Sunday 8 May 2011

Exeter Legionary

As regular readers know, there’s nothing I like better than getting in a car and driving up a dual carriageway for an hour to spend all day in a cattle shed with like-minded gentlemen before driving home again.  This weekend was no exception as I journeyed to the frozen north (Exeter) to participate in, and bring a bit of class to, the Legionary 2011 wargames event.


In fact, before we go too far, don't forget you can still win a copy of the latest Unseen Lerker magazine featuring my own article on Frugal Gaming, see the last post for details.  But hurry, you only have a few days left!




Anyway, this was the third year that I’ve visited Legionary, and it’s the third venue in that time.  There were a few criticisms of the layout last year for gamers (I didn’t participate in the tournament so I couldn’t say) but this year the venue was pretty good.  It was in an agricultural auction house on the outskirts of the city, though was nowhere as bad as you may imagine.  The large open space meant that all the gamers were in with the traders which created a good atmosphere and lots of people were wandering over from the trade stands to watch the games being played.

As with previous tournaments, I met plenty of people.  This included two of my Exeter twitter chums; Domonet and Wartrader (both well worth following) who turned out to nice guys rather than murderous psychopaths, which is always the risk of social networking.  Domonet and Wartrader were running a demonstration game of Infinity which looked very interesting, but I’m currently afraid of taking up another game system as I’d probably end up selling a kidney to fund my ridiculous gaming addiction.  But if you’re on the lookout for a new game then check it out and let me know what you think.  Of course I would be remiss to not give a big plug to Wartrader’s business; so have a look at that as well.

I also met James, who had made the epic journey from Surrey to compete in the competition (for my American readers; Surrey is a separate state, east of London Island, two timezones East of here.  Everyone there speaks like our Queen Elizabeth and drives around in Rolls Royces Automobiles).  It also happens that James’s wife had to travel to Exeter that weekend for work, but I’m sure that's just a coincidence.  James mentioned that he reads this blog (Hello) so I knew he was a man of taste.  As it turned out he also a great looking Warriors of Chaos force, which was one of the nicest painted armies I’m ever seen with my own eyes.  I’m sure that my pictures don’t do it justice, so take my word for it that his ‘Amy Winehouse’ champion conversion was superb. 




"They tried to make me go to the Realm of Chaos, I said 'No no no...'"
The bring and buy stall was well stocked and most things seemed to be reasonably, priced apart from the obligatory £100 copy of Space Hulk.  As it turns out, I did end up buying an original copy of the 40k Rogue Trader rulebook.  This was a bargain and was bought purely for nostalgic reasons, it was the first gaming product I ever saw and it opened up a whole new world to me!  Looking back over the badly rendered Space Marine drawings and crudely painted miniatures would have brought a tear to my eye if it wasn’t for the fact that I'd just sold my soul to Satan to learn to paint like James.

The bring and buy also featured this amazing 5ft long spaceship for £30.  File it under ‘Looks cool, but I’ve no reason or space for it’.



As for my games of Warhammer; I got beaten like an incontinent puppy at a carpet factory.  I did take a few of the enemy down, racking up a few hundred victory points from each game.  My overall ranking was the same as at my last tournament (second from last) but I feel that my game has improved massively in the last few months and I’ll be expecting a win or two next year.

Yeah, next year.  I’ll definitely be back to Legionary 2012 for more, a lot of the guys from the Cross Swords club agreed that it was a great tournament and we’ll be back next year.  Well done to all those who took part in the tournament and a great big ‘THANK YOU’ to all who organised and ran the event.

Happy Gaming.

6 comments:

Col.Gravis said...

I fear I must confess I was the git selling Space Hulk, one can but try afterall, it is just gathering dust! Though amusingly it sounds like you picked up my copy of Rogue Trader - so I can't be all bad right? ;)

Dave said...

Whoops!

Firstly, thanks for the Rogue Trader, it is most remarkably awesome and has immediately become one of my most treasured possessions.

Secondly; Space Hulk. I always feel a bit sad when I see copies of Space Hulk for sale, it's such a fantastic game and I think people should be playing it more. It's a shame that the 'limited edition' status of the game pushed prices up so remarkably quickly :/ (probably not a shame if you're selling a copy though ;p).

But yeah, Rogue Trader for the win!

Col.Gravis said...

Your very welcome, I'm glad its gone to a good home!

I agree completely with regards to Space Hulk. It was a bit of a reluctant sale to be honest, but space is a bit tight here and with a wedding and a house move ahead it seemed to be the right time to part company with it. I'm glad to say though that we do play Space Hulk occasionally still at Exeter Inqusition (I'm a member along with Ian & Domo who were running Infinity), though we tend to do 'mega hulks' with several squads of Terminators & hordes of Genestealers on a 6x4 using 1st edition Space Hulk tiles which Ian has in abundance. I'm sure next time we do that you'd be more then welcome to come an join in if you don't mind making the trip up here!

Dave said...

Woo hoo! Mega hulk! Sounds good :)

Barnaby said...

Yeah i was so annoyed i didnt have £30 for the spaceship, it was awesome.
Barnaby

Dave said...

Hey Barnaby, I didn't have enough money either, but I did think that if I did it still wouldn't be a good idea. I mentioned it to my girlfriend when I got home and she confirmed that she would have killed me for buying it!

By the way, I'm guessing that you're the Barnaby who I played in Game 1? If so, sorry for killing the hydra so quickly, but that special character you had was horrible!