Fun for all the Family

Its Laura’s birthday weekend this weekend, I can’t believe she’s ten already. Anyway, after  a swimming party yesterday, a sleepover for her best friends and then bowling this morning, followed by a short Spanish Civil War game with her bestest friend Harry (vs. Dear daddy), Laura decided it would be good to wind down with a family game of WoW.

I broke out the Deluxe boxed set and Laura allocated the planes. I had the Dr1. She took the Spad, Philip flew the Camel and mum got the Albatros. A good spread – kids vs.  parents. The first few turns showed the effects of very little sleep, as we all made ludicrous “left/fight turn” errors and ended up all over the table. We loosed off furious snapshots as targets came into view, i for one was amazed how many “0” cards I drew (my Dr. 1 was rather lucky). But after a hard turning battle at the top of the table Philip and I found ourselves head to head at short range. I drew 0-0. Philip drew 5-BANG! “Foul” cries Laura, and subverted mummy into turning on me (girls vs. Daddy seemed quite attractive). Unfortunately mummy was in my 12 o’clock at the time and a short burst blew her out of the air as well.

Laura and I headed to the centre of the table for the final showdown, both of our planes staggering under heavy damage from previous encounters. I was perhaps inevitable that as we loosed off head-on shots at close range that both of us would succumb to our wounds at the same time. Laura of course claimed that her damage took out my poor Dr.1 a split second before her Spad went down J

All in all a jolly afternoon, and the kids are keen to get their revenge on Baron von Vater at the earliest opportunity. Now down to a quiet evening writing up Laura’s new SCW rules :D

Time Out, Time In

One could be excused for thinking that I've been sloping off on the wargames front recently. In fact, things have been quite busy. Laura and I did quite well at the Lincombe Barn tabletop sale, where my 9-year-old's sales and marketing skills helped me bring back about £300 (not for nothing is "The Apprentice" one of her favourite TV shows!). She also secured some amazing bargains, probably by virtue of being cute - or perhaps just by talking to people a lot so they gave her stuff to go away! Anyway, a good day out, my wargames room significantly decluttered as a result, and we picked up a few useful bits and pieces.

Since then I've managed to finish painting up all of my extant Peter Pig Spanish Civil War collection. Only 15-odd years since buying most of it. Of course, having done so I've found that a few of the units need some minor additions, and I've foud the Zvezda 1/100 BT-5 and T-26 models look a lot nicer than the lead examples that currently grace my collection, so an order for some replacement armour has gone to Hannants.

I'm having to refocus now, back to naval for a while. The NWS is holding a naval wargames event at the Explosion! museum in Gosport on the August bank holiday and I'm taking some games along. At present I'm not sure exactly what, but I'm sure some painting or at least some "sprucing up" of the model collection will be needed in advance. If you are at a loose end over the bank holiday and fancy a bash at some informal naval gaming why not come along to see us?