Bash Day III was a blast!

The third Bloody Big Battles Bash Day was held in Oxford on Sunday 12 May 2019. Thirty players got together and played morning and afternoon games of the seven participation games on offer.

Upstart rebels confront forces of the Crown at Germantown.

(No, that's not a local rival of The Plough.)

Photo by kind permission of Alan Millicheap.

Let me pay tribute here to all the dedicated and creative gamemasters who laid on such beautiful and enjoyable games. In chronological order by battle:

Bruce McCallum: Edgehill (1642), English Civil War

Haim Ben-Zion: Helsingborg (1710), Great Northern War

Rodge Williams & Alan Millicheap: Germantown (1777), American War of Independence

Dave Whaley: 2nd Battle of Komárom (1849), Hungarian War of Independence

Crispin Matson: Italian War (1859) – trio of Montebello, Palestro and Magenta

Simon Dunsterville: Gettysburg (1863), American Civil War

Anton van Dellen: Colenso (1899), Second Boer War

These gentlemen's efforts included creating custom terrain, designing scenarios, painting up armies specially, and above all, getting up unreasonably early on a Sunday morning to set up to entertain others. Huge thank yous and very well done. (Some photos of a couple of the games here.)


Thank you also to those who helped out with logistical support in various ways, setting up tables, collecting entrance fees, washing up etc, lending troops, having reserve games ready in case of dropouts, and general encouragement and moral support.

Last but not least, thank you to the players. Thank you all for coming to Bash Day and participating in such good spirit.

To those who wanted to be there but couldn't for various reasons: sorry you couldn't make it, we missed you, and hope you can get to the next one.

It was a bonus that we were so efficient this year that almost all the games were done by 4:30 p.m., enabling a very convivial reorg and replen phase in the Plough.


It was a great day and could hardly have gone better. We had a wonderful variety of games (over 250 years of history) and scales (2mm, 6mm, 10mm and 15mm all on display). We had pretty much ideal ratios of players to games, so by and large everyone got two or even three games in and had a fair share of battle, no players sidelined and no GMs sitting forlorn and neglected. People mixed and mingled, made new friends and got new ideas. Above all, we all achieved the #1 victory condition, to have fun.

Therefore, my final thank you is to all those who nudged and chivvied me for the last year or so and finally prompted me to run Bash Day III. As I write this on a tide of caffeine, sleep deprivation and general euphoria, I can say with some confidence that we will want to repeat it and run Bash Day IV in 2020. Comments welcome as to what features to keep, and what to change and improve, etc.

Until then: Bash On!

Chris