Goodbye to all that.

 Well, I saw my lovely English Civil War armies leave my control last weekend. It was a real struggle, but needs must. Actually, that's not strictly true, but it seemed the sensible thing to do and thin out my collections.

 They weren't getting much use and I couldn't justify painting new armies, ie Trojan armies when I wasn't using the armies I already had. Anyway, it's done now. So move on quickly. I know they have gone to a good home and will be well looked after.

I hadn't been well, yet again but had to travel to the York show to hand over the armies. A promise is a promise. So I took down some other stuff, ie. painted figures used in Xenos Rampant to also sell, killing two birds with one stone as it were. I will admit it was a struggle and I had a wobble on a couple of times, although that me down to bumping into the Westerhope posse. Imagine a nasty gang in balaclavas and you will know what I mean. 

I sold the figures before I even got them on the table.

 York was a strange show in many respects. Granted I wasn't firing on full cylinders but it was different. Numbers were definitely down on other years. Trade stands were certainly down in numbers, although talking to Dave Thomas he said he had been very busy and actually cracked a smile.

York was never a show about top-quality games. For me, it was about being the first big wargame show of the year and buying stuff. However, Ken from Yarkshire Wargames was there with his lovely Italian Wars stuff, which was good to see. I never took in the other games to be honest. But I will say the gents from the York club had definitely improved the smooth entry to the show, so very little queuing was involved. 

What I also noticed was the tabletop sales area. Usually at York this is mobbed. There is always a large number of people selling stuff. This year? Not so much.I know the lads from York had clamped down on traders exploiting the tabletop sales area, so that might be it, but again it was a lot quieter.

I dont think you can draw too many conclusions from this year's show. It could be less money, it could be people were put off by previous years of mass numbers, I think it was just one of them things. Still I survived the day out, talked the legs off a few poor wargamers and was tucked up in bed by 4.00pm. Wargamers,we lead wild lives.