"1980s " Topic

Cutting a very long story short I'm trying to resurrect a few memories from the distant past…

Early 80s I used to go to a wargames convention North of Manchester just off the M6. It was in a 1960/1970s concrete new hall type building. Town began with a B.

It was at this convention that I bought a 15mm French Napoleonic army. Pretty sure I bought it from Navwar, so that puts it probably as a Naismith design.French army is in store at my dad's (so no pics at the moment sorry) but from what I do remember the cavalry figures were a one piece – having just bought a British army from Naismith/Navwar their cavalry are 2 piece figure. I was always under the impression that the figures were from the states and had been imported. Of course the Navwar thing might just be a red herring.

At the same time I bought some very good acrylic paints (this was when the world pretty much used Humbrol enamels – acrylics were very avant garde). Believe these were also from navwar. Any ideas of brand?

(There is also a 6mm H&R ECW setup, a shed load of AD&D, Boot Hill, Traveller, early copies of White dwarf etc lurking at my dad's too).

So any help remembering:-

1. the convention
2. any other brands of figure that might be a contender
3. paint brand

…. would be much appreciated.

As a footnote I was mighty impressed by navwar's mail order process. It really took me back to the days of Military Modelling adverts, postal orders and 28 days delivery.

Only this time I posted the order Friday and got the box of goodies Monday morning. That sort of service is better than a lot of web driven mail order fims. Long live the man in a shed business model!

Bolton? Bury? Blackburn?

Berwick? Bannockburn?

2. I had some 15 mm figures back in the 80's and the cavalry were definitely one piece, I'm pretty sure they were called Heritage – maybe Heritage Napoleonette's.

npm

Blackguard? Bounder? Bluebottle?

Berwick? Bannockburn?

Just off the M6?

Blackguard? Bounder? Bluebottle?

Never heard of them. Are they just off the M6 too?

Thank you for the quick answer – Heritage it is(a google search found Napoleon figure- identical to mine).

4o does that mean Navwar was a red herring? Who imported them into the UK? I definitely bought the paint from the same dealer.

Convention would have been Blackburn, Burnley(?) Perhaps

I think Heritage figures were distributed by Hinchcliffe in the UK.

Thank you again, a few snippets of info have yielded:
yes they are Heritage , distributed by Hinchcliffe
Convention was Northern Militaire. Was this held in Swinton at the Civic Centre Annexe (?) which incidentally does not begin with a 'B'?

If I remember rightly, Northern Militaire was at least once held in Blackpool.

Have collected box from my dad's house. As well as the Heritage figures there are also some dodgy Jacobite muletrain figures (look and measure nearer 10mm), some other 15mm figures. Again can't remember the brand. Horses look awful , short and squat with seperate saddle. Any ideas? Some infantry too, Polish light infantry don't look too bad but figures very angular, completely different class to the Heritage figures.

(Also a ziplock bag full of 15mm Traveller figures which have sadly mostly corroded, a few space marines survive. Why did I paint yellow space suits? Why? Clearly I hadn't seen Alien at the time)

Only venues I remember for Northern militaire were Salford and oldham.

Chad

RAFM had one piece horses and riders as well.