After the great game Des and I had we decided to have another go, this time expanding the game to 2 platoons a side. Again we went for a meeting engagement with both sides tasked with taking control of the village. Des and I were the Brits and Ian and Dan went German. We took a flamethrower, sniper and Vickers as supports but I can’t remember what the Brits had.
The game ended as a bit of a stalemate and the larger forces were a bit too much for a club night as we didn’t get through enough phases really. On my side of the field Ian and I fought ourselves to a standstill being separated by a road and neither of us able to get close enough although I was coming off worse casualty wise. Over at the other end of the village Des was initially pushed back by Dan’s landsers and things looked a bit dicey for a while until Des deployed his flamethrower and that was the force multiplier we needed to secure things!
Des and I had a bash and went for a village fight for a change. We also decided that we’d do a meeting engagement and came up with a simple way of deciding the support points – we each rolled a d6 and the total of both was the amount of points that we had for the game. I went for a sdkfz.250 and recce team and a PzIV. Des had a 6pdr and a flamethrower!
Again unfortunately I can’t remember what exactly happened but it was a highly enjoyable game. FIBUA with these rules ratchets up the tension quite a bit and resulted in some very difficult decisions and a couple of great moments – at one stage I had the remnants of a section in the upstairs of a house whilst Des had a section in the ground floor but both of us avoiding the stairs to prevent any close combat starting! Des also managed to scare off my halftrack with Bren fire and was mightily upset that I managed to avoid both his 6pdrs and flamethrowers.
Anyway here’s some pics – buildings are 4ground owned by the club.
Due to all the PC/Interweb and personal problems I’ve had over the past month or so I’ve not been able to keep up to date with my Club Night write ups. In an attempt to get back into the groove here’s the first of a few brief catch up posts – I won’t be able to remember details but there’ll be some nice photo’s….
After Philip and I’s previous dust-ups we decided to have another go at it and this time Philip failed to roll up any decent support points so this would be a standard infantry platoon fight backed up with a HMG on each side. This fight was bags of fun with both Philip and I aggressively pushing to take each others JOP’s and it involved tons of close combats which resulted in the usual destruction of one side or the other. I just about managed to come out of it as the ‘winner’ breaking his morale but as mine was down to 2 points I too failed to win due to being the defender in the scenario.
Finally my internet/computer problems seem to be over and I can finally post this!
I had the immense pleasure in taking part in an all day 15mm ACW Fire and Fury game at the Warlords last Bank Holiday. The battle we were undertaking was the what-if version of the Battle of Glendale from the Fire and Fury Eastern Battles scenario booklet and it was one hell of a tough fight!
The battle (also known as Frayser’s Farm) was the penultimate battle of the Seven Days and is known as a great missed opportunity for the Confederate’s as a lack of co-ordination saw them miss a chance to cripple the Army of the Potomac while it made a stand to enable its huge supply and siege train to escape. However, after having had a go I can see why this didn’t happen as our refight basically ended with much the same result as the real thing, the terrain was terrible and caused untold problems throughout the game which was in the balance right up until the end.
So after setting the table up (it did take a while as there are a LOT of trees!) and getting the troops on the table we were divvied up into two teams and we had a well earned cuppa whilst making our plans.
I was on the Confederate side, along with Andy (whom I was fighting against in the big Dresden game from last year) and Des. We had 175 stands and 12 batteries from:
AP Hill’s Division (Andy) – Archer’s, Field’s, JR Anderson’s, Branch’s, Gregg’s & Pender’s Brigades. 2 Batts.
Martin and John (an actual American who was visiting from LA) took the Union and they had (from right to left on the field) – 223 stands & 10 batteries in total.
Sedgewick’s Division (John): Burns’, Dana’s, Sully’s, Caldwell’s and Meagher’s Bgdes. 3 batts. (Only Burn’s Bgde started on table, rest arrived later)
Looking along the Union line (from their left flank) at the start of the battle. All us Rebs had to do was take that road on the right – that’s all we had to do….
