Northamptonshire, 28th December

The Championship

-->

(Graham tries to remember how the Armati wheel'm works ...)

Or a quick glimpse of the shows team 'off duty' ....

Yes - what do the shows team settle down to when the season finally finishes? Well some ancient wargames, of course ...

I had hoped to get a ‘full’ five games in to show my support for the current initiative - but such is the amount of SoA admin and shows hours at this time of year, it was very much pushed to the last week or so.

Nevertheless, what a joy, to settle down to a simple, evening game of Armati – in this case a Roman Civil War with show teamer Graham Evans.

Well, we don't do this very often, and had to remember how to set it all up. I think we both went for Romans as they are 'keep it simple' armies ...

And in the way of these things, it was tight. There a very few ‘cute’ moves available in Armati – especially when similar armies face off. And that often means that the dice will determine the outcome … Well, it isn’t necessarily therefore luck that determines the winner … so much as the tactical ability to exploit or cope with what luck can always do to an otherwise predictable outcome (or that what I say when it goes my way … I just curse the dice if it goes the other way!) …

(yes, OK, Mrs Evans did deploy the wind-up Christmas Puddings behind my flank - well it was nearly Christmas, I guess ...)...

The Championship looks to have passed its trial year, so roll on 2010.

Remember, any two members can play each other and count the score in the Championship by sending the results in. You cannot play the same player more than twice, and the only restriction on the game is that it must be an ancient/medieval historical game, offer a fair and equal chance to both sides, and be capable of delivering an unequivocal win/lose/draw result for scoring purposes (though players may well agree between themselves how this applies).

Games do not, therefore, have to be figure games, and might well be played on computer – even via an internet connection (as long as both players are satisfied it meets the ‘fair and equal’ standard …)…

All that said, I suspect mine will be figure games. This year, I played 2 FoG and 3 Armati games (against 4 other members – it would have been more games but the snow deluge cause some ‘return matches’ to be cancelled) – all in my preferred 15mm scale, using Romans, Medieval Italians and Dark Age Spanish.

I suspect that will be my starting point for 2010 – but I’m not known for turning down the unexpected …

I wonder who is up for what ….