Saturday in Barnsley

The Gathering this weekend was a pleasant and successful event thanks to the cheerful participation of the visiting SOTCW members and local Barnsley club members and in particular thanks to the organising efforts of Mark Kniveton.

We ended up with five games (I left my Arc of Fire game it is boxes as we didn't need it).  On the "big table" Mark Kniveton ran the Battle for Lingevres in 28mm using Disposable Heroes.  This looked really good and kept its four or five players enthralled all day.  Here we see a Panther that's just taken a fatal penetrating hit on the mantlet from the Sherman Firefly in the distance.

We had a couple of small, fast play games.  Phil Gray presented "The Men From Del Monte" in which, hours after Pearl Harbor, USAAF B-17s operating from dispersal fields on a Del Monte pineapple plantation, try to launch ad hoc bombing raids against the Japanese.  Meanwhile, Gordon Hanson ran his
short game "Intervention Strategy".

Meanwhile, a couple of the Barnsley members put on a very pretty Rapid Fire game:

And I got to play in Rob Connolly's epic Plickem Ridge game.  This was a Square Bashing game using the authentic order of battle for this bloody sector of the Passchendaele campaign.  Phil took on the role of General Blackadder (no, really, one of the British commanders actually was...) and Carl Luxford and I took the Germans.

The muddy fields of Flanders can be seen below.  Huge mass of Brits in front of Phil in the foreground; thin line of gallant Landsers in front of Carl in the distance:

A Map of Barnsley

This map shows where to park your fuel guzzling, CO2 belching, death machine.

I'll be bringing mine ;-)

Next Year's Game?

For some time I've been discussing with Stephen Oates of The Baggage Train the possibility of SOTCW putting on some sponsored participation games using Stephen's recently completed, massive 1/300th scale Arnhem Bridge.

At Gauntlet I suggested to the team that we put on a series of Cold War Commander games using the bridge as a centre-piece of the terrain.  I thought we could do a series of scenarios linked by a common narrative thread with the result of each game influencing the set-up of the following game.

Now as usual my first thought was to pick a setting for which I could provide all of the toys now as that way, other people could get involved but in the case of a disastrous no-show by someone we would already have everything we need.  this in turn led me to suggest that the game be set in the fictional North African republic of Maghrebia - I'd like to use my late 1980s Spanish Marines as interventionists against the republic's suspiciously Iranian-looking armed forces.

However, I think I may have been too prescriptive in my enthusiasm for my idea.  Ian Shaw suggested reusing the Andreivia setting and in retrospect I think that's got a lot going for it.

So what do you think?  I'd like to hear from the members.  What should we do?

Northern Gathering 2011

SOTCW's Northern Gathering returns this year on September 17th in Barnsley! All members (and interested non-members) are welcome to what should be an interesting new venue.

Barnsley Association of Wargamers have offered us the use of their dedicated town-centre wargames room.

The Barnsley venue is handy for shops, transport links and food outlets. In a departure from previous arrangements we'll be starting at 12 noon but we have the venue until 8pm so I'm going to suggest that we plan to break at about 6pm and go for a meal before returning to complete any unfinished business.

For many years the Northern Gathering at Middlewood Hall (and later the Garrison Hotel) in Sheffield was a major event for SOTCW. Unfortunately we lost affordable access to both venues and since then the event has largely lapsed. I'm optimistic that this venue can see the Gathering returning returning to the SOTCW calendar as a regular event.

Rob Connolly has already made some noises about putting on a western desert game and I'm sure Mark Kniveton will provide 20mm goodness. But that still leaves room for at least three more games. Volunteers please!