Misc., Wargame Shows, Musselburgh

Saturday was “Lardy Day” in Musselburgh, just outside Edinburgh. A hall was hired, about six tables were set up, and around 40 games from all of Britain descended on the place. They were there to try their hand at games developed by The Too Fat Lardies, a wargame rules company run by Richard Clarke. Richard was there himself – that’s him poring over his own rules in the top photo. He ran games, he was on hand to answer queries about his products, but above all he – and the rest of us – were there to have a good time. I began the day by trying my hand at Kiss Me Hardy, a set of Napoleonic rules which were surprisingly easy to play, and fast to pick up.My squadron of four French ships-of-the-line took on three British ones, and we gave them a reasonable pounding by keeping the weather gauge, and our distance. Then two more squadrons arrived, and Dom from Dom’s decals soon found his reinforcing French squadron sandwiched between two British ones. To intervene would have merely doubled the size of the disaster, so instead I kept my distance, fired at the enemy as much as I could, and then when Dom’s flagship struck I hauled away, bound for a friendly port.Honour aside, it seemed the French thing to do, and after all, my squadron commander was the same one who had abandoned the rest of the doomed Allied fleet at Trafalgar. I was simply playing in character – an eerie reprise of the performance of my partisans two nights before! The ships were 1/2400 ones from Tumbling Dice. While smaller than ones I would have gone for, I was impressed how good they looked when painted up.Next I tried my hand at Dux Britanniarum. In this came I had joint command of a British force which included some suitably “Arthurian” heavy cavalry, and we were pitched against a Dal Riadan Scots raiding party. It was actually a pretty evenly matched game, with the raiders proving more fleet of foot than out spearmen. They were also helped by some appalling dice rolling on my part – my cavalry proved useless in the only charge they made.Instead it was up to the British spearmen to win the day, eventually breaking the enemy through perseverance and a grinding melee. I learned a lot about how this excellent system works, and I enjoyed the game so much I began painting my own Saxon army as soon as I got back home.Games came and went throughout the day. The photos below show some of them, but missing is an interesting colonial bash in 6mm, with thousands of Zulus, which for some reason I never got round to photographing. Of the four games shown here the flying game Back the Hun was only run in the morning, but it looked reasonably interesting, even though flying games aren’t really “my bag”. The big hit of the day was the Chain of Command game, run in 15mm, and set amid the hedgerows of Normandy. Actually, to me it looked a little dull, but that’s probably because most of the German troops were hidden – giving the impression that nothing much was happening. In fact the players reported that the games they had a go at were tense and hard-fought affairs, and they came away enthusing about the rules. These are a skirmish level set, so a step down the command chain from I Ain’t been Shot Mum. As I’m still trying to get my head around IABSM for use with my 12mm Western Desert armies, and |Bolt Action for my 28mm kit, so it might be a while before I try these rules out for myself.Sandy from the Edinburgh club ran a 10mm Vietnam game using Charlie don’t Surf. Again, I didn’t really pay the game a lot of heed, but most of the players seem to have enjoyed their Vietnam experience. My only criticism was the soundtrack – a 60’s themed CD was running all day in the background, and by 4pm I would happily have called in an airstrike against Sandy’s boom box! Finally there was a First World War game on offer, a 15mm affair set somewhere in Mesopotamia.It used If the Good Lord Spares Us rules, which I have, but haven’t used. It has some nifty ideas, and one nice feature was the use of proper signallers to send orders to the various battalions in each British or Turkish command. Once again the players seemed to enjoy the game. I never got a chance to play Bag the Hun, the flying game which was played out on a hex sheet showing the English coast in 1940. Then it was off to the pub. I bailed out before everyone went for a curry, as I had a refight of Waterloo to take part in the following morning, followed by a six hour drive to the Orkney ferry. I went home planning my next round of 28mm Dark Age purchases, and wondering how I can possibly scratch-build an “Arthurian” fort like the one Dave Imrie had on his Dux table…