on air operations at Suez, a conflict that holds my interest but tends to be forgotten amongst the rest of the Cold War shenanigans).
The show was busy (until the usual 1.30 exodus as the hordes depart for Sunday lunch and a snooze), and there were more than a few familiar faces, especially from my neck of the woods. It was nice to see, to be honest, and made me think that if the two larger north-east shows (Border Reiver and Battleground) could attract the same crowd, it would be of benefit to both shows.
Border Reiver has had a drop in attendance since the move to Gateshead International Stadium a few years back (it has certainly felt less busy as the years have gone by), and the organiser of Battleground (Leon), has been more than open on the Pendraken forums about the drops in attendance for that show. So on the whole, fewer people are going to those shows, yet it will cost the same, maybe a little more each year, for the venue. Fewer people means less door money, It also means either the per person spend has to go up or the traders are taking less money. If it's the latter, how long do they keep up their attendance before it becomes financially pointless to go?
As regions go, the North-East is pretty large, and the two shows don't compete for the same venue or date. If you were to compare these shows to, say, Falkirk, they are pretty similar in economic location and catchment area. Yet for all appearances, the two north-east shows (as far as public visibility goes), don't hold a candle to the Scottish show.
So I leave with a question: Is there a point to either North-East show?

Start as you mean to go on...

Well, 2016 is well under way and already one Saturday game has been played and a show attended. This, surprisingly, is a good start. The game itself has a good report already on gloriouslittlesoldiers though I shall say now that I think the reporting is a tad unfair. (But then I would say that!)

Sunday was the Vapnartak show in York, and a good day it was too. The show food was of the decent to rather good variety (this is a biggie if you go to lots of shows, you get to sample some... delicacies (if that's the right term)). Compared to the first show at the race course where they served Breakfast pasties, this year's sausage bap was superb. Having said that, it's a pricey venue and when three portions of noodles and three bottles of orange juice reach £24, you know you have to chew your food slowly just to get your monies worth!

Still, the show itself was extremely well attended, for the first four hours at least, and unlike most Sunday shows, actually made it to 2 o'clock without dying a death. I have always liked the York show and the only real downside, apart from the lack of a visible bar (possibly a good thing as two years ago, three cans of beer topped £12!) was the lack of lighting on the first floor. There was very much a hint of Kelham Hall's stygian gloom. I have seen a comment on TMP regarding the show and traders packing up at 3.30pm when the official closing time was 5.00. In one respect, it's a fair point of view. However, Sunday shows are infamous for dying early and there comes a point that staying is a fruitless exercise. All told, 3.30pm seemed about right.

Anyhoo, onto other things. Big Andy posted an item on his blog with a question as to where does wargaming stop and gaming begin. It was his round up of the current crop of magazines aimed at the wargaming market that started me thinking. And after such pondering, I have a question: Is there any longer a point to the printed magazine?

Whoa, whoa whoa!!! Surely, you may think, he has lost his mind. Well, bear with me. I have two hobbies that I have, in the past and to this day, purchased the occasional magazine for: Wargaming and Videogames. Back in the day, magazines were pretty much the only source of general information, product reviews, how to guides and the like. I remember fondly the days of flicking through Computer and Video Games, ACE, The One (later The One Amiga) and Mean Machines, finding out about the latest Japanese imports, the best and worst of the new software releases and the shiniest new tech on the horizon. Monthly mags were brim full, as all news was complied into these neatly wrapped, and usually well written, four week packages. As a result, it could take up to a couple of hours to make your way through everything. Information was savoured.

Compare that to the current market where the internet (I know, hardly a new invention), has changed that. News is now a daily stream, sometimes accurate, sometimes not. But as such, it is a momentary flash before being replaced by the next item. It also means that anything a magazine publishes can be several weeks out of date or just not considered newsworthy anymore. This is more prevalent to videogaming, though the upside is that whereas once you had to stand in front of a shop window and hope the demo machine was playing, you can now see any game you are interest in Full HD via publisher websites, youtube etc. It is, however, also coming to wargaming/gaming in general. Witness the recent release of Team Yankee where the manufacturers have released a number of "how-to" videos. From a consumer point of view, this can be a good thing. From a magazine publisher's viewpoint, how do you cope with that? In the case of the latest issue of Wargames Illustrated, how can they counter a video with several pages of photographs? (Roll two D6 and hope for the best???)

Reviews are a staple of many websites and magazines, and how the editorial bias of the publication sways can have a significant bearing on the style and content of featured reviews. WI has (a somewhat historically deserved) reputation for being a corporate vehicle, though it's style is approaching that of some of videogaming magazines aimed at the teenage demographic. Miniature Wargames less so, but I am picking on the most recent issue of this mag because it has a prefect example of dual standards. They have reviews of two Ospreys, a US Battleship tome and one for Soviet-era self-propelled anti-aircraft guns. The former is a well written review, detailing both good and bad and offers an opinion as to if it is worth purchasing. In other words, a review. The latter is a filler piece, little more than "Here is a book on this, wouldn't it be good to play with the rulesets to make then more funky". There was no mention as to if the book was well written, informative, whether it contained any previously unheard of historical details, or if it was any good at all. That comparison, more than anything I have read in recent issues of magazines, highlights the question Big Andy put: where does wargaming end and gaming begin.

There is one more publication that deserves mention: Tabletop Gaming. A new entrant last year, it's a glossy, well printed and quite hefty mag. It does what is says on the tin, it's a magazine about gaming. And that's where, after giving it two issues, I stepped away. Whilst gaming is part of the hobby I enjoy, it's not my primary focus, as noted in previous posts.

What I should have said at the beginning of the post is that I do not subscribe to any magazine of any kind at the moment, and base my purchases on the contents page during a perusal at the local WH Smiths. Sometimes I spend my money, other times I do not. The decider for me, and this is where magazines currently have an advantage over web-based outlets, is the nature and quality of the articles. Those pieces written by paid for contributors who may offer a new point of view on an established topic, or introduce a new period, point of view or genre to a wider audience. I know this sounds a little harsh on magazine editors (and those who have issues with publishers even more so, as it may be a case of trying to square a circle), but the quality of these articles is directly linked to whether I hand over the requisite £4-5. And when I say harsh, there is very much a feeling in both war and videogaming publications that there is a trend of dumbing down. Or, at the very least, mistaking accessibility for over-simplicity. And that is before you get to any involvement from the big advertising spenders.

So where does this leave me? Well, as far as videogaming magazines go, I am about done with them. Reviews are pretty much the only thing I read these days, and even then, the number of games I purchase each year is dropping, so I don't look for too many reviews anyway. As for the wargaming titles, I agree with Andy, you pays your money, you takes your choice. I shall keep checking out each new issue of all three (MW, WI and WSS - who haven't had a mention so far as I haven't read the last couple of issues) and take it from there. Magazines still have their place, but whether they are in for the long haul is a different matter. Content is king. I just hope the editors/publishers remember that, and please don't infantilize the readers. We are not all 12.