History of Games Workshop

It finally arrived ...

I already browsed through the book, lots of interesting pictures.

Now to see how many games I recognize and how many events I have a vague awareness of ... ;-)

Lardwerp (Lard in Antwerp)

I went t Lardwerp today - a gaming event were the Too Fat Lardies showed and set up some games in the Tin Soldiers Antwerp clubhouse.

I arrived around 11.00, and had to leave again around 12.30. Some work in the garden was waiting for me!

Although I was only there for a short while, and the event was smallish compared to the yearly CRISIS convention (more about that later), it was a lot of fun. I bumped the many friends from the "old Belgian wargaming guard" (also more about that later) and had lovely chats with fellow wargamers I hadn't seen for almost 3 years (we all know why ...).

So, what was some of the wargaming news I picked up?

• Crisis most likely will never happen again, or at least not in the format we were used to. There are several reasons for this: the "organisational flow" was interrupted for 2 years, but there also is a lack of volunteers for people willing to help to put the thing together (this seems to be a common problem in many hobby organisations). People want to attend, but people don't want to help, or at least not in a structured manner ...
  A second big reason is Brexit. Many of the traders are UK-based, and Brexit has made it very hard for small businesses such as wargaming traders to cross the channel and set up shop in Antwerp for a day.
• A similar sentiment was aired w.r.t. Warcon, the yearly event that was scheduled in February or March and was organized near Ghent. Probably over as we know it.
• So, there were some chats with the "old Belgian wargaming guard" and some vague plan was uttered to organize a smallish gaming day (no traders, just games), in an effort to have at least one national wargaming event where the Belgian wargaming could meet and see each other. After all, although wargaming is a hobby that takes place in small unconnected gaming groups (apart from some larger clubs), it stil is important to have some sort of community feeling. We'll see how things will evolve ...
• Brexit again: rumour has it that some traders have lost upto 70% of their customer base. European gamers don;t want to go through the hassle of ordering from the UK anymore. It's back to the pre-EU early nineties ... I still remember fondly trips to London to stock up on gaming stuff, exactly to circumvent high P&P and import taxes. Perhaps the gaming trips will come back?

Overall, it was a pleasant visit, and great to egt the wargaming mojo back!

So, any loot?

Not so much. There was one trader present (https://www.tabletopper.nl/nl/), so of course I had to buy something, even though I don't need anything. But still, supporting the hobby and all that ... so I got a few explosion and smoke markers.

One of the TSA members also sold of some old wargaming books, so I got a couple for 5 euro each. The Featherstone title was still missing in my extensive collection of old wagaming books.The Terry Wise I have as a reprint from the History of Wargaming Project , but now I have the original. And I had the 1st Fred Perry book, but not the 2nd one ;-)

And here are some photos from the games, in no particular order. All quite spectacular, specially the last few photos, which are from a 54mm Arnhem game.

What is it with Warband Games?

Last weekend we played a fantasy warband game. See our previous post for some pictures. Although the game was fun, I felt that the full potential of the game was not unlocked.

In a warband game each player controls a handful of figures that move and fight individually. Nothing wrong with that. But I feel that warband games have the tendency to become too fiddly when to much emphasis is being placed on close combat. The game then degenerates into a brawl where a bunch of figures are cramped together on a few square centimeters, fighting in multiple rounds of close combat till one side wins. Sure, there might be some push-back rules, such as a figure being pushed back 1 inch or so after the result of combat, but this only adds to the fiddling. When orientation of figures is added to the rules it's even worse. Combats are decided based on the micro-placement of individual figures. Throw in some variation in basing and things go completely out of control. So we end up on staring for three hours at a few square centimeters, while we have a splendid 6x4 table full of scenery set up.

So how can this be avoided?

The scenario can certainly help