Our plan was quite simple as the terrain and troop density prevented much fancy manoeuvring: to hit the Union hard to weaken his line ready for our reserves to break through to the road, all we needed to do was to have an unspent Brigade on that road at the end of the game to win and all we needed to do was advance about 2 feet to do it so, easy right?
Anderson’s and AP Hill’s Divisions. I (Anderson) was going to pin the Union lads to our front by ‘getting stuck in’. Andy (Hill) was going to feint an attack on the Union left and then concentrate an attack to the right of the road.Union force over on the extreme right, these boys proved to be tough.‘The Neck’, this is where I was planning on making a decisive breakthrough in conjunction with Des’ lads. The chaps in the light blue coats are the Irish Brigade, we didn’t like them…A view from General Huger’s perspective. Big blue wall of doom!
So we got to it, with the first moves basically involving Andy and I slightly re-organising our forces for the coming attack and moving up our Guns to take the Union line under fire as soon as possible. Over on the left Des suffered a set back straight away as Martin’s guns damaged his only battery with their first salvo. there was a special scenario rule concerning the guns to my immediate front and the chance that they might skedaddle at the outset, Martin rolled well though and they stayed put which did mean I as wary of just launching a charge at his line whilst they were still OK so elected to take them under fire from my infantry from the relative safety of the woods.
After damaging one battery and silencing another I decided it was time to get moving (urged on by shouts of ‘hurry up and get stuck in’ from over on our left!) once I was happy that my lads were all in the correct formation, my Brigades were quite small so needed to line them up to get ‘supported line’ bonus for the charges. So I ordered my brave lads forwards across the field to our front only to discover that only half of my brigades wanted to move, the first of many multiple failed activations us Rebs rolled during the battle.
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This initial attack was somewhat successful and I managed to punch a hole in the Union line, gaining a foothold in the woods across the field. However, as my attack was not supported by the remainder of the Division it was quickly pushed back itself by a Union counter attack launched by Kearney’s Division supported by the remains of McCall’s. This then was the pattern for the rest of the day with me launching attack after attack on the Union line only to be pushed back by either fresh brigades or a counter-attack from the previously beaten enemy. This attritional fighting was somewhat successful as by the end of the day we had gained the field to our front, and had taken a few batteries of guns and worn down a couple of brigades in doing so but at a high cost to Anderson’s Division which had two broken brigades and the remainder in a worn or spent state themselves.
Andy assisted in this sanguinary battle by launching his own attacks too with brigades from AP Hill’s Division and he managed to get further forwards, a few times reaching the road only to be hurled back by the newly arriving Yankee brigades of Sedgwick’s Division. This fight was equally as brutal as the one that Anderson’s lads were having just to their left with the balance switching one way and the other, and with some devilish dice rolling going on for both sides helping too! However, as was the case for me, Hill’s lads were just about held by the enormous Union brigades to our front even though they too made some gains, wore down some brigades and took a couple of batteries they ended the battle exhausted. However, Andy very nearly broke through right at the death with McLaw’s fresh Division only to be thwarted by Sedgwick’s final fresh brigades as the last of the uncommitted troops were thrown into the fray.
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Over on our right Andy put Magruder’s Division in the line facing off against Hooker’s Division who had moved forwards slightly and looked to be readying for an attack on our flank. This proved to be a feint however and once Magruder’s boys were in line he advanced on the Union brigades sending them reeling back. For a moment it looked as if a victory here was well on the cards but Hooker countered and this time it was the Reb’s turn to suffer (aided by some fantastic dice by John) and they streamed back to their start line along the creek and the fight here sort of fizzled out as both sides recovered.
