Quar - Clash of Rhyfles - First Game

 I recently came across this game due to a couple of friends in my wargames club. I briefly remembered that a couple of Salute wargames ago that they had included a few free sprues of these adorable litt'l barstewards but I have dismissed them then and ended up giving mine to some other blokes young son to play with.

Anyhoo after seeing my mates Fidwogs (one of the Royalist factions) models I was instantly hooked and had to delve into the game and lore. The lore is absolutely immense and so unique. It is described as Grimsical (Grim Whimsical) and the Quar (Anthropomorphic Anteaters) are at a technology scale similar to WW1 and they even have armoured vehicles, although Quar Tanks are know as Tractors.

So after putting my Crusaders (The Royalist's main opposition) together I and Nic set up for our first game. Well my first game, Nic had already had a quick game against another Nick who had used Crusaders, and absolutely mullered him. So now it was my turn!!!

The Fidwogs are an interesting Squad as they can take a Tractor as a squad attachment, whilst my Crusaders are a basic infantry squad with a few heavy rifles, although I did get to add a Cook (Medic) whilst Nic also took a Fidwog Miner, which was one of that factions specialists.

We set up the table and went for the first scenario in the rulebook which is a straight Meeting Engagement.

Nic won initiative and went first moving up his Fidwoggians, whilst I then countered with my NCO and a heavy rifle 

The action was fast and furious on the flank as my Crusaders exchanged fire over a number of rounds with the Fidwogs, troops on both sides were taken OOA and brought back with a few good tend wounded rolls.

On the other flank, the Fidwogs squad tractor rolled forward and opened up with its machine gun, fortunately the erratic automatic fire missed my Crusaders and one of my Heavy rifle troops got a lucky shot against the Tractor operator and Rattled him, forcing him to button up inside the Tractor.

The rest of the game the Tractor was at a disadvantage, remaining rattled and I even attempted to assault it, but just couldn't get through its armour. Anti-Tractor weapons for next game methinks.

The tide had turned in the initial firefight as the Fidwog Yawdryl (Sgt) had managed to rally his beleaguered Quar and managed to down a few of my Crusaders.

The game was drawing to a close as time was getting late (it took us some time checking rules and flipping through the rulebook to clarify certain tasks and abilities) in one last mad effort the Fidwog miner charged into melee and managed to kill one of my downed Quar.

With this last action, we called the game and checked victory conditions. I had just a few more points worth of Quar left and with some secondary objectives achieved the end result meant a win to the Crusaders 7-2.

A fantastic game and I cant wait for our next encounter.

UK Games Expo 2026

As previous years I have said another year another UK Games Expo - but this one really was an absolute blast. Being the 20th anniversary of the Expo and the way its moved on from it's humble beginnings away back in 2006.

 5 main halls were used this year, with Hall 1 used mainly used for open gaming and tournaments as well as housing the Big Expo Dragon figure that usually sits at the opening. It also had a museum exhibition showing items and pictures from across the two decades of the show running.

Games workshop returned and had a massive presence but personally I think they were overshadowed by the large inclusion of the Trench Crusade stand which was opposite Ares Game where I spend my convention working and running games demos.

I have waxed lyrical before about how good Ares are to work for and I can never say a bad think about them. We have a solid crew of regulars every year and Roberto, Christoff and Fabio from Ares treat us like family, it really is an absolute pleasure to be part of them during the show.

Again this year the numbers reached a record high with over 87000 attending, on the Friday it was absolutely rammed and never stopped all weekend. We were only just finishing a game demo and people were waiting to sit down at our tables !!

I have mentioned before how much I love this show and the weekend as a whole. You just immerse yourself in it and its open to everyone, regardless of your everyday beliefs, bias's, prejudices, they disappear, the Expo hosts everyone from every background, young or old and no one bats an eyelid. we are all one and there to enjoy out geeky, nerdy, weirdness and its amazing.

I mainly spent the weekend running demos of Viking Route which in this co-operative game, you run Viking Heroes sailing the magical Longship to the World's Edge defeating enemies such as Loki and Fenrir as well as the Kraken. Odin's Ravens and the winds of fate help you navigate and this done with magnetic game pieces. It is a fabulous game and looks amazing and I even had a table full of real (reenactors) Vikings playing the game and they loved it !

On the Sunday we hosted the usual Wings of Glory Battle of Birmingham game but I was that busy with my demo games I didn't even get any pictures of it !

Saturday night I attended the Dark Room Till Ya Die show, I have have mentioned the Dark Room before and if you have not seen it, search for John Robertson the Dark Room on YouTube. This went on till the early hours of Sunday morning and was a surreal, hilarious debauchery of comedy !!

I had even less time this year getting around show but below are the pictures I managed to take and the many friends I got to catch up with.

Ronnie (Mantic Games)

UK Games Expo Dragon and Museum 

Jason (Tritex Games)

Jervis Johnson & Andy Chambers

Alex & Wing (Warp Miniatures)

Chris Barrie (Rimmer-Red Dwarf)

Ian Brody (Designer of Quarter Master General)

Lydon Davies (Perkins) and Jason Salkey (Rifleman Harris)

Ares Games crew

Heres to 2027!!

Happy Star Wars Day 2026

 Happy Star Wars Day. 

Salute 2026

  

Another year and another Salute wargames show. The largest one day wargames show in the UK and after a hard start to the year for me with various issues and being chased by the black dog, after I wasn't that impressed with the show last year, I was contemplating not going at all. However convinced by friends I made my way down to London for it. 

Not as early as I usually do, and I prebooked parking so that wasn't much of an issue (apart from the extortionate cost) The queue as you can see from the pics was immense but didn't seem as disorganised as previous years and the doors opened 10 minutes early so I got into the show pretty much just like I would have done previously arriving really early and being near the head of the queue.

                        

Once in the majority of my time was made up of doing a full sweep of the hall as usual. Finding what traders and games I want to visit and play later on during the day. The place was packed but avenues were wide and apart from vary buy stalls (good for the traders) it didn't feel overcrowded.

Personally I thought the traders this year monopolised the space over games, a lot of companies had their own demo games attached but as per separate gaming I thought this was down on previous years (I could be wrong)

The show for me is mainly about meeting up with all and sundry I know and catching up and the chances of making new friends. I did not have a shopping list in mind this year but at the end of the post you will see I didn't do too bad with my haul.

One game stood out for me and I picked up a Rulebook and miniatures bundle. This is SAND a DUNE inspired small scale Melee Skirmish game from Crow Industries. The rulebook was a limited print run for the show but I am sure after its huge success they will do more. At present though you can get the pdf and 3D print miniatures from their Patreon site.

I played Trench Crusade as I have had a passing interest in this game, and as much as I really enjoyed the game and the dynamics of the rules, I don't think I will be investing in it any time soon, only for the fact that I have a couple of other game systems that are taking all my time.

In the end I played more games, caught up with really good friends and some really nice people and had a rather good time.

I might be going again next year!

Annual Bloggers/Old Gits meet up

The Haul

I managed to get my hands on a great deal for a load of old BattleTech novels, plus Leisure games had a bunch of BattleTech miniatures game Salvage boxes including vehicle ones (which are hard to find in the UK) so I impulse bought a load. I picked up a show exclusive Vampire mini from Alex at Warp miniatures and as mentioned the SAND Melee skirmish game bundle, along with the usual SALUTE freebies and dice.