Well, Saturday July 26th saw the 2nd Warlord Games Open Day in Nottingham and it was hot! Definitely the warmest show I've attended - well upstairs in the Marcus Garvey Ballroom, anyway. The Warlord staff pulled off another interesting event with a handful of selected traders and games in addition to seminars and factory tours (my highlight from last year.) Sculptors and artists were also out front talking about their work, there was a painting workshop and competition upstairs, and some reenactors knocking around as well (complete with authentic wool uniforms - brave stuff!)
I confess I hardly got to see the rest of the show this year as I'd volunteered to run my Battle of Keren 1941 set-up as a Bolt Action participation game, so spent almost the entire day within 2 metres of the gaming table. Having promised to get lots of decent photos, the light levels were pretty rough upstairs, I was run off my feet all day, and my camera kept breaking! Grr. But here's some of the photos I did manage, supplemented by some 'studio shots' (at home).
The show was pretty busy from start to near the finish - especially while running a participation game. I was very pleased to see several families there from my Nottingham Young Gamers project (Warlord had added a junior ticket price this year - thank you, guys) and quickly found myself running games for some familiar faces from school. Rick Priestley and some other local notables were very generous with their time, especially while answering questions from the next generation of younger gamers - cheers!
Anyway, on the the game: we were playing Bolt Action with some tweaks and special rules, e.g. extended ranges and a random event table (the roving baboons put in several appearances, causing the leading British units to take a lot of pin markers.)
It's that damn baboon again, Sarge!
From memory, I think we played three games, firstly an attack to clear Bersaglieri snipers and machine guns from the face of the mountain, followed by two bayonet attacks on Fort Dologorodoc at the top. The result was historical, a victory for the British in hot and sweaty conditions. (The actual attack on the Fort took place in 40 degree heat, which made our 28 degree English summer's day look a bit wimpy!)
Men with bayonets scramble across the mountain. These are some of the Perry metals in shirtsleeves and trousers that I bought to supplement my Desert Rats plastics - lots of nice animation.
Are we nearly there yet, Corp?
The defending Eritreans get ready to...fluff their order test and hide behind the wall.
Visiting gamer Tom Bird reaches the top of the mountain with a bayonet charge.
Mortal combat: the Indians try to break the Eritrean Askaris defending the wall.
Scrivs's Indians surge into the Fort.
Matt Moran ducks as the Wellesley comes past for its bombing run.
As usual, it was fun to talk about the game, and interesting to meet a couple of 'The Friends of General Haig' who were busy running a super 10mm Mons 1914 game downstairs in the foyer. Apparently they've found a road near them named after Keren (in Worcester, as the Worcestershire Regiment fought at Keren.) Quite a few photos were taken of the figures (largely from Paul Scrivens-Smith's collection, it must be said) by other gamers working on their own WW2 Africa projects.
A big thank you to Martin, Fred, James W, Lewis and Pete who helped me run the games and put stuff away, and especially Matt Moran, who helped set up on Fri and clear away on Sat.
If you're interested in how the terrain was built, the new Wargames Illustrated (322 - August 2014; Great War theme) has an 8-page article about it (it also has another one about the 1914 Mons game I mentioned earlier, well worth a look.)
2" mortar team preparing to give covering fire.
More Perry metals:
Cheers
James
Next stop for the Keren game: Crisis, Antwerp (Nov 1st)
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