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Out on the left Huger had been advancing steadily towards the brigades of Slocum’s Division whilst suffering terribly from the Union artillery which he was unable to respond to due to losing his only guns to that lucky shot at the start of the battle. His Wright’s Brigade that came on at the extreme left of the line along the road over the swamp fought a gallant action in isolation against a larger Union force and was ultimately pushed back, however it did keep them out of the line facing the rest of Huger’s lads. Once the main attack went in here I had managed to bring up a brigade from DR Jones’ Division to hit the angle of the Union line between the forces fighting Des and those facing me at the Neck, unfortunately their transit through the woods took ages (I rolled terribly time and again for activation with the brigades only moving half speed time and again) so the impact wasn’t as strong as I’d hoped and at the end of the day the battle here was the same as on the other parts of the battlefield with the Union holding out after some ferocious fighting.
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So after a whole day’s fighting the Confederates had been held all along the line whilst losing a small amount of ground in the centre which is just about what happened in the real battle. Andy did manage to get to the road on a couple of occasions but the Union reinforcements were just too much for us and he was beaten back and even though we did cause some serious damage to the Union forces we had taken quite a few casualties ourselves.
The end of the battle. Union have held all along the line. Just!Another view.
It was quite an exhausting fight, everyone said how tired they were at the end, but well worth the effort. Big thanks go to Des for putting on a great game once more and to Andy, Martin and John for being proper gents and making the whole day such an enjoyable experience. For me days like this is what Wargaming is all about.
So after suffering a crushing defeat at the hands of Comrade Andrewski and there being loads of time left we decided to give the game another whirl. We used exactly the same set up as last time only re-rolling for morale. Philip stayed the same at 9 and I, not surprisingly, managed to drop down to 8. JOP’s stayed the same too.
The battlefield looking from the German position. Circular things are shell hole craters.
Philip decided that the old maxim of ‘it aint broken don’t fix it’ was a wise one and after his first roll deployed his first two sections exactly the same as last time, one in the field by the road and one on the flank to the right. I took my first roll and oh boy what a roll, 4 sixes! This game was definitely going to be different than the last one now. Not only did I end the turn thus negating the powerful Russian pre-game barrage I also picked up a CoC dice and kept control of the next phase. I also got to roll for a random event which was that the building nearest the centre of the board caught fire which started to billow out lots of smoke.
Here we go again!Put that bloody fag out!!
I was just as jammy with my next roll getting a double 6! It seemed like I had used up all my crap dice in the last game so I deployed two sections on the table – one in the centre with the riflemen in the entrenchment and the MG42 outside (counter intuitive I know but that deadeye shooting section worried me and I wanted the most men in cover), and the other covering the right flank – and started shooting up the deployed Russians.
Ah yes, a trench – that might help a bit!
The lads on the right had definitely put more time in on the range and proceeded over the next couple of phases to shoot the Russians over on the flank to pieces, causing quite a few casualties and piling on shock whilst taking out the Junior leader and causing a 2 point loss on the Soviet morale. The surviving members of this section became pinned to boot allowing me to advance slightly however the fight over here fizzled out as the encroaching smoke from the building fire blocked the line of sight. The firefight in the centre wasn’t going as well with the Russians just receiving shock and the odd man out of action whilst the return fire started to whittle down my section – good job they were in cover!
The smoke helps mask the pinned Russki’s on the right.Not so flash this game are you? No JOP grabbing antics for these boys this time round….
Philip had brought on his T-34 and his light mortar moving the former forwards and cursing the latter’s complete ineptitude to cause any problems at all for my lads, he also brought on his remaining section who spent the rest of the game hiding behind the ruined farm building. I then played my trump card with my FOO popping onto the table and calling in the 81mm mortars, even the whole central Soviet section firing at him didn’t stop him. He shrugged off a slight wound and bravely carried on with his duty and the central section disappeared from view in a hail of stonky goodness that was bang on target! This barrage not only pinned the ‘sniper club’ section but also took in the platoon leader who was nearby helping to rally off shock from their firefight with my entrenched chaps. The T-34 was also covered by the barrage but it managed to drive through without any problems.
Useless Light Mortar team and reserve section – maybe they found a stash of vodka in the ruins?T-34 puts in an appearanceMortar barrage starts, bang on target!
