A quick update

Well it has been an interesting few weeks since I have posted anything here. This will be a brief post about what has happened with a longer post about yesterdays event to follow. 

 Firstly I have now had my second cataract operation and it went as well as the first. My vision is great at distance now, I only need reading glasses for up close work. Top notch service and a great result, happy days! 

 Secondly, we had the Clotted Lard event at the club, ably managed by the over-worked Bob who did a marvelous job herding cats, ahem I mean wargamers, to get the event sorted. He had some major problems with various games being cancelled and many people dropping out for various reasons, but he pulled it all together and a good day was had by all. I ran a Chain of Command game in the morning, based on the actions at Mirbat in 1972. It went quite badly for the SAS and local troops in my game, with numerous casualties amongst the SAS unit. The players seemed to enjoy it though, which is what it is all about. In the afternoon I played a Sharp Practice AWI game put on by the very talented Jim Ibbotson. The scenery and figures were beautiful and the game was very balanced and a lot of fun to play. Victory for the forces of the King was assured by some very good dice rolling on my co-commanders part.

Finally, O Group has entered my gaming encyclopedia and very welcome it is too. Ian and Steve put on a game at the club and I was lucky enough to get to play it. It inspired me enough to put on a game the following Wednesday for my son and Nathan to play, to try out some more rules and units. The latest publication by Reisswitz Press, it is a battalion level game and plays very nicely. I will so no more about it today though as I am still learning how to play it properly, it's another set that is easy to learn but difficult to master. Below are a few snaps of the game I put on.

Table setup, France 1944

Germans occupy the farm

Panzers marsch!

A British company commander spots some trouble

The Germans advance in force

The farm is captured after a hard fight

Results of the farm fight

Right, thats it for now. Another update will be along soon with a report of a cracking day yesterday. Catch you later.

Clotted Lard and To The Strongest

As a long time attendee at the OML days up in Evesham I happy to share this forthcoming event in Exeter. The Devon Wargames Club is teaming up with Too Fat Lardies to host a day of Lardie games on September 8th. Details are included above, but there will be nine or ten games put on ranging from ancients, pike and shot, Napoleonics, Colonial and World War 2. It's all about having a fun day out and moving toy soldiers around a table.

Saxons on the right, Britons on the left.

Last Saturday the DWG club meet included a game of To The Strongest, put on by yours truly. A force of nasty Saxon raider types was out to cause mischief, but had been intercepted by the heroic Britons in all their Romanised glory. I have only watched the game played before so it was a bit of a dive in the deep end, as none of the others had played it either.

I sorted out the armies from my recently expanded Dark Ages figures, although options are limited for the Saxons. They can have warriors, warriors and more warriors, plus a single unit of cavalry and two of skirmishers. So the Saxon force was three generals(one senior) with three units of warriors each. The senior general had the single unit of noble cavalry and the other two each had a single unit of javelinmen skirmishers.

The Romano-British had a few more options. They had a senior general with three units of spearmen with added bows and one each of light cavalry and skirmisher javelinmen. General two had the same force except the skirmishers had bows. General three was mounted and led the cavalry arm with three units of javelin and one of lance armed cavalry plus another unit of light cavalry.

The game went fairly well, the Saxons gained the upper hand quite early as neither Jack nor myself could hit anything.  Luckily the youthful generalship of Charlie(aka son of Jack) was doing better against Christophers Saxon warriors. Jacks center line managed to steady after some good hits and my cavalry managed to lure some of JJ's warriors out of the woods and then outflank them on both sides.

Nasty Saxon Warriors ready to pillage etc

The sole unit of Saxon cavalry

Massed ranks of British cavalry

The British center, a thin line of spearmen

British right flank, deployed with a bit more depth

The woods are full of hairy Saxons

And so are the hills!

Nathan's warriors chase of the British skirmishers

They are just bullies really. 12 against 3!

Roman light cavalry try to get around the left flank

Saxons occupy the hill and dare Charlie to charge them.

In the end the game was won by some really unlucky armour draws by the Saxons, as the flanking cavalry routed two units and then Charlie saw off another. I like the way the rules play, it gives a fairly quick game and doesn't take long to get the system into your head. I plan to get my Republican Romans out and restart painting them, so more may be seen of this set of rules soon.

Thanks to Jack, Charlie, Christopher, Nathan and JJ for playing the game and JJ again for the pictures.