7th October, Bruntingthorpe

Derby World Wargames

This year the Derby Worlds moved to Bruntingthorpe (right on our doorstep) but - for various reasons - we didn't book in to run a stand or a game.  That's probably the first 'no show' Derby show since the old days in the Assembly Rooms.

Instead I joined in on the Saturday to play L'Art De La Guerre with Chris, Patrick and Richard.

I enjoyed my three games and, given how cramped the rest of the show was, was probably better off wargaming than trying to shoehorn the stand into a cramped pitch.   We like to engage with people, demonstrate weapons, have visitors 'gather round' ... so our normal approach would have just blocked up the narrow aisles.

Maybe next year ... and good luck to them bringing Derby to Leicestershire.

There wasn't much time off from the games and it was hard to see all the displays and traders - but here's a lovely interpretation of Cerignola ... 1503 so just about in our anc-med period.

 

'At the coalface', we had a 3 player team, Early Imperial, Abbassid, and Condotta ... the Roman period was 25mm, the others traditional 15mm.  I played the Abbassids on the Saturday.  Chris joined us and took over the army for Sunday.

 

Here are some of my games ...

 

 

 

 

 L'Art de la Guerre is one of several rulesets I'm enjoying at the moment - although I still play DBA, even AMW, more often.   I did OK but don't really know my way round the block that well.

So many thanks to my generous opponents for their indulgence.

Ther armies are nicely sized, the generals have some personality and function so I will certainly get some inspiration.

 

Adding a 25mm band into the mix seemed to work as well ...

But I need to sort out some DBA armies for Bakewell.

1st - 2nd October Castle Donnington

The Society of Ancients, Battlefields Trust and Northampton Battlefields Society

Another of our successful collaborations ... at Derby we had a couple of new things to share along with the popular weapons and equipment ...

The Battlefields Trust have just launched a new book of poetry following Clare Mulley's year in residency as the trust did its circuit of reenactment and historical shows ....

And Northampton Battlefields Society had the definitive Northampton 1460 game as trialed at The Other Partizan ...

Northampton 1460 is a quick playable 'historical narrative' game giving the players control of the options available to the commanders on July 10th 1460 ... It was up and running within the first half an hour and ran more-or-less continuously throughout the show.

There were few ancient games (Dark Age and Medieval being the preference within the Society's remit) but an excellent Hastings game by Like a Stonewall was an eye-catching neighbour to us.

(Like A Stonewall's Hastings 1066 game)

... a vast panorama of a wargame, I particularly liked the clever use of velcro boards and the whimsical inclusion of a group of needlecrafters recording the events in their now time-honoured medium.  Great effort.

The rules used were a less well-known set called Lionheart - again a refreshing choice.

There was also a very nice Viking skirmish game ... so here's a vignette ...

I found fewer stand out games in the rest of the show this year but liked the Rorkes Drift presentation ... 

... and I thought this 30 Years War display was splendid ...

A popular and well-supported show with a good mix of trade and games ... then down the other end of the hall, a big selection of tournaments (where many of the ancient and medieval games and players were to be found)

Nice to see Armati still ploughing its furrow ... Nice to see old friends splitting divisions with each other ... 

So a big thank you to the organisers and all of you who stopped by for a chat or played the game, flipped through the poetry.

A really enkoyable weekend.

See you next time.

3rd and 4th October, Donington Park

 

DERBY WORLD WARAGMES 2015

As a one time petrol-head I'll happily put up with chilly feet and a concrete floor for the sweet music of the racing engines screaming around the circuit outside in free practice.  Yes, it's the first weekend in October and we're back at Donington for the Derby Worlds event. 

 

The Society of Ancients combined this time with the Northampton Battlefields Society for another presentation of my DBA V3 treatment of the 7th century Battle of Yarmuk.

(catastrophe on the plateau beyond Damascus ... the era defining battle of Yarmuk from The Society of Ancients)

Most of the voluntary groups and learned societies were present at the event including the Lance & Longbow Society, The Pike and Short Society and various charities ...