My good luck with the dice continued, building up another CoC dice quite quickly whilst Philip just couldn’t get a 5 (shame!), I also rolled a one virtually every phase which enabled me to keep causing damage with my barrage. Unluckily for me I wasn’t causing as much pain with the mortars as I’d hoped for but unluckily for him the few hits I did make all went on his Junior and Senior leaders which chipped away at his morale every time they got wounded to the point when it got down to 4.
The Russian’s only chance of victory now rested on the T-34 getting amongst my lads and causing carnage. As soon as it cleared the barrage it fired at my FOO who hit the bottom of his shell hole and came through unscathed, carrying on with his duty. The tank then moved forwards some more, either trying to get closer to the FOO or going for my left-hand JOP. We’ll never know though as I used a CoC dice (thanks Dan for the slight reminder there!) and sprung a Panzerschreck shaped ambush catching the tank in the flank and making it go boom! The resulting 2 loss on Philip’s morale meant that the game was up and he decided to withdraw while he still had a reasonable amount of men left.
Surprise, whoosh, bang, clang! T-34 about to kop it.
Again this was a great fun game and I was helped with some seriously lucky dice (I think I got 3 double 6’s as well as the quadruple) which kept the initiative with me for a lot of the game but c’est la guerre as they say! The important thing was that Philip got some more game time in and that he enjoyed it as well. Dan even said that he enjoyed just watching the two games which just shows that they keep things interesting whilst moving along at a good pace. As Philip said both games were on the exact opposite extremes of the luck bell-curve but still two games in one night, what’s not to like about that! Many thanks to Philip for a couple of great games played in a great spirit – I think our smug factors whilst winning our respective battles balanced out nicely – and thanks to Dan for added banter and rules checking for us when we were uncertain about bits.
Honestly if you haven’t tried these rules yet and you like a bit of WW2 skirmish, do yourself a favour and give them a go.
Also, just a little taster of what is happening next week as I join Des, Martin and Ian for some ACW Gettysburg type action!
I was facing Philip this week who would be taking part in his first solo game of Chain of Command with his new Soviet force of a regular Infantry Platoon. He was attacking in an attack/defend scenario and I was facing him with a regular Heer platoon. We did the usual thing of getting the table set up and then dicing for which side the attacker came in from which resulted in Philip attacking along the table.
Philip rolled well for his support points and with his 3 extra points managed to get 12 so he went for a T-34/76, a pre-game barrage, a Commisar and an extra LMG team (we sort of fudged the points for the last two as we couldn’t find out what the commissar was supposed to be for so were treating him like an adjutant and he didn’t have a HMG but did have a spare lmg team). This gave me a respectable 6 points which I spent on an Adjutant (obviously), a 81mm FOO and an entrenchment for a team (more on this later). We both rolled up 9 morale points and then got going with the patrol phase. Comrade Andrewski started off with 4 free moves and advanced his markers on a broad front but getting along the table well. I didn’t have the best patrol phase and was not entirely happy with with my JOP’s. However this had no bearing on the game that followed as it turned out.
The battlefield looking from the German position. Circular things are shell hole craters.
Philip started off by deploying a section into the field to the left of the haystacks who went tactical straight away. He then put another section by the JOP on the table edge on the far right of the table on the other side of the haystacks. I did get a double 6 throw next but decided to wait to deploy my lads, not wanting to draw fire too quickly – this mistake probably cost me the game as I had forgotten that Philip had the pre-game barrage and I should have tried to get troops on as quickly as possible. Philip’s lads over on the edge of the table then started to move up heading for my JOP on my right flank. To counter this I tried to get a section and my FOO out but was prevented by the hellish Russian barrage (and my inability to finish off my CoC dice to end the turn!). Just to rub it in the T-34 turned up as well and the Senior Leader.
Philip’s lads charge forward for Mother Russia as Stavka-hand deploys their illustrious leader.I learnt to REALLY hate these guys. Tanky gets on board too.
