BuckMoot - A Midgard Heroic Battles Gaming Day in Aylesbury - Update 1

 CALLING ALL MIDGARD PLAYERS

We are still open to further games for Buckmoot. To host a game you do not need to be an  umpire, just bring the armies along and join in the fun and play it. Or even leave the players to get on with it, while you join in another game you fancy. 

If you have written a scenario you want to test out, or created a couple of army lists and would like other players’ feedback, this would be an opportunity to get it on the table and try it out! 

The game selection is not finalised, but far we have:

Bronze Age Historical - recreate the epics of Homer on the plain before the walls of Troy

Chronopia Fantasy - battle in the hot sands of the Land of Two Rivers

Italian Wars Historical - Lead the chivalry of France to glory against the League of Venice

BUCKMOOT: A fun day of Midgard Heroic Battles games in mid-Buckinghamshire

When: 19th September 2026 10am - 4pm

Where: Walton Parish Hall, Walton Street, Aylesbury, HP21 7QX

Cost: £11 including tea, coffee and biscuits

Anyone interested in hosting a game, or just attending as a player, please contact me on [email protected]

Herts of Lard 2026

 On Saturday Mark and I trekked to Rickmansworth (well drove 45 minutes actually!) for Herts of Lard 2026. This is a day of Two Fat Lardies games and great fun. This year there were 15 different games and about 78 participants.

In the morning I played an Aliens scenario, using a variant of What a Cowboy. I'd never player these rules before, but (as with many lardie rules) they were fun to play and easy to pick up the basics. I got to play with the heroes of the film, Ripley and Hicks.

We got lucky a few times, but managed to kill the Alien Queen. We ran out of time to finish the game, but we had a clear escape route, so the umpire gave us a win. the only player killed was Burke, the Weyland-Yutani Corporation lacky, so no one was sorry about that!

Sucess, Ripley finds Newt!

My afternoon game was a Dark Age base using Midgard. This was a superb scenario, based on the Battle of Cynuit from Bernard Cornwell's novel The Last Kingdom. Despite being slaughtered as the Saxons, I had so much fun I forgot to take any pictures! So here is a shot of the morning game by the scenario's creator, Simon Stokes.

Here is a few shots of the other games.

 

A rather superb 28mm Chain of Command game set in 1940. I loved this railway station, it reminded my of a couple of stops on the heritage railway we visited in Alsace last year.

Another WW2 game, this might have been I Ain't Bin Shot Mum!

Another 28mm Chain of Command bash, again nice buildings.

A snowy Battle of the Bulge game, again Chain of Command.

What a Commando, a WW2 special forces dust up using a variant of What a Cowboy.

Napoleonic ships, not sure what rules, I don't think this was Kiss me Hardy..

A really nice Shape Practice! again based on an incident from a Bernard Cornwell novel.

A Chain of command game set in Normandy.

Another Sharpe Practice! game, no prizes for guessing where this is set.

And one more WW2 game, set in the North Africa. Not sure, but I suspect this was also a Chain of Command game.

There was also Sink the Scharnhorst, a Bag the Hun aerial game, but when I passed by the table there was nothing to see, except an expanse of sea!

This year I arranged things to stay on and join the evening gathering at the pub for a very nice meal and a few beers. I spent a very pleasant evening with a bunch of gamers who had travelled down from Yorkshire, then staggered off to the station and got the train home. A fantastic day and I'm looking forward to next year!

Painting in January and February

 Intermittent mix of things so far this year. Illness meant that I didn't get a lot done in January, so I tried to catch up a bit in February. My plan was to crack on with the mass of minis in my Wildspire Miniatures "Realm Reforged" boxed set, but that has been derailed, by a new game that has grabbed my interest. Of course I'm a gaming butterfly sometimes.

Two armoured adventurers from the Wildspire set.

A batch of frozen rocks for my Jotunheim games.

A pack of Gnoll archers and a Pack Leader from the Wildspire set.

Support for the Wildspire Gnolls, "Dogmen" from Alternative Armies.

"Bring Out Your Dead!" a superb 3d print I picked up from somewhere online.

 It's screaming out for a role in a scenario somewhere.

I also returned to my on-going resorting/rebasing of my 28mm Late Roman & Foes forces. Moving on to the Roman cavalry now.

And as I had a few surplus cavalry, a quick partial repaint of tunics and shields...

Middle Earth Arthedain cavalry to patrol the Barrow Downs during the fall of Arnor.

Now my distraction. I've really got into the upcoming new sci-fi rules by Patrick Todoroff, Scrapjacks. These are all 3d print designs by Mr Big Tong.

My salvage team of "Jacks".

Some assorted nasties to lurk in the wreck, undead spacemen.

Cute little maintenance bots, not so cute when they are malfunctioning!

