Recon is a small scale event with mainly local traders and not that many figure manufacturers, but with a lot of display games, many of which welcomed players, a tournament (for HOTT, a long standing if oddly obscure feature of the show), a real bar and a bring and buy.
As it was for me I bought very little, only picking up a book on Albuera and some copies of Battlegames, as I've never done so before (I know, many will wonder how I can call myself a wargamer and not be reading it; others will have never heard of it. Full reviews to follow in due course).
But unlike Fiasco the healthy selection of games was enough to be worth a visit. In no particular order:
Bacchus Games 6mm Napoleonics, lovely scenery, and nicely presented 6mm models. Though for me the point of 6mm is to be able to represent formations closer to scale. I'd have liked to have seen a game with a battalion formed of 100-200 models rather than just 24 on a single base.
One of two Teddy Bear games. All the rage this year, the cowboy game featured every 'Bear based' pun I can imagine.
The Lance and Longbow society went for a naval game using 25mm figures on a mixture of Plastic Kits (Zvezda) and scratch-built medieval cogs. Looked nice, though a better water surface would've been nice.
20mm plastics featured in this Zulu War game, based on a colonial variant of DBA. Always pleased to see 20mm out in force.
One of the more visually attractive games was Run by the Kirklees Gamers; a Boxer rebellion period skirmish. Though it looked like a free for all on the table, the scenery was of a high standard.
The other Teddy Bear game was my own clubs contribution (along with an intro to 'Flames of War' table too). Mark's full set up featured British Bears, Zulu Pandas, The UN Blue hats and...
A giant Gingerbread man. Your guess is as good as mine.
Clearly inspired by 'Kingdom of Heaven' This 10mm game, may well have been put on by Kallistra, one of the big players in the scale. It really only constituted a display, as it never changed, but contrary to my criticisms of the Bacchus game, this one did feature units of hundreds, rather than dozens of figures.
But the undoubted centrepiece of the day was the 'A Very British Civil War' game. Apparently these chaps started as an alternate history gaming forum and have now rather expanded into their own sub genre. The game was set in 1938 and featured an attack on Hull; not the first time Hull has been a blood-stained morass covered with belligerents and fleeing refugees on a Saturday afternoon, I can tell you!
I don't know how much gaming they actually did, as they spent most of their time talking to the many interested spectators. I didn't see much move though. The game looked like an opportunity for an online community to get all its toys together at once instead. Still you can't help be impressed by the sheer variety of 28mm models, especially the interwar years tanks and aircraft. The ships belong to a member of the other main Leeds club, a guy with a lot of time on his hands and too much space.
What, exactly, motivates you to build a 12 foot long model aircraft carrier. And where the hell do you keep it?
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