I eventually managed to get one section on the table, which was just as well as the advancing chaps were really close now having made it out of the field and hence controlling my right hand JOP. I managed to get a pretty crap volley off as soon as I deployed which managed to slightly annoy the Soviets milling about near my JOP then I suffered from some of the deadliest shooting that I have ever witnessed.
A section manages to get through the deadly Russian barrage only to suffer from equally deadly rifle fire.I do manage to worry the Sovs slightly with some return fire.
The Russians in the field let loose and piled the hits on, with the hits from the advanced section as well, I started to suffer quite a bit of shock (5) and a couple of casualties. I managed to give a half-arsed reply in my next go but Philip then got a double 6 allowing the crack shot section in the field and the advanced section to pour on some amazingly deadly fire on my section leaving me with 1 man and the junior leader standing. With 7 shock also accrued it was no surprise that they got on their toes and legged it straight off the table!
Romeo Lima Foxtrot!! My lads head west pretty sharpish.
Philip then took the JOP on the right and ended the turn, my morale at this point was down to 4 and with his T-34 about to run over my JOP on the left I decided that there was no use carrying on and conceded – to much mirth and merriment from Philip and the watching Dan! An absolutely fantastic feat of arms by the Russki’s forcing me to retire whilst suffering about one casualty – a mixture of the barrage and some truly magnificent small arms fire did for me, oh and forgetting that I had an entrenchment for a team might have contributed too as it would have definitely cut down the casualties somewhat!
Just being unfair, the T-34 threatens another JOP.Some brave sons of mother Russia liberate a shell hole from the tyranny of a fascist JOP.Gits. The lot of them. The best shots in the whole Red Army.
As we had only been playing for about an hour we decided to go again – exactly the same set up as last time with same supports – but would the result be the same …….
I remembered yesterday why I really embraced 6mm wargaming when I discovered it back in the 80’s – you didn’t have to make the bleeding models, they come ready to go.
I thought I’d spend the afternoon putting together a couple of kits for my Chain of Command Germans as I need a choice of PAK guns for a game I’ve got against Philip and his Soviet hordes on Monday (and thought I might have a bash at the lovely PSC Panther I have as well just in case!). Even with the easy build models of today I still managed to get most of the glue on my fingers and could I get the bloody gunshield of the PAK38 to sit right , could I buggery. That’s when I remembered why I stopped making them all those years ago, my dad was right, I am the most cack-handed sod in the world. To make matters worse I then completely cocked up the paintjob on the PAK 40 so will have to make another one today! Complete and utter incompetent arse!!
At least I stopped before tackling the Panther but I’ll have a go a that today, it must just be the small fiddly ones I have problems with as the PSC Panzer IV and Sdkfz 250 I made came out ok. Thank god you don’t need much for CoC.
Des and I decided at Salute that it was high time we had a game of Chain of Command against each other. We were just going to throw down some terrain, roll up a scenario from the rulebook and see what came up and that is just what we did, and it was a mightily good game.
We got the terrain sorted and rolled for the scenario actually rolling up ‘Patrol’ we did fudge it a wee bit and went for the ‘Probe’ instead. Des was attacking with his British platoon and I’d be defending with a German Infantry platoon. He managed to roll up a mighty 1 support point leaving me with nothing and as none of the kit he brought with him was under 3 points it was going to be a pure platoon action. Morale rolled was 9 for both sides so this was going to be a really interesting study in the capabilities of the two different platoons.
The battlefield just before kick off. Des’ patrol markers are just visible behind the wood on the right (and where they’d all eventually end up!)
Des rolled well for his free moves in the patrol phase getting 4 which I was slightly worried about as it might get him right across the table and make the game very short indeed. However I managed to block his thrust down the right of the table and got a patrol marker out on the left effectively outflanking his markers. This led to a weird outcome after the ‘dances with sticks’ phase that resulted in all of his JOP’s being located in a single wood (oh for a 81mm FOO!).
Brit JOP’s concentrated in wood.
My flanking JOP.
My other two.
So, patrol phase complete we got to it. Des started by bringing on a section and his 2′ mortar which started to pop smoke in front of my flanking JOP. I decided to delay putting any of my lads on until I had an idea of what he was up to so the first couple of phases just saw Des getting his remaining two sections on along with his Rupert. I then brought on two sections at the two JOP’s behind the house – one heading for the house itself and one going towards the right along the hedge. Des was still laying smoke in front of the flank JOP and had started to shift 2 sections in that direction, one going towards the wood to flank it and one headed straight for it, his remaining section was on overwatch facing the house I was headed for.
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The section that Des had moved along a hedge towards my exposed JOP had just gotten close to the edge of the field they were skirting nicely covered by the smoke from the mortars when I rolled up enough 5’s to get the CoC dice I needed to end the turn and clear the smoke. Unfortunately I didn’t manage to get a couple of 6’s to regain the phase and so the section I deployed in the field to defend my JOP only got to fire once after deploying, but I had a MG42 so it is bound to hurt the Brits right – not if you only cause 1 shock it doesn’t, bollocks! Des’ return fire was quite a bit better causing shock on both teams. He had also managed to get his other section through the wood and into a flanking position so the next turn of firing from him caused some more shock and a casualty. I did manage to get some payback on the section to my front causing a couple of casualties and lightly wounding their Corporal and forcing them to take cover in the wood. After deploying my platoon leader nearby to help rally off the shock accrued in this quick fight I decided to pull back into the field and out of line of sight but still defending the JOP as I was worried about Des’ flanking section – indeed Des did deliberate for quite a while whether to assault me with these two sections so I had to get ready in case he did.
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Over on the other side of the field I had managed to get one section into the house and the other along the hedge by the road. I was hoping to go on the counter here – using the MG42 from the house to keep the Brits busy whilst the remaining team and other section did some fire and manoeuvre stuff to get amongst the British section and hopefully get into the wood containing all of their JOP’s. My confidence went up slightly when Des’ overwatch fire did no damage on my MG when it hit the window and my return fire caused a few shock hits and a casualty. The next phase though soon put the kibosh on my happiness when some well aimed return fire took out the MG42 and also lightly wounded the section leader – he was downstairs at the time too so must have been hit by some falling ceiling! Des then shuffled the section across to cover his exposed left flank where I had moved my section up across the road and a lively firefight broke out resulting in a bit of shock for both sections and another wounded section leader for the Brits.
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The action on the left had died down now as Des had finally decided not to charge into the field and that it would probably be best to just try and swing the outflanking section all the way round my left flank and to run them off the table to complete his mission. I did hold my section in the field for a couple of phases until but decided to fall back trying to stay level with the outflanking section – he could have the JOP really as my morale was holding up quite well.
Des decides whether to charge the field.
Germans girding their loins for the oncoming Tommies.
Tommies hoping the CO doesn’t really doesn’t want a gong at their expense.
Other section moves along the hedge, bravely waiting for my lads to withdraw first!
Outflanking section makes a break for it.
Over on the right I had decided on a rash plan. The moving of Des’ remaining section to engage my right flank section left a huge gap that was only inhabited by his Lieutenant so with their blood up after having their MG crew hit, the section in the house went for it and charged across the road and into the field. It didn’t end well. The Brits ran back to the hedge and poured in another accurate volley which piled in shock, took out a couple of lads and wounded the JL again putting him out of the game. The survivors then had to suffer another fusillade which caused them to break.
Right lads up and at ’emOh dear, that didn’t go well.
About the same time as this was happening the flanking section had managed to get across the road (good use of a double 6 by Des) and with that I decided to pull my chaps out. they had delayed the Tommies for long enough. I had managed to wound 2 of their corporals and caused a couple of other casualties whilst suffering 5 casualties myself, one of which was a section leader.
All in all it was a great game. One of the beauties of Chain of Command is that you can have a game where there are not many casualties and it seems as if not much has happened action wise but it can still be a tense gaming experience where you have to really think about what you do every turn. One wrong decision or some piece of luck can win or lose you the game and it is down to how well you handle such things with sometimes limited command that is the real test: Des agonised over whether to assault my lads in the field and wisely decided against it, I foolishly advanced out of the house after losing my MG42 to some particularly jammy shooting which was a huge mistake. Having said that I thought Des played a blinder in securing the win after a not so great patrol phase for him, cap doffed sir.
We both had a great time playing the game and it was actually really good not having anything else on the table apart from a core platoon each. Des got to get another game under his belt and after talking about the benefits of games being in a campaign setting we kicked a few ideas around and agreed we’d have a think about what to do, so watch this space for news on that.
There was some more CoC action going on behind us last night too (what?) with Dan and Mike’s Poles taking on Daren’s Germans in an early war game – it looked very bloody with the huge Polish sections taking ages for Daren to break even with a bunch of PzII’s and their TKS tankettes seemed to be causing a right nuisance too. All the kit being used was Mike’s and it was really nice – everyone loves a tankette don’t we?
So my first Salute as a member of the Warlords is done and it was strangely better as going there last year as a lonely punter – even with the ridiculous early start and working for some of the day.
I got there about 6:45 and the first thing that struck me when entering the main hall was just how big it is – so much easier to tell when there’s hardly anyone around and not all the traders are in yet. I was helping out on the door and it was actually good fun, even schlepping the boxes of goody bags had its good point – when you dropped them on the floor it made a magnificent sound with the amazing echo that the empty queuing hall produced, just like gunfire! As for getting everyone into the event and into the queue I felt that it went very well and it is nice that a lot of posts online have mentioned that this was a big improvement on previous years – hats off to Bernie and Philip who were in charge of that bit of the show.
So after my shift and a quick bite I met up with Des to have a mooch about and to get some bits from the traders plus to have a good butchers at the games. I thought in general the show was good, a bit too much sci-fi and fantasy for my tastes and I could really do without the people doing fancy dress. It seems as if steampunk means wearing goggles on your top hat, if so does that mean Porta from the Sven Hassel books invented it? I did like the two French Napoleonic re-enactors though but a note to the couple walking about in WW2 uniform: if you are going to go through that much trouble, maybe get a proper period pram to but the baby in, it did look even more silly pushing around a brand new Maclaren baby chair!
Anyway, slight rantette over, so what swag did I get?
How much! GHQ ‘Third World’ infantry and support weapons. Great figures but £8-odd each pack!Nice little bundle that Des persuaded me to buy.Can’t have a WW2 British platoon without one of these.
The price of the GHQ kit came as a bit of a shock and to be honest I didn’t take that much persuading by Des to go for the halftracks, it is good for the hobby to spread the business around the different manufacturers aint it!
Well onto the games next. On the whole I thought that the standard of most of the games was really good, especially those at the back of the hall. There were some crackers about though my favourites was the 7YW one put on by Bill Gaskin, a guy taking photos next to me said that he didn’t know what to take a shot of next and he was right. It was perhaps the most stunning game I’ve ever seen, from the animation of the figures to the buildings everything was just beautiful – honestly I wouldn’t go out ever if that’s what I had at home to play with! The following photo’s won’t do it justice at all.
Next in preference was the Winter War game put on by the nice chaps from the Loughton Strike Force, not only was the game a beauty but the info stand was really cool too (pilchard me forgot to snap it though).
Another corking looking game was the Siege of Bristol ECW one put on by the Crewe and Nantwich club – again stunning figures and absolutely marvellous terrain.
I did also really like this – the game it was by wasn’t that impressive to be honest but I thought this was a nice touch and made me laugh – game was Garibaldi’s men taking Palermo from the Bourbons.
And lastly a collection of photo’s of the other games that caught my eye: Dave Brown having a bash 25mm ACW style, a cracking looking Viking game played by real Scandinavian types and a lovely looking Napoleonic Peninsula one.
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