Crusade 2013

Regular readers and friends will know that I've been running and playing in various Wings of War / Wings of Glory participation games in the region. The latest of these was at the popular "Crusade" show at Penarth. And didn't we have a fun time? Despite the best efforts of my satnav we arrived nice and early to set up, so we were ready to go an hour before opening time. Of course that also meant we were exposed to the glacially icy blasts coming through the open side doors as everyone else set up, but tea and coffee provided gratis by the organisers helped that, and was most welcome. So, at 1000Z we kicked off the first of the three morning session games, each featuring the coastal airship (under umpire control) attempting to bomb a disabled u-boat. The airship being defended by a combined British and Italian flight (Macchi M5s and a Sopwith Baby), whilst the Kaiser's finest attempted to frustrate the plans of the evil Entente (Oeffag H, Hansa Brandenberg W18 and Hansa Brandenberg CC. The airship is a slow and vulnerable beast, and it took a lot to get it to survive to get anywhere near the U boat (bulked up its damage points, made it go fast (although still painfully slow) and finally fought across the table rather than along it). She went down quickly in game 1, got about half way in game 2 and was very nearly on top of the target in game 3. But despite this the games were great fun and the use of the seaplanes and the airship drew a lot of interest in the game. We spent ages chatting with the public about all aspects of the game, modelling, availability of the goodies, and directing them to the various traders on the floor who were stocking Ares products and KR multi cases.

After lunch we decided to go to the Western Front, with two dogfighting sessions. The first with eight players, the second with ten. We fought with the usual mix of camels, Spads, Albtari and Triplanes, bringing in some two-seaters for added fun in the final game. The 8 player session was a really close fought action that almost ended with the four surviving planes all colliding on what I was sure would be the last turn. However it was not to be and in the end there was but one survivor. The second game was carnage, with the Entente planes going down like ninepins until only a lone RNAS Camel was left and her intrepid pilot decided discretion was the better part of valour and legged it from the table. He was the youngest player (we had a good mix of ages throughout the day, but quite a few kids in the afternoon) and it was extremely gratifying when he came over to me and thanked me for the game which he really enjoyed, and for helping him. That made it all worth while. It was also nice to see several of the players wandering around the show later with various Ares products purchased from Stafford.

 And then it was time to pack up and go. We'd had a great time, we'd been visibly the most popular game there (I think its fair to say) and we introduced a good number of new and younger players to Wings of Glory. And in doing so we'd had a great time, made some new friends and met lots of old friends too.

On the shopping front, there was actually very little that caught my eye. 4Ground were there with some lovely laser-cut MDF buldings, and I suspect we'll be seeing some at the Berkeley Vale club shortly.  I picked up a copy of Admiral Porter's Naval History of the Civil War for a bargain price, and "Melody Lake" from Crooked Dice

Mayhem around the airship

This was as close as the airship got to the U Boat all day!

After lunch - back to the Western Front

The Blackhawk Down game running nearby

Mike Slack's South american 1900s game - excellent!