The Joy of Six

Having resolved a problem with internet connection that’s kept me from blogging for a whole month, I’m now back with news of recent events.

Starting with the most recent, I spent the morning at The Joy of Six, the 6mm scale convention organised by Baccus 6mm and Wargames Emporium in Sheffield.  Sadly, I forgot to take my camera.

Shopping wise I was fairly restrained.  I bought some buildings from Total Battle Miniatures  that will form the core of a new German or Dutch built up area, probably as an extension to the motorway terminal junction.  A also visited the TimeCast stall and bought a petrol station.  I already have one of these from Najewitz Modellbau but petrol stations are fairly ubiquitous so having a second won’t do any harm.  TimeCast also provided a pack of plastic civilian cars that will be really useful as set dressing for modern games.  More of all this stuff when I get it painted.

A great benefit of attending The Joy of Six is the inspiration it provides to get on with painting one’s 6mm models.  The most important game for me was Per Broden’s Klissow, a Great Northern War action pitting Swedes against Saxons and Poles.  In particular I shall be pinching Per’s basing conventions for Polish cavalry.  Per has nine Hussars in a shallow wedge on a 60x30mm base and nine Pancerni with three forward and six back on the same sized base.  The different layouts are helpful when it comes to telling the two types apart.  So far I’ve based one unit of Hussars with 13 figures.  This looks good but it’ll take me a long time to get to the point where I have enough units for a game.

The highlight of the morning, though was the seminar session in which Pete and The Igor talked about the running of Baccus 6mm and discussions ranged widely over the future of rules formats (electronic, not paper), the economics of figure production (small batches don’t make sense, rules sets sell figures), and the future of Baccus’s foray into the twentieth century (6mm scale WW2 armour that I won’t be buying because it doesn’t scale with my H&R and Scotia collection, and a WW1 range that, scandalously, won’t immediately cover the Latvian Freedom War!).

I quite understand that it doesn’t make sense for Baccus to sell bits and bobs of figures here and there.  I was happy to buy the Polish Army Pack I picked up at Triples but on mature reflection it does contain rather more Valacks than I’m likely to need (particularly using Per’s basing conventions).  I also have rather more than enough Late Roman light cavalry and would like a few Huns to join them but don’t know that I want a whole Baccus unit pack.  I wonder if there’s a case for a Baccus swap forum to put owners of excess models in touch with people who might swap for them?