Colours 2023 - Newbury Race Course Sat 09 Sep 23

Well for a start finding the right car park at Newbury Race Course is not easy.  And visiting the alternatives means fighting your way back onto the main trunk route through the town each time.  But I suspect most people research the location a little more rigourously rather than follow the 'race course' signs.  Like that'd work ! 

The following is full of wild generalisations in order to make an arguement, it's not intended to be a dig at a certain demographic (within which I'd probably be counted) or even a certain games system: it's just my perception.

Anyway, I went to meet Admiral Drax, who is now to found contributing to Wargames, Strategy and Soldiers.  So he goes to a lot of these as part of his contribution.  Newbury is an hour south for me and quite a trek north for him, so the chance to meet at Colours 23 seemed to serendipitous to pass up.

But you're here for the show, so a few words about that.  I managed some snaps, the first groups were two very impressive Vietnam tables, one out in the boonies centered on the downed Huey and one set in Siagon itself.  The detailing on the Siagon table in particular were worthy of a diorama, let alone being used as wargaming scenary.  

The ground floor was packed with stands for vendors, but I have perviously learned by lesson when it comes to these shows, invariably something bought here is never used or ends up being passed on, so the only thing I did buy was a book.  For research.  

I have noticed that prices for things have generally increased.  Which makes things pricey for me and I'm not badly off.  If I was me of even ten years ago then a single purchase or two might be ok, but I couldn't afford a new game system/army/whatever.  This is relevant for my later diatribe.

The clientele was overwhelmingly white, male and at least middle aged.  Which is perhaps not a surprise, as we noted at the time, these are the people with the cash resources to fund a pricey hobby like this in the first place, the time resource to actually build and paint their armies and tables and the space resource to store all of the this stuff and also get it all out and play with it.

This in and of itself is not neccessary a problem.  As long as there are more old white men coming into the hobby to replace those who get too old (or just keel over).  But that might be a problem in the future, it is almost certain that those people have been wargaming for decades, so didn't enter the hobby as 'around retirement age'.  ie twenty years ago, the demographic of a historically based wargaming event like this would have included a significant tranche of persons twenty years younger than those present in 2023.  The average age of the historical wargamer would have been lower. Fight me.

40K, as we all know is specifically targeted and marketed at new players, who tend to be in their teens.  People who might ot might not explore wargaming more generally, who might or might not wargame consistently thoughout their lives and who might or not 'leave the hobby' for years or even decades and then return.  And the constantly changing meta encourages behaviour like having the prime army for each edition or update of the rules, rather then what we see in hisotrical wargaming where the same army might be used in multiple rulesets or formats.  So the paradigm within which the games are played is different.  And some people might struggle with that.  If you start a conversation with someone about 40K they will assume that you're both talking about the latest edition.

So then there's the general state of society and the economy (stoopid).  The next potential generations of wargamers for this type of thing are much much less likely to have the resources (money, time and space) as the current players, even when they get to the same point in their lives, perhaps they will be short on one of these at least.  

So given the likely constraints on their future resources, the 40K paradigm of  'sell your army and get another one each time the rules change' makes sense: less space, some ROI.  You only have to look at ebay each time there's a new edition or new flavour of the month codex.

This constant churn is possibly the antithisis of historical wargaming.  Your ECW army might be good for multiple rule sets and be used for more than one depending on what type of game you want to play that day.  And by adding in or leaving out cerrtain units you could use most the ECW army in the Wars of Spanish Succession or even 30 Years War.  A markedly different paradigm and one suited to the more available time and space for it as well as the cash to acquire it in the first place. 

So perhaps in the future there is going to be less appetite for historical wargames, new wargamers are not moving into it: I see the evidence of that everytime I visit one of these.  Salute (not been for years) has a much stronger SciFi and Fantasy vibe and has much broader demographic.  It's still almost all male, still almost all white, but there is a much broader age range.  And there are historical wargames there.  And historical wargamers (still oldies) so it superficially looks like 'wargaming' as a healthy future.

But I would contend that what is seen at events like Salute is not the real picture, that events like Colours show that there is very real chance that historical wargaming in the form it currently has (and it's a great time for the hobby with new manufacturers of just about everything and 3D printing as well) is unlikely to survive another twenty years.  It's just seems not to be getting new players.

Do I think its doomed ?  Amongst all the new stuff there is a lot to appeal to those who are fed up with the revolving door nature of 40K - a host of new games in short play, skirmish format based on commando raids, weird WW2, Dr Who, Blakes 7, Flash Gordon and so on. Currently a lot of these games appeal to certain demographic (Dr Who, Blakes 7, Space 1999 and so on certainly date us all to between Quatermass and the Pit and Star Wars).  But products like the Star Wars games, like the GoT game by CMON and others which may follow on might just be enough to spark some interest in historical gaming and keep it alive. 
 

Arcoflagellants.

These arcoflagellants were stuck together on a child free break two years ago.  When Neverness announced this years Inquisitorial Conclave, I thought that this would be a great unit to paint up in case I didn't finish the team of baddies.  So I was able to submit these as well.

