From famine to feast

Not famine exactly, but because of travels I had only played two wargames in the last two months, well below my usual ration. Back with a bang last weekend, though, as I was able to attend two full days of the Warfare convention in Reading UK, and top it off with an excellent Monday night at the club. My wargaming adrenalin levels are restored, my creative impulses stimulated anew.

Prussian columns tramp past Langensalza to bluff the Hanoverians into staying north of the Unstrut.

10mm Pendraken figures from Dave Whaley's collection. 

The buildings were keenly admired; I believe they are by Lilliput Lane!

Warfare is one of my favourite shows and the one I get to most regularly. It's a healthy size - lots of traders, lots of display and participation games, a vigorous set of competitions (for those who like that), and lots of eager wargamers getting their fix of lead, plastic and dice.

Since publishing BBB in 2014 we have laid on participation games every year; see reports from 2015 and 2017. This time we ran two small games on the Saturday, and one big one on the more relaxed Sunday.

The small games were:
- Inverkeithing (1651), using Bruce's version of BBB tweaked for ECW;
- Langensalza (1866), which has become a classic BBB intro scenario.

We ran each of these twice, which along with lots of nattering with passers-by filled up the day nicely. I think we recorded two Hanoverian wins at Langensalza. The second was especially dramatic, as the Hanoverians were unable to cross the river at all for the first six turns in the face of determined Prussian attacks; but the Prussians had so exhausted themselves that even with only two turns left, the Hanoverians could cruise down the main road and hoover up all the objectives.

Sunday's big event was Antietam using Matt Bradley's fine scenario. We managed to run this twice as well, both times being Rebel victories, which compensated for Union wins on previous occasions. It really gave a good sense of how the Union army, outnumbering the Confederates nearly 2:1, was a big blue steamroller but a rather ponderous and clunky one.

The icing on the cake was to go to OWS on Monday, my first time in a while, where Mark laid on the latest in his set of Peninsular War games (all using BBB): Wellington's victory over Massena at Bussaco. It was a splendid scrap. To me as one of the French players, it looked impossibly daunting, but we had to grit our teeth and charge up the ridge anyway. Mark’s clever condition for releasing the French reserves under Junot made for a couple of very tense and exciting turns while we tried to get the necessary foothold on the ridge with Mark trying to stamp on our toes.  It turned out to be the usual last-turn, anyone’s-game, nailbiter, that finished up as an honours-even draw. Really really good.

It was great to meet so many people at Warfare. We caught up with a lot of old friends but made plenty of new ones too, one of whom then promptly turned up at OWS on Monday, which was great, and we hope for other recruits to come along as a result as well. This year was notable for the sheer number of people who commented positively on BBB, either reporting that they'd heard good things about it, or indeed that they'd played and enjoyed it. Evidently word is getting around! But I suppose now that nearly everyone in Reading knows about BBB, I need to make an effort to put on more games at other shows ... maybe next year ...

Several people also asked hopefully whether we would be running another Bash Day, the BBB convention we ran twice in 2016 and 2017. Its gratifying that these events left such fond memories (and they were certainly memorably successful), but they were quite hard work to organise. So the answer is that although another Bash Day is a good idea in principle, there are no immediate plans for one. But please come and visit us at Oxford Wargames Society! The club meets most Monday evenings and usually one Sunday a month as well; club dates are on the OWS website. Anyone who turns up can usually be guaranteed a game. If you get in touch beforehand, we should even be able to arrange a scenario for the particular war you're interested in. Come on down!