Planet Wargaming

Back from holiday and I think I’ve just about recovered from the participation game we ran at Valhalla 2003. It was so much the game, it was the calamity that befell one of my toys…

The game itself was a big success. We arrived at 9am (after I had been at work until midnight the night before - it was a struggle!) to be told that they had a nice 6 foot by 4 foot table for us. That was a bit difficult as the game was designed for an 8 x 6 which is what we had asked for.

But Lance from the Farnborough club came to the rescue and provided us with another table that enabled us to just fit all our tiles on.

The room was a little cramped, with 3 traders and us and our table pushed up against the wall. That is the only problem with Valhalla: the fact that it is a small intimate show with a lot of traders and relatively few games for its size. And it is held in a community centre which means a lot of small rooms.

Anyway, we were soon set up and Dave’s Egyptian temple looked perfect with its added Egyptian wall paintings and statuary.

The table got a lot of attention before we even started the games.

The basic scenario was a GASLIGHT game about Oklahaoma Jones (grandfather of indy) and his attempt to retrieve the Ark of the Covenant, plus lots of involvement from Egyptians, French, British and Germans with Steam Machines, etc.

The first game ran from 11am to 1pm and ended with the Germans just managing to spirit the Ark off the end of the table in the zeppelin.

The second game started disastrously when a small boy leant on the table and tipped a tile up sending my zeppelin smashing to the floor and into its constituent pieces! I was not amused, but I did manage to stop myself strangling him as his father was also playing! I patched it together as best as I could with Superglue for the game, but it will require a complete rebuild to fix it.

That game also ran for two hours and finished with the Egyptians just failing to take the Ark off the table and the British and French eliminating the last of the Germans.

Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and several people bought the GASLIGHT rules after the game.

The pleasant surprise was to win the “Best Participation Games” award for the show. Doubly a surprise as we had no idea there was such an award. We now have a shield to hold for the year and a certificate!

I’ll post pictures and a full report on the Guildford Website shortly.

Now, time to start planning next year’s game….

I’ve spent most of this week preparing for the Valhalla game on Sunday. There are always so many last minute things to do for a participation game, but I think I finally have them all covered.

I had to photograph all the figures used in the game to use on the player sheets. This means the players don’t have to continually ask which units are their’s - it is obvious. I’ve also laminated the sheets to enable them to last through three games.

I spent sometime preparing a poster which we’ll stick up directing players to the game - that proved useful for the first game we ran at Valhalla 2001.

There is a big difference between participation games in the US and the UK. In the US, cons run over the weekend and seem much more game orientated. People want to play a game for four or five hours and experience the full detail of the rules.

In the UK, the shows are mostly one day and much more focused on trade. People want to play a game for an hour at most, as a sampler for a period or ruleset. I’ve had to combine Battles for GASLIGHT an GASLIGHT to produce a cut down ruleset which can be played through in an hour or so, but that gives a (hopefully) fast and fun game.

The proof will be on Sunday I guess.

Did manage to have a game this week at the club though, and I think I’ve found a ruleset I’m actually good at! Believe me, this is a rare thing as I am a lousy player and lose a lot.

We played Warhammer Ancient Battles again, but swapped armies, so Nick took my Saxons and I took his Crusaders. I formed a plan based on putting my cavalry in the middle (as he had no cavalry to threaten my flanks). The idea was to refuse my left flank and pull his units on that side forward, in the meantime I punched a hole in the middle on his line with the cavalry and then swung round into his flanks on both sides.

This worked pretty well. I got him to attack which meant he lost the advantages of Shieldwall and thrusting spears in the first round of combat.

My cavalry wiped out a fleeing archer unit and a fleeing Ceorl unit in the 3rd turn and it was pretty much downhill for him from then on.

So, a score line of 3-0 so far for me at WHAB…