You might recall that there are already a team of monster hunters on Devos IV with five arcoflagellants already.  Those poor individuals have been arcoflagellants for some time and show signs of having been rebuilt more than once.  They are a patchwork of the people they used to be and whatever the medicae or mechanicus had to hand.

These ten are different, whilst each is different to the other, they are clearly the product of the same place and time.

But where did they come from ?  What heinous crime deserved such a fate ? And how and why did these come to Devos IV ?

When the Inquisition takes control of a place, some people are rounded up for questioning.  Some are rounded up and sentanced to death more or less immediately, as soon as can be practically managed.  Those with a lesser amount of guilt (but still some share of the guilt, even if that's only failing to turn ones self in, or condemn what ever it was that was going on which attracted the Inquisition's attention in the first place.) but these people would usually have some sort of leadership role, perhaps first line management, factory charge hands and so on.

Those lower down the social and organisational pecking order are likely to become servitors.  These should-have-known-betters are surgically altered into killing machines and then kept docile through drugs and then their bodies and nervous systems flooded with rage inducing pain negating drugs and let loose.  All the while, despite some very careful and highly specialised lobotomy, great care is taken so that some part of the guilty persons conscience remains aware of their condition and what is happening to them - this is the punishment.

After the liberation of Randstadd, the air beachead which saw the first Imperial forces on continental Benq, the civilian population who remained in the city were rounded up and processed.  All were shipped off world and taken to Dinnterra Minor for screening.  Some were blessed with the chance to redeem their crimes against the God Emperor of all Mankind when they were mercifully sentenced to become arcoflagellants.

Between four and half and five thousand souls were consigned to Dinterra Minor.  There is a chance that amongst the thousands of arcoflagellants who leave the House of Questions to further the aims of the church, some of those who were apprehended on Devos IV may have found their way back there as arcoflagellants.

Bishop Popper is man nervous of all the other factions of the Imperium around him and their burgeoning military power.  He invited the Adeptus Sororitas to give his war fighting credentials a boost only to find that the Canoness has no intention of listening to him whatsoever.  So he has indented for as many of these arcoflagellants as he can get. 

And arcoflagellants can by law only be activated by a priest.  What could possibly go wrong ?
 

Helghan reinforcements

You may be aware that there has been a Kickstarter by 'That Evil One" to produce STL's for the 'Heckghosts".  having put such a lot of work into my existing Helghans, and still loving the aestetic. I duly stumped up the readies for these boys.

Actual Colonel Meal Radec model.  The rest of his squad wear the slightly odd shaped helmets indicating that they are higher value, more elite types.  In the game, Radec is armed with an SMG, so you can see the little divergences to ensure that no IP is enfringed.

So these guys with the odd helmets are on the Brick of Scrutiny, and the other guys are arrayed below

The illustrations for the KS looked pretty detailed.

Some of the details on the prints look pretty sharp; but in the grey resin, there's a chance that some of the features which look a little fuzzy are as advertised, they just don't show until I get some paint on them.

They are pretty kool and obviously in the idiom I'm looking for.

There could be a few more shooter poses, I may have to get a few more printed, but will see how these turn out before getting any more.

A few of the prints are one peice items, but most of them have separate legs.

Which does give rise to the 'bifurcated by a vaudeville magician' look.  But this is an easy fix with a bit of belt kit.

This guy appears to be armed with STA11 submachine gun with underslung GL.

And belt kit to hide the gap.

This guy has a STA52 Assault Rifle

Those without a long arm were given a slung Accatran pattern las-rifle.

But you're asking if they match the existing Helghans ?  Pretty well. 

They're not over sized

They are similarly dressed and equipped.

And similarly soldierly poses.

And the bullpup assault rifles match up pretty well.
 

Corbanian Kasarkin arrivals

 

These are the new reinforcements recently arrived from Raven's Nest Painting.  Completed to match the previous Kasarkin and the rest of the Corbanian 2nd Regt. 

These are from the existing contingent.

Which includes a command squad - there is no option for a command squad in 5Ed, but this is a military formation in professional army and therefore has a chain of command, so includes an officer, even though he might only perform as a Kasarkin Sergeant on the table top.

We could chose to view this as Kasarkin Sergeants being good at their jobs, rather than viewing this officer as being less than capable at his job (the rest of the Kasarkin would not put up with that...)

So this is the whole lot, eight man squads, not ten man ones.  Two special weapons in each squad.

A shot to show the regulation left pultron as worn by all of the Corbanian 2nd.

I love these (now old) metal Kasarkin. I have a box of the new fellas to stick together, but I'm now thinking that they are likely to get Iron Kore heads.  They could be scattered throughout this lot and blend in nicely, but I'm fancying something different.

But that one off Kasarkin Sergeant will be joining these fine soldiers.

The existing sergeants here have printed Kasarkin heads from shapeways.

So the Corbanian 2nd have a tough five squad platoon for the right of the line.  Prosaically, these now have their own little figure case which acommodates them all nicely with enough space for four more Kasarkin.  Which leaves space in the main case for another couple of squads of line infantry.  Which means keeping a look out for old style Cadians.