BuckMoot - A Midgard Heroic Battles Gaming Day in Aylesbury

CALLING ALL MIDGARD PLAYERS

BUCKMOOT: A fun day of Midgard Heroic Battles games in mid-Buckinghamshire

When: 19th September 2026 10am - 4pm

Where: Walton Parish Hall, Walton Street, Aylesbury, HP21 7QX

Cost: £11 including tea, coffee and biscuits

Experienced and novice players welcome.

The hall has very limited car parking (we have arranged parking for anyone running a game), but there is a multi-storey car park across the road (daily parking less than £5).

The hall is less than 10 minutes walk from the town centre, bus and train stations and 5 minutes from the Aylesbury Travel Lodge (with other accommodation nearby).

The day will consist of two games, with a break for lunch. There is a Waitrose supermarket just 5 minutes walk away and numerous take away options in the town centre.

If you are interested in taking part, either hosting a game or just as a player, please contact me on [email protected]

For those who want to stay on in the evening, the plan is to have a social evening in a nearby pub, details TBC.

More information will be published as it becomes available.

The format for the day will be a mix of historical and fantasy games, possibly in a mixture of scales. The players hosting each game will provide both armies and the scenario for the game. Once the selection of games has been finalised, I will contact all the players who have booked a place and ask for their preferences (probably top 3 or 4 selections). I will then allocate places in each game, attempting to match the player's stated preferences as much as possible.

Refighting Chronopia with Midgard 2

 Colin came over for another game of Midgard Heroic Battles, definitely my current favourite non-gunpowder rules set. We decided to take a break from the Wars of the Roses and play another fantasy game, as Colin wanted to go through the magic rules again. So I took the opportunity to get my old Chronopia armies on the table again.

We played the "None Shall Pass!" scenario, with Colin's Devout force defending two fords against my Stygian Hordes. With practically no shooting units on either side this was going to be a brutal hand-to-hand slogging match (I had one unit that spat acid at javelin range and that was that).

Colin positioned himself with two strong units, accompanied by his two heroes, sitting on the fords, each with a close supporting unit on either flank. By the end of Turn Two my  front units were close to  the water's edge.

My Venorm Spawn had missed doing any damage with it's acid attack, but the Priestess had been more successful with her magic, knocking down the armour of the axemen in the ford.

Turn Three, led by my army commander, the Embalmed moved up to charge across the ford, but fail to activate for their second move FIVE times, using up all the nearby heroes' Mighty Deeds to no avail. Look at all those ones!!!!

At the other ford my Starved successfully charged the Damned holding the ford. The Starved are desperate fanatics, but lacking in armour. I've counted them as Brutal, so hit on 4+, but only 2 armour, so they die easily. I was using them as a one shot weapon, intending to weaken the monstrosity holding the ford, before attacking with a fresh unit.

By some fluke the Starved win their melee round, pushing the damned back off of the ford. But suffer heavy loss due to their poor armour.

Colin takes advantage of my reluctant Embalmed and charges in his phase.

Despite the advantage of charging, I win the fight, aided by my leader's Legendary Weapon I inflict 5 wounds on the axemen, wiping them out!

This also forces Colin to roll 4 dice for risk to his hero, and he rolls 3 ones! He can only attempt to reroll one of the wounds using a Mighty Deed, so he will take a minimum of 2 wounds. As a level 2 hero, that means he is dead. That's a massive loss in Reputation for the Devout.

On the other ford my Starved finally fall is the Devout melee phase, but they have reduced the Damned to below half strength, so it is vulnerable to my next assault. At the end of Turn Three the Devout could regain a Reputation point for each ford they hold, but as I had push them back in both cases the fords are contested, so no bonus.

Turn Four and I bring up a unit of Great Warriors (heavy knights) who charge into the Damned.

They roll spectacular dice and cut the monstrosity down. They then used their Disengage ability to pull back and regroup.

The Embalmed charges out of the river and into the second rank of the Devout forces, winning the melee and forcing the Great Swordsmen back with heavy losses. The writing is on the wall for the Devout. In the Devout phase Colin charges another unit of Great Swordsmen into the rear of the embalmed. In the ensuing scrap, the Embalmed is cut down, but not before it has finished off the last of the Swordsmen in front of it. We each lose a unit, but it's too little too late for the Devout.

The final Reputation score at the end of Turn Four, +3 for the Stygian but -5 for the Devout. A comfortable victory for the Sygian army.

It was a fast and very bloody game and a lot of fun.

I thought Colin would have done better to have crossed the river with his Damned and forced me to fight on my bank of the river, then held the ford with another unit. He was concerned about having an isolated unit with no support, against a unit surrounded with support, but his Hero had Aura of Dread, which would have prevented me from gaining any support benefits from friendly units.

I found the magic worked well for my army, using the Priestess to weaken the enemy's armour before I closed in to melee. Colin didn't get a chance to cast any spells, as his Army Commander (and spell user) was involved in doing other things. We decided it didn't work to have a fighting general with magic, so I will change that in the army list for next time.

Re-fight Bosworth (Again) using Midgard

 Mark wanted to know if Midgard rules were any good for Wars of the Roses, so I invited him over to try them out. As we had all day I thought I'd revisit James Morris' Bosworth scenario.

I took Richard III and Mark had Henry Tudor and the Stanley brothers (if they could be bothered to join in). I tweaked the original scenario so that the Stanleys would only remain neutral or join Henry Tudor. Looking at the historical situation and political machinations going on behind the scenes, I do not personally believe that Lord Stanley would ever have attacked his stepson in support of Richard III. 

TURN ONE

Henry Tudor's forces advance across the whole front. Richard's forces sat on the hill waiting for them, whilst their gonnes shot some serious holes in one of the French mercenary unit's forcing them to retire. Richard repositioned his reserve cavalry to face off against Tudor's horsemen.

On the far flank the Earl of Northumberland was remarkably active, managing to move almost all his troops forward into the marsh in front of them.

TURN TWO

Tudor's men kept up their advance and started bombarding the hilltop with arrows, the Yorkists replying in kind. Both sides suffered losses, but the Yorkist gonnes inflicted more casualties on the French pikemen. Now one of Tudor's strongest melee units was on the point of collapse, brfore a blow could be struck!

Northumberland's archers were reluctant to move out of the marsh, what with loads on mounted men-at-arms in front of them (who could blame them), so they just shot at long ranges, fairly ineffectively.

Stanley's command decided to wait things out for a bit longer and see what happened.

TURN THREE

Tudor's advance petered out and both side kept up their archery exchanges, with more losses on both sides, each seeing a unit of bowmen destroyed. Felling unthreatened my Northumberland, the leading Tudor cavalry charged the Yorkist men-at-arms and forced them back in a fierce melee.

In an effort to step the tide, Richard III rushed forward to join in the melee. His presence in the thick of things obviously encouraged his men who managed to fight the Tudor cavalry to a standstill.

While the intact French pike block kept advancing, a unit of Oxford's bowmen moved up to shield the shot-up pike unit from the guns.

TURN FOUR

For the most part the two sides just kept up an exchange of archery. The French pike charged up the hill to contact one of the gonnne units, which we both expected to be a walkover. However, the dice gods were smiling on the House of York, so the Frenchmen were sent reeling back down the hill.

Northumberland's bowmen continued with their ineffective long range shooting, whilst their men-at-arms and billmen started moving around the marsh to link up with the flank of the Yorkist troops on the hill.

In the first melee round of the cavalry fight, Richard's personal influence seemed to be enough to swing thiungs back to the Yorkist side, as the Tudor cavalry finally dissolved, leaving the hillside littered with fallen men and horses.

This allowed Richard to pull his worn cavalry back and move up the fresh unit from behind them to face the Tudor line. Finally a really rubbish die roll meant that the Stanleys still sat on the side-lines.

TURN FIVE

Again the French launched themselves up the hill against the gonnes only to be thrown back a second time (to the surprise of both players!). Another Yorkist bow unit succumbed to the Tudor barrage, so both sides were getting low on their Reputation score.

In the Yorkist phase I took a chance and threw Norkfolk's melee units down the hill, supported my my final unit of the cavalry reserve. If nothing else it boosted my Reputation score! Luck was with the House of York once again and the charges pushed the Tudor line back.

Over by the marsh, Northumberland's heavy infantry had finally got into a position to support the struggling Yorkists on that end of the hill. We ended the turn with Tudor on 2 Reputation to Richard's 6. If the Stanleys joined him now, even if they could not reach the action in time to play an active roll, the Reputation boost would even things. Unfortunately, they elected to sit tight once again!

TURN SIX

For the third time the French pike charged the gonnes and this time they over-ran the positions and skewered the gunners. However on either side of the them they Tudor units disappeared and the slow attrition of the melee caught up with them. The final bow fell in the Yorkist phase, as Richard led his last cavalry unit down the hill into Tudor lines and destroyed the bill unit in front of them!

The last phase of the turn is to roll for the Stanleys, who, as expected, decided to stay out of the carnage.

The final result at the end of Turn Six, Richard has 4 Reputation to Henry Tudor's -11! An overwhelming victory to the House of York.

A great game, we both had a lot of fun and things swung back and forth constantly. It was only in the later part of Turn 5 that the advantage clearly started to be with Richard III. Even then, if the Stanleys had come in on Tudor's side at this late stage, it could have changed things.

Mark's verdict on the rules, a resounding thunbs up!!!