No, I’m not going to discuss Richard or Laurence, the two organisers of the wonderful Partizan shows, or for that matter, the many ‘glitterati’ of the wargaming world that attend the show! No, my interest is in the free figures that are handed out as part of the entrance fee. In the past, I would accept these figures gratefully and they would simply end up in a box as part of my lead pile. However, since the lockdown, my ambition has been to reduce my lead pile and to paint whatever I buy or acquire at shows. My rule now is that I wont buy anything from a show unless I have painted the things that I bought the last time I attended that same show a year ago. That gives me a year to paint what I buy!
So far, I have actually kept to my promise, more or less….so when the first Partizan show opened after COVID in October 2021 I actually painted the free miniature within a week. The miniature was of the nurse, Edith Cavell who served in WW1.
At the next Partizan in May of this year, the miniature was King Stephen. Once again, I painted him fairly quickly after the show. So now I had two painted miniatures from Partizan – Oooooo! the start of a collection! As it turned out, I remembered that I had a third figure, Martin Schwartz, from the Battle of Stokes Field. He was actually part of my War of the Roses army that I was using for Never Mind The Bill Hooks! I had painted him sometime ago.
That find sent me scurrying out to the shed to see what else I had squirreled away! I also did some research on the web to remind myself of what figures were actually given out. I was surprised that there are actually 45 according the the lost mini’s web page. You can see them here:
PARTIZAN – LOST MINIS WEB PAGE
So after a quick search through the pile of shame I found that I had 12 miniatures from past shows. It seems that the earliest figure that I had was number 26 King Edward VIII. I suspect that I have picked up other earlier figures but not kept them or they are hidden deep into the lead pile. I certainly wont have had them all but I thought it would be fun to paint what I have.
I started with figure Number 41 ‘Dulce et decorum est…’ It’s a lovely sculpt and very straight forward to paint. It also goes nicely with the Edith Clavell figure.
I then decided to paint the earliest models that I had, Edward and Mrs Simpson, numbers 26 and 27 respectively. Which brings my ‘collection’ up to six painted models! I’ll work through the others as a break from what ever else is on the workbench. As a collection, they will look nice in the cabinet and they chart a bit of my own gaming history through my visits to Partizan as a Customer, Trade Exhibitor and most recently, Games Demonstrator! I wont be actively seeking out the missing models from my collection, although I would like to get hold of the Lambert Simnel model for my War of The Roses army, and for old times sake, I would quite like to get hold of figure number two, Duncan the publisher.
Partizan is without doubt, my favourite wargames show, more so since it has moved to its new venue at the Newark Show Ground. I am very much looking forward to attending ‘The Other Partizan’ on Sunday 9th October, where I will be assisting with a Participation/Demo game of the latest version of ‘Never Mind The Bill Hooks’ or ‘Bill Hooks Delux’ as it will be known. With Andy Callan and his brother Ian, we will be showing off the rules for Celtic conflict in the WOTR era with a fictional prequel to the Battle of Stokes fleld set in Ireland! If you are at the show, please come and say hello!
I am of course also looking forward to getting the next figure in the collection!
THE COMMERCIAL BIT
I hope that you all enjoy your hobby as much as I do – our web site will have much of what you need! Click here to see our shop.
To find out more about the Partizan show tickets prices and who will be there, click here:
Happy Modelling!