From the welter of VSF battle images hitting the boards in the past couple of days, astute observers will have deduced that there were a few games played last weekend!
These took place at a British Lead Adventure Meeting (a BLAM!) organised by the indefatigable Malamute, to bring together around 20 LAFers to enjoy a number of games:
- a dazzling Lost World Adventure laid on by JollyBob, Revford and Lowtardog. (Many plastic aquarium plants died to bring us this game... )
- Matakishi’s knock 'em down and drag 'em out Alien Invasion game
- 'Diamond Geezers' run by Overlord and Lowtardog (and yes, the arches and Cowley Road tube station look even better close up)
- a series of VSF Anglo-Prussian encounters around the genteel environs of Kew Gardens, by Bullshott, Malamute, Thunderchicken and the Brigade of Guards (reported elsewhere already... )
- Captain Blood’s cinematic bloody border reiver skirmish
- and Overlord’s fast, furious and brutal Mad Max themed ‘Tanker Pursuit’. (I killed Mel Gibson. yay!)
Some of these were short, sharp encounters which allowed most people to have a turn at them. Others turned into more of a marathon than a sprint!
But the eye candy quotient was universally high in accordance with true Lead Adventure ideals. And all the games were played out in a generous spirit of fun and careless mayhem, with not a single argument or disagreement about rules as far as can be told.
As well as several British LAFers, it was great to meet some of our continental friends who heroically made the trip across for the weekend, including from Deutschland, Driscoles, Grimm, Green Knight and Vikotnik, and from the Scandanavian realms, Argonor and Hammershield. It was nice to finally put faces to names, (and real names to forum names!), as well as to see some beautiful showpiece miniatures the guys brought with them.
Many enjoyable games and quite a lot of beer drinking ensued from Friday afternoon to Sunday lunchtime… ('The Germans are all in the bar!' was heard more than once
).
The beer drinking was mainly down to the fact that Malamute had cunningly booked the function room of a pub in Twickenham, South West London, as the venue! (Nice one Nick)
The downside of the venue was that it wasn’t possible to open the invitation to everybody, because the room only just about held the 20 or so people we had. And even that was a bit of a squeeze. So it was, alas, ‘by invitation only’.
That said, Malamute has rashly volunteered to organise a follow up next year, and will review the practicalities of running a slightly bigger event – bearing in mind the need to keep the logistics manageable by one man.
(He is only human, after all. ...Just).
Turning it into a great big convention is definitely not on the cards…
Feedback was that a great time was had by all.
Some people even used the opportunity to trade away unwanted slopes of their lead mountains to other gullible LAFers.
Would you credit it?
For posterity, JollyBob had a BLAM medal struck, and in the picture below, we can see the assembled lead adventurers posing for the regimental camera wearing their campaign medals…
Standing, left to right: Grimm, pal-of-Revford and Revford (aka the Pratchett brothers), Overlord, Green Knight, JollyBob, Dr. D'Eath, Fastolfrus, Thunderchicken, Vikotnik, Dewbakuk, Driscoles and Lowtardog
Sitting, left to right: Mrs Revford and Mrs Fastolfrus, Young Fastolfrus, Hammershield, Bullshott, the Prince of Darkness himself (Malamute) and Argonor.
Lying down after taking a 3d6 hit from a caliver: Captain Blood
Matakishi and Nigel Molesworth didn't make it into the picture...
If any participants have any favourite photos (or links out to photos or commentaries on the various games) feel free to post here…
Meanwhile, to whet your appetites, and give a flavour of the games that were played, there is a nice selection of shots over in Grimm's LAF gallery here
http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?action=gallery;su=user;cat=118;u=6