Club Gaming Weekend 14th & 15th of April 2012

Last year in addition to running Gauntlet, our clubs annual tournament and gaming show. We ran a gaming weekend in the same venue we use for Gauntlet. The Wings Social Club Dining Hall.
We hold our regular club nights down stairs in the dance room.

So this year, we chose to hold another in April. Over the 14th and 15th. I spent the friday afternoon hauling my boxes of Dwarven Forge out and then loading it into the car. In the evening a small group of us gathered at the club to lug the tables from our storage room up stairs to the hall and dig out some of our club scenery for the games.

Having got the tables setup, I carried in my dwarven forge boxes and we left after getting Security to lock up. And it was time to head home, via the super market for tea and coffee etc for the weekend and a take away for my dinner. (Tea, coffee is free over the weekend to attendees, covered by entrance fee).

So up bright and early saturday and down to the social club to open up. Setup the kettle and get that on. (One has to get their priorities right, you know).

Then it was a case of starting to setup for our game. Colin was running a game of Warrior Heroes, using my DF pieces to represent what was intended as a two level realm belonging to some dwarves that our party were trying to find. But instead it was filled or at least the first level was, with goblins, ogres and some blackmoon orcs.

So sometime around 11am we were ready to go and our group some 8 strong, all controlling their chosen hero characters from the campaign, began.

So here are a few shots from saturdays games and then some from sunday.

I will do a seperate write up of the warrior heroes game.

The initial layout for the Warrior Heroes Game.

Part of the general layout of tables.

Waiting for the rest of our players to arrive for the Warrior Heroes game.

Len and Peter, kick off their game of Dystopian Wars

The initial British deployment.

Slightly blured sorry, but Pete has done a nice paint job.

Warrior Heroes.. will do a seperate write up.

Ogres 1, Elf 0

The saturday FOW game in flow.

The game that never got played.. Will was without an opponent, so the game got postponed till sunday, and slightly reorganised.

Simon, very happy about something.

Len tries desperately to hold off the British from getting through to St Laurance bay estury.

Considering we had 8 players in our WHAA game, it went smoothly.

FOW carnage.. the germans crushing the allies.

Looks like carnage about to ensue.

Allied air power fails to win the day.

Else where, games of Flames of War, Dystopian Wars and board games were being played.
As unfortunately not everyone could make both days, Colin was tempted away to play a game on Warhammer Fantasy on the sunday, and I planned a game of Blade Storm with Jon.

So having cleared away and tied up, headed home on saturday night for another take out.

And back again sunday morning with fresh milk and supplies. Yes we have free tea and coffee at our gaming weekends. We only charge a £1 a day.. and infact, due to me getting stuck into a game, I forgot to collect the pounds on sunday, but saturday had covered our costs so that was ok.

So, sundays games.. consisted of Warhammer fantasy, more board games, more flames of war with folks from our neighbour club in chester, the RGMB, comeing over, and playing a very big game of Flames of War with severl of our guys involved too. Looked a right old carnage fest.

Will who had laid out his Black Powder games yesterday, discovered he was without an oponent on the saturday, so Jon and I decided rather than have a game of blade storm we would give Black Powder a go. 1700s or so, dainish/belgium game. I had to stop a carvan reaching a town.

Was quite good fun. Not a rule set or period I had played before, but was enjoyable and quite quick flowing once we had the basics down. So cheers Will, it was a good and interesting game.

So here are some photos from the sunday.

Daves Force on Force game, from road to Bahgdad book.

Great setup.

US Armour rolls forward.

Just before it all goes wrong..

Suicide car bombers and all sort lay in wait for the poor US troops.

Cans of rice pudding, make great over pass buttress pieces.

Sundays large Flames of War game.

My sunday game of Black Powder.. I had to stop a caravan reaching the town.

My cavalry after their initial charge was repulsed.. but one group reached the caravan and held it in place.

On the right flank I tried to get across the river. My cavalry made it, but my infantry got bogged down and kept being dissordered.

My oponents view, down onto the caravan as my troops and cavalry just about hold on and keep it locked in place for another turn.

On the right flank, my cavalry sweep up the but his cannon take a heavy toll.

My general lends his support to the left flank to rally troops.

My cannon kept up steady fire, but did not achieve much. Long range is not good.

In the end, we agreed a partial victory. My troops were at the caravan, and delayed it. Some of my units were across the bridge and the right flank my infantry were finally across the river and progressing. It would have been fun to play on, but time was pressing.

Sorry i could not put more detail about the FOW game on sunday. If one of the guys does a write up I will link to it.

My write up of the Warrior Heroes Game will follow shortly with more pics.

So a weekend well spent and thoroughly enjoyed. Relaxed good natured gaming. You cannot beat it!

A big thanks to everyone who helped put the gear away at the end of play on sunday. It was greatly appreicated. Speical thanks to Steve White who helped me lug my DF sets back to the car. I really need a trolly!