Reveille 2015

I spent the day at the Reveille show at Lincombe Barn in Bristol with the Wings of Glory Aerodrome participation game. Great fun as usual and I actually managed to shoot down more aircraft than I lost this time (5 kills, killed once, so much better than usual!)

As in previous years it was just as much about catching up with old friends as playing the games. I passed on some good ideas to a chum who coincidentally is planning exactly the same mini campaign as I am (Java Sea, 1942) so we swapped notes, I got some wicked ideas for a more combative version of "Thunder Boats" and I chatted professional wargaming with John Curry. I also was reminded how good children are at extorting money from adults as the raffle "brute squad" ruffed us up for tickets :)

I was aiming not to go shopping but a few odd items caught my eye. A 37mm M6 Gun Motor Carriage for the USMC offshoot of my 20mm "Burma Skirmish", a set of four Airfix 1/600 destroyers for a quid each and - the prize of the day - a copy of the original Battlelines edition of "Wooden Ships and Iron Men", which I have never seen before.

There were some lovely games there as well, a few photos below for your enjoyment. Looking forward to next year!

Thunder Boats!

A short post today after  a long break with some pics of a new (to me at least) game, "Thunder Boats". Its  a lovely set of rules for powerboat racing written by Dave Schueler in the US. Dave sent me a copy recently and I've spent the last few days printing up the rules, laminating the boat and event cards and making the few markers needed (course marker buoys and "rooster tails")

As far as models are concerned I haven't been able to get hold of any of the hydroplane boats similar to the ones Dave and his friend Kevin Smyth but I have been able to get hold of some modern "Hot Wheels" model boats which do the job nicely. The only issue here is that they are larger than the hexes on my hex mat, but to counter that I just have the boats filling two hexes instead of one and after plying it through a few times that works perfectly well.

The game uses a dice based movement system with the type of dice thrown depending on the throttle setting of the boat. It uses unconventionally numbered dice, the same that are used in the "Formula De" tabletop motor racing game.. I've colour marked the boat control sheets to make it easier to tell which dice to use for each setting.

So this joins my (short) list of naval non-wargames, and I'll be looking to try this on the chaps at the BV club sometime. But it has got me wondering about a "death race" version, and some of the ideas would work very, very well for a Star Wars pod race variant.......

Follow your spirit, and upon this charge Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!

Despite a nasty fever (102 degrees yesterday, down to a manageable 100 today) I felt I couldn't let the 600th anniversary of Agincourt pass by without  some fun and games in the newly recommissioned wargames HQ. So I broke out DBA and gave it a bash. I don't have 100YW armies so my Wars of the Roses and Burgundians stood in for the action.

Things went fairly according to "plan", although some poor die rolls on the part of the English as battle was joined made it look a bit iffy for a while.

However, normality was restored as good King Henry despatched d'Albret for the 4th element killed and victory once again went to the English.

Just curious to see that my green sheet looks blue in these photos - obviously the ground was pretty waterlogged :)

Goodbye XH558

Today was a bittersweet day as Vulcan XH558 made her final "tour of the South". I went up to our local airport at Staverton between Gloucester and Cheltenham to join a thousand or so other Vulcan enthusiasts see the old girl stage a flypast of the airport and the Jet Age Museum. I got there early and spent a while watching some of the other traffic, it was surprising how busy the airport is. We were also entertained by a Pitts Special which took to the skies a few times and did impromptu aerobatic displays, often very low and often just seconds after takeoff (for example 3 complete rolls between wheels up and before reaching the perimeter fence)

After a long but pleasant wait in the semi-sunshine XH558 hove into view over Gloucester for a single fast pass along the runway, waving her wings as she went, then off in a roar towards Brize Norton and her next appointment.

It was all over in a minute, but it was well worth the wait. There were quite a few damp eyes at the airport, I can tell you.

Stingray at Blast tastic

Today has been a lovely day spent in the sunshine at Frampton where I have been a fence judge at the FFRC Hunter Trials. Great fun, and spoilt with plentiful supplies of tea and cake during the day :)

But yesterday saw the latest (and probably last) public outing of my "Stingray" participation game at the Blast Tastic sci fi wargames show in Bristol.

We got through a few very enjoyable games using the latest "tweaked" rules and it was interesting to see the development in tactics that the new rules encouraged (especially counter missile tactics). My planned pit crew had to drop out for various reasons but I was ably assisted at short notice by Chris, Neil and the "mystery wargamer" - many thanks chaps.

Of course these games themselves have led to a few modifications which I've implemented today. I think now very close to being the "final" set (until the next time, anyway!)

Blood Moon

Nothing to do with wargaming, I managed to remember to wake up in time to see the lunar eclipse this morning, And what a nice sight it was at some silly time just after 3am. Lunar photography still eludes me but what I managed to snap this time wasn't too bad I think :)

Will try for a better one in 2019!

Doncaster - Day 2

So, the second day at Doncaster and after a lovely breakfast we closed up at the air museum for more games. I played Chris Haigh's "Frigate race" game, pitting my HMS President against four other ships in what was supposed to be a race around all the islands but ended up rather shorter than that.

Other games included an Operation Pedestal WW2 game and a WW1 seaplane game with the Germans trying to sink a British submarine.

The lurgy did its best to kill me off during the morning so I called ENDEX and headed home at lunchtime, but I did manage to finish off the Vulcan part of my weekend with a visit to the aircraft's hangar at Robin Hood airport for some happy snaps :)