ACOTS 2022

 Australian Collectors Of Toy Soldiers had its annual convention this Easter. In 35 years or so I have attended every convention except one when no-one could attend due to an lockdown and prohibition on interstate travel. Alan Copsey hosted this one, and put on a splendid show at his bayside home in Melbourne. He even shouted everyone a banquet meal at the Italian restaurant on Saturday night.

    Numbers were down this year . One of our members of at least 25 years, Garry Mansfield had died and Bob Bolton of Adelaide had contracted Covid and thus was in self isolation for a week. These had flow on results with others also not attending as they would have been travelling with these people. Others may have just been reluctant to travel due to the existence of the virus.

Nevertheless we has around 24 people for the Friday swap-meet and eight participating in the wargames on Saturday and Sunday. The events were accompanied by the usual lively, friendly banter.

As usual, the ladies put on a a magnificent effort providing provisions for the troops.

BELOW: some of the tables and varied items for sale and swap.

The wargames consisted of two ACW games. As usual I played Confederate. The CSA were narrowly defeated on Saturday and had a major victory on Sunday. It was a new variation on our usual rules so it took a little while to get around the rules. Dave, as umpire had his work cut out for him although it was not unknown for the odd onlooker to offer his advice.

The nature of the set up and the rules did not favor cavalry. Infantry and artillery were the stalwarts for most of the table and the Union had more infantry in the first game but two less cannons in the second game.

The Sunday game ended where I had finally flanked the Union and was getting the advantage of enfilade. My cavalry (in this case the 33rd Texas) were about threaten the Union rear and flanks when the game ended, as planned, on a certain time.

GAME 2 Dave's lovely wargame figures that incorporate a wonderful mix of hollow-cast, Timpo and more modern figures.

                                               Below are my units I brought for the game. 

                                            The cavalry are the Hispanic 33rd Texas cavalry.

                         A severely reduced Texan unit hiding behind a wonderful brick building made by Alan.

             The section of battlefield I played had a strong Union force opposing me on my left but I managed to push forward on the right. The two cannons, one which was able to shoot cannister before the crew were killed contributed to the success.

                                       The marching figures, although Union, are in grey with dark blue kepis, an early war volunteer unit.  The ones in the foreground are Accurate, Marx and Imex and include a large number of conversions.

                        CSA numbers are starting to tell here as they sneak around the flank..

                                                  Union volunteer Accurate regiment

                         GAME 1  Dave's figures on the Union side taking advantage of cover.

                                         The Confederate center

Apart from the swap-meet, games and dinner I found time to swim at the local beach. The weather was sunny with some cloud and was a pleasant 27C . The water was cool but refreshing.

Below are some of the figures I obtained. I'll post more of them in a future post.