Colours 2025

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This weekend it was off to Newbury Racecourse for the Colours wargaming show.

I was competing in the To The Strongest competition there, so needed to be in position to play well before the doors officially opened…which meant an early breakfast somewhere. I had done a bit of Google research and found a cafe that opened at 7.30am on Newbury High Street. That was a little late, but I thought I’d go for it anyway: I can always eat quickly.

I got to the designated location at about 7.15am, to find my original destination was unsurprisingly still closed…but there was another cafe, King’s Cafe, not only open but with a row of empty parking spaces right outside. Excellent news: and the breakfast (the “King’s Breakfast”) was absolutely lovely. So a “highly recommended” for King’ Cafe: set me up nicely for the day.

Being there early also gave me the chance to see the “Lust for Glory” table all set up and ready to be played without hundreds of people surrounding it. LFG is the new set of rules from the TTS camp designed for the late 16th and early 17th century wargaming. It’s still in playtesting, and Simon and co. had done a great job with the table.

I was busy competing when the show actually opened (more on the TTS competition when I come to write the battle reports) but I did get plenty of time to walk around later on.

First impressions were that it was as excellent as ever. Let’s tick off what I like about it:

  • relatively easy to get to, and without passing any speed cameras (if you know, you know!)

  • plentiful free parking

  • huge numbers of trade stands

  • good catering, although the queues can be quite long at lunchtime

  • plenty of places to sit outside if you fancy a bit of fresh air

This year was also nicely busy without being insanely crowded, which meant that it wasn’t as close and hot as it has been in the past. I also think that the visitors were more spread out between the floors than before: mainly, I think, because the standard of exhibition games was the highest I have ever seen it.

In the past, Colours has had the some good games on show, but this year I really felt that everyone had excelled themselves. I certainly spent a lot longer than usual looking at the game, and you can see from the photos how spectacular some of them were.

So an excellent event made even better by a higher-than-usual standard of demo game, plus the TTS competition of course. Definitely in the diary for next year, and well done to Jon H for sorting the TTS event: another in 2026 please!