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Fiasco 2002
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Those in the know will remember that there are two Fiasco's. The first is the original, a club show, mainly for gamers and staging a basis in competition gaming. The second is the showcase edition with major club displays hosted in the prestigious surroundings of the Tower Armouries in Leeds.
This show was the former, held at a sports centre in the suburb of Armley. The day got off to a bad start with an idiot driving straight into the side of the car in front of me as I joined the M62, so I was delayed arriving. But things got better.........this time I did not miss Leeds altogether, and managed to get within a mile of the venue before I was forced to ask directions. Parking at these places is always a problem, but I was directed on to a nearby field, which was fine.....if you were in a 4x4, or half track, but my Punto's exhaust did not like it at all.
Once in the show, I was greeted by Alan Lumley of Lancashire Games who showed me some of the new releases, which will be reviewed in the Forum shortly. The competition games were in full swing and I spotted a few familiar faces, veterans Bob Amey, and Paul Beckman amongst them.
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As usual I made a beeline for the Bring and Buy. There were a few bargains to be had, especially if you were into fantasy, or were handy with a soldering iron. There was a superb group of plains indians that I was very tempted by, but they suffered from a number of broken weapons which put me off. But I did spend ..... too much .......!
In the display games I was impressed by Intake High Schools Warhammer 40K games, good to see school clubs participating in major shows. The Lance and Longbow Society, as usual, presented a colourful and interesting game to supplement the Society display of publications. The Ilkley Lads struck again, this time with a Seven Years war game, with their trademark excellent figures and good terrain.
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Stuck away down the end of a corridor, I-Kore had a room to themselves, and I mean to themselves, a massive stall, a display game, two staff and no customers. This is one of the problems with the venue, parts of it are pokey and not well signed, so unless you studied the programme you were likely to miss these smaller rooms. This is a pity the I-Kore range is well worth a view, and the game looked interesting, but it may be that this company will not travel south again after the response at this show. The Foundry stall suffered from a similar problem, but their room was directly opposite on of the main halls.
There were plenty of trade stands present on the day, and my biggest regret was that I only had a couple of hours to spend at the show, as there seemed to be loads of new releases. Still my bank account was already reeling, so maybe it is just as well.
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For me the most interesting display was the Atlantic Wall game from the 009 Society. This was a commando raid on German defences, but what made it special was the use of model railway engines that spent the game steaming up and down the table. Excellent!
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Fiasco II is in the Autumn, make sure you don't miss it!
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JOS
