A Grand Day Out - The South West Model Show

As you may be aware, here at Warlord Games, we like tanks. A lot. What better place for us to hold our annual trade sales conference, then, than the legendary Tank Museum? Our trade team came from all over the world for this vitally important strategy meeting (That’s what they told us. Vitally important that it happened at the Tank Museum specifically. Not that I’m jealous. -ed.), and with so many Warlorders in one place, we decided it would be rude not to throw a bit of a bash as well!

We’ve recently partnered with the Tank Museum to run the South West Model Show on their hallowed grounds, and the coinciding trade conference ensured we’d be well staffed with helping hands. Naturally, at such a prestigious venue, we had to put on a big showing, and our team answered the call with demo tables aplenty, seminars from legendary Design Studio Painter Kirsten Williams and Konflikt ‘47 sculptor Jon Heeney, and a very well-attended ‘build-a-tank’ station. The environment perhaps had something of an effect on people’s desire to assemble something tracked and heavily armoured!

*This is just one sitting at a* very busy build-a-tank table!

As well as talks, demo games and the opportunity to build your own tank, the South West Model Show also saw us host a Bolt Action tournament across the weekend. Who better to tell us all about it than Phil ‘Wardaddy’ Brewer, our very own budding tank commander and tame tournament organiser!

PB – When Warlord Games asked me to run a Bolt Action event at The Tank Museum, I knew that this needed to be no ordinary tournament. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t take long to think of a theme… Tanks. And lots of them! Not quite thousands (wrong game, Phil! -ed.), but certainly plenty. All that was left to do was to choose a name…

Tanks A Lot! saw 30 players competing in four games across the weekend, with a rather impressive backdrop – The Tank Story exhibition hall! The brief was simple: build a 1,250 point list, make sure you include an Armoured Platoon and make sure it includes at least one DV9+ tank. The four missions were based upon those in the main rule book, but with some amendments to fit the location.

First up was Fury – a kill points mission, but with a bonus if your ‘Fury’ tank (minimum of DV9+) destroyed units, offset with a bonus for your opponent if they destroyed it. Seize the Assets was based on Key Positions, albeit with some restrictions to how Infiltrators could deploy, in order to prevent anyone deploying onto an objective before a shot had been fired or a tank had rumbled forward.

*One down… but the Panzers push on undeterred!*

Leading the charge on the second day was Armoured Thrust – essentially Breakthrough, but with added kill points and the twist that only vehicles would score if they finished in the opponent’s deployment zone or exited the table. The final mission was Big Cats Hunting, another kill points mission, but one that rewarded taking out vehicles with either infantry assaults or artillery units. Plenty of players were heard over the weekend commenting on how they appreciated the twist to familiar missions, something I encourage all TOs to consider.

Some of my highlights of the weekend included Walden, Josh, and Andrew travelling all the way from the US to attend the tournament, several players attending their first ever Bolt Action tournament and the creativity and originality shown with many of the lists.

Peter decided that one Maus wasn’t enough, so he brought two. and not much else to go with them! He nearly managed to ensure both survived the whole weekend, but unfortunately for him one fell in the final game to Adam’s perseverance. This earned Adam the Maus Trap Award (yes, we did present him with an actual mouse trap!).

*Mauses? Meese? Mice? Either way, this is getting out of hand – now there are two of them!*

Everyone walked away with a memento from the weekend and the following claimed the main prizes:

The Michael Wittmann Award for 1^st Place: Paul W
The Bernard Montgomery Award for 2^nd Place: Sonny W
The Georgy Zhukov Award for 3^rd Place: James G
The Don “Wardaddy” Collier Award for Most Sporting: James G
The Oddball Award for Best Force: Mark G
The Bob Semple Award for Wooden Spoon: James L

I’d like to thank both Jay and Kieran for their assistance over the weekend and, most importantly, the players themselves – everyone bought into the spirit of the event, games were played in good humour and the fortunes of (tabletop) war were celebrated by all.