Sunday, 23 February 2025

Cavalier Show report 2025 (Part One)


A trip -all the way from Maidstone to Tonbridge- was undertaken by public transport today to the Angel Centre in Tonbridge for this the annual Cavalier Show put on by those nice chaps at Tunbridge Wells Wargames Society. Now before I trekked north to Brum in 1984, this was an occasional jaunt across the Thames from Southend, in fact, I remember when the show used to be in a school and I am sure I saw Waterloo sitting uncomfortably on a school gym beam. Not that I’m dating myself, but Waterloo hadn’t been out on general release for long! Nowadays, the show is in one of those modern sports complex’s spread over two halls. It’s a pleasant, medium sized show with plenty of breathing room as you walk around, with no six feet wide hirsute specimens of unwashed humanity wielding military sized backpacks knocking people over like skittles every time they turned around.  

Met up with a few chums, namely Big Lee, Ray and Richard from Postie’s Rejects, plus others acquaintances I know of only through shows. It shows that we are getting older because the agreed meet up time for a cuppa and a roll of some sort with the Rejects and myself was 1200 –only two hours into the show; but the grateful noises and mutters of ‘luxury’ as we all ‘took the weight off’ and sat down could be heard across the room!  

The haul from the show was quite small really. No little chaps were purchased but I did pick up my pre-ordered terrain pieces from Brigade Models. So now in 2mm I am the proud owner of a couple of Russian villages to go with a castle/walled town with the typical Eastern European covered wooden walkways along the top; a Middle Eastern village, a couple of Vietnamese villages on stilts which I will use as Chinese buildings for both villages and/or towns, and a stone walled castle for Chinese fortifications. All of these can be used from the Mongol period forward so it’s a win-win. They are all close enough for my liking anyway.

I also found the three books shown below. Of special interest were the two ECW books as I have not long purchased a Royalist and a Parliamentarian Irregular Miniatures 2mm Battlepacks. After cleaning –a hellish job in 2mm and I think I may have inadvertently filed off my fingerprints trying to get the bases flat- and basing them 50x25mm mdf bases, I realised that it was nowhere near enough so immediately, another order went in for nearly the same number again. Not that I haven’t got any books on the ECW, another couple of battle-specific books are always handy. The 1066 book will go on the shelf until needed.

There were a few cracking games on show especially one by Shepway Wargamers called Dornier Down which I took the club spiel photo…and nothing else. Sorry lads, it really was a good looking game. There was also an unusual game by Maidstone Wargames Society with a black table, black terrain and vehicles, the latter two types were edged in Tron style Dayglo green, (showing as white in the photo). I was informed that it was a visual representation of an old computer game. It was decidedly different but if I’m honest, it made me slightly goggle-eyed looking at it. But that’s just me. The Bring and Buy was its usual packed self –as are they all- and money was changing hands although not from mine. I even managed to resist buying a Pendraken 10mm Ancient Barbarian Battlepack at well below half price! Aren’t I good?

Show pics are in Part Two.

Keep yer brushes clean!


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