                             

.. the usual suspects perhaps but it is good to see all these organisation still going strong, getting out on the road and supporting historical wargaming and wargames shows and events in the manner they have for decades now.   

                            

 (Yarmuk 636 ... armoured cavalry of the Byzantine centre - figures by Phil Barker refurbished by Phil Steele)

 

 

(scenes from the Battle of Yarmuk refought at Derby 2015 by the Society of Ancients)

We refought the battle twice on the Saturday of Derby - in both cases to a plausible Arab win as the Roman commanders fought to break through from their outflanked position ....

The battle was fought using traditional flat tin soldiers from the 1960s collections of Phil Barker, Tony Bath and Deryck Guyler ... staged and added to by Phil Steele to reconfigure the armies to the Yarmuk scenario.

The battle was refought using DBA version 3 and the figures were based on a standard 60m frontage.  The battlefield was approximately 3'x4' but the wargame begins with the armies pre-deployed as at the start of the critical phase of the battle.

 

 (Yarmuk: the Byzantine C-in-C, Vahan, drives forward relentlessly in an attempt to force the Arabs from the field)

Yarmuk was one of a number of splendid *ancients* games ... of particular note, the Battle of Bosworth (Graham Fordham and Paul Tysoe of Phoenix Gaming Club for the Lance & Longbow Society) picked up an award in the Best Participation Game category (well done them) ...

 

(Jed D, formerly Mr Chariot Miniatures, has a crack at Paul and Graham's Bosworth game)

The game was based on the latest evidence from the battlefield, successfully played out to a home variant of Warlord's Pike and Shotte rules. 

 

(scenes from Bosworth)

Also nice to see Rob Broom's Greeks out again 

 

... and plenty of other good ancients fare ...

 

Looking around the show I enjoyed some of the 20th century content as usual  ...

 

 ... and that splendid 'light horsemen' game showed a lot of potential though I didn't see it getting played much over the weekend ...

... actually, these days it is a very big show with most popular historical period represented ...

 

(Other periods wargamed at Derby 2015)

 

 

(a closer look at that splendid 10mm ACW terrain)

... and of course, Derby owes its name and legacy to competition wargames - especially ancient and medieval periods and this year along with reliable stalwarts like Armati, there was strong support for the Saga tournament ...

  

(tournament wargames at Derby World Wargames)

All in all, another splendid and well organised event ... thanks to everyone who stopped by to talk about old flat tin soldiers, 50 years of the Society of Ancients ... the manifold merits of DBA V3 and chew the wargame fat for a while.

Its never too late to join in The Championship ... play DBA V3 in The English Open ... or sign up for The Society of Ancients.  

See you in Portsmouth for the Open maybe ...

Donnington Park Exhibition Centre, 4th - 5th October

The Northampton Battlefields Society and WD at Derby World Wargames 2014

This outing, we took the Northampton battlefield presentation along to Derby's annual event as a Participation Game for up to 4 players based on the Society of Ancients classic De Matrica Bellae.

In this variant of Politics by Other Means,  players are given cards which they can use in building their narrative into what starts as a very basic figure wargame.   This means really quite sophisticated ideas can be woven into the game if that is how the players see it developing.   It is your game ... you decide what happens.

By an odd coincidence, the Border Reivers game on the next table to us was using a similar, if simplified, matrix game approach inspired by the same SoA Publication to run their cattle raiding game.

As well as the rules and cards for DMB, the games pack also contains a full multi-player map game, Londinium's Burning.    If you are lucky, there may be some stocks left at the Society webstore otherwise catch up with us at a show (we should be able to find a copy).

So ... The Northampton Battlefields Society was formed to research, explain and protect Northampton's battlefields - principally the 1460 site at Delapre Abbey, but also the other military history of the town and the further off Wars of the Roses battlefield at Edgecote. 

Neither battlefield has been archaeologically surveyed so there is much more to do to understand them.   

At Delapre (a park just on the edge of the town if you are not familiar with it: it is a couple of minutes off the A45, and has plenty of free parking so is one of the easier battlefields to visit) there are plans to establish football pitches and club buildings on part of the English Heritage designated area so we must be vigilant.

(the other side of the board ... Wargame Developments and some information about CoW)

Edgecote is on the route of HS2, so we must do what we can to preserve as much of the elusive battlefield for posterity as we can.

Wargame Developments is, of course, the host organisation for the Conference of Wargamers.   By coincidence also in Northamptonshire, CoW can play an invaluable role in developing and testing wargames and approaches to historical battles.  

Ideas such as running the game to the canonical hours being rung in the abbey come straight from CoW and have been incorporated into the design of my sundial game clock.

(improvements for Derby: the model of the Eleanor Cross is almost finished - inset: the real one)

At CoW we also decided to use the furlongs of the open fields as the measurement for the game mechanism (and coincidentally, effective range for a longbow is a furlong, so using contemporary measurements does seem useful).

(improvements for Derby: the sundial game clock marked off with the canonical hours)

Nevertheless, it was quite ambitious running a matrix game at a busy and noisy show like Derby, so we had to learn as we went.

At times we may have got the balance of attention wrong - perhaps not giving enough to the casual browser ... then again getting distracted from the game which needs some thought and which needs to push along.

(listening to the punters ... there is quite some knowledge of medieval warfare arrayed around the Northampton table)

We got two multiplayer games played and a one player aside blitz version, and the possibilities developed as we warmed to the task.

A number of historical possibilities were explored - but in 2 of the 3 games the Yorkists got into the Lancastrian position, fulfilling the criteria for a historical result.

(panorama of the Lancastrian position ... standing to during what was, in 1460, a morning of rain)

In De Matrica Bellae, the final phase is that every player gets to make a case as to why the won i.e. bearing in mind their briefing and the events of the game, why they did the best.   So the loser of the on table battle may well be judged the player who did best if they can make a sufficiently powerful case.

(a couple of shots from Game 2: Fauconberg repelled, Warwick breaking the barricades)

(scenes from Game 3: Fauconberg finds a weak spot in the defences, breaks in and tackles Buckingham)

The choice of winner is, of course, resolved by the Matrix argument ... it will be adjudged 'your day' because (3 reasons supported by a randomly drawn card) ... judged on strength by the Umpire (equals a die score on D6 you need to make or exceed) ... The player who exceeds the target by the most is the winner (so an outstanding argument and a good die roll are required - wargaming at its purest perhaps).

In the meantime, of course, we were also trying to interest casual browsers in the issues of the battle, explain the history and possibly recruit new supporters.

If we missed you on the day, apologies ... perhaps you will give us another chance:

There is a Facebook Page here (... you ask can join the group)

There is a wordpress website here (... click on a topic that addresses your questions)

Other Ancient/Medieval tables at Derby ...

A couple of views of Graham Fordham's snowy Participation Game for the Lance & Longbow Society ... blending Saga with the activation mechanism from Bolt Action ...

(Northern Crusading from the man behind the Fluttering Flags)

A popular opportunity to play the Gladiator game Jugula ...

And that other matrix game raiding cattle ...

Here's a couple of selections of other stuff worth looking at around the show ...

(Both world wars and either side of the cattle raiders, Tamara poses with the WRG dinosaur and the L&L yellow banner)

(some big buildings from the FIW and Jugula tables; some tanks and a ship)

But I'll finish with some views of the super French and Indian War table ... very inspiring ...

Joint winner of the best display game I believe ... well, for once, I agree ...

*******

All in all, a very rewarding outing ... it seemed to fly by and thankfully the shows are coming thick and fast as I already know there was plenty of shopping I needed to do but hadn't made a list.

Great chatting to Ron Kay at Irregular about when he was stationed at Hardingstone in the 1940s (walking back from a night on the town past the battlefield and up past the Eleanor Cross) ...

Great making some new plans with Warbases.    And great meeting up with the Armati players for the first time in a while.

Many thanks to players and supporters ... thanks to the organisers for allocating us plenty of space - and thanks to everyone who helped.

See you at the English DBA Open in a couple of weeks (you are going, aren't you?)