I had a rare Sunday free, so thought I’d pop along to the first post-lockdown SELWG show.

The last time I’d been to SELWG, it had been at Crystal Palace and, to be honest, all I remember is the smell of chlorine from the pool and a nightmare journey there and back.

The refreshed show is actually in north London (presumably there are plans to re-name it NELWG) at the Lee Valley Track & Field stadium. The show was set up literally in the middle of the running track: somewhat ironic considering the inverse relationship between enjoying wargames and taking part in athletics!

The place is easy to find and, for me, now easy to get to. The site has a large, free car park right outside: such a refreshing change from the huge fees at Excel (Salute) or the nightmare that is Rivermead (Warfare). The only negative is that it didn’t have any charging points: very annoying in this modern age.

The show itself was very good, although it did feel a bit small: but this may be down to the fact that I’m used to the very big shows. That said, there were plenty of demo games (including a good 50 yards of Lard!) and a fair selection of traders. Interestingly, although there were plenty of 28mm figure manufacturers there, I couldn’t see any 15mm manufacturers, so ended up only buying some brushes and some basing materials. A cheap day!

It would have been a more expensive day as, unusually for me, I found something on the Bring & Buy that I wanted to, er, buy…but it was £100 and I never carry cash any more (I had a single £10 note on me!) and there was no cash point on site, the nearest being a 500 yard trip in either direction. Note to organisers: equip the B&B with a credit card machine or make sure there’s a cashpoint. So no nicely-painted 15mm WW1 German army for me :(

On the plus side, however, I did play in an excellent game of Infamy! in the morning. I played the Carthaginians up against some Republican Romans. It was a cracking game. The Roman skirmishers causing me all sorts of problems whilst I manoeuvred into a position from which my elephant could go in backed by my Libyan spearmen as my Spanish types hit the enemy from the flank. In the end, the sheer flexibility and staying power of the Romans meant that they could recover from the nellie’s charge quickly enough to ride the assault of my spearmen, and the Spanish just didn’t quite have the combat power to save the day. A cracking game, though, and thanks to Big Rich and my opponent, Chris, for making it so good.

So, all in all, a good day. Charging points and a cash machine for next time please, and get the food truck on site earlier than 1 o’clock: I like to have elevenses!

Here’s a final pic of a rather nice Mexican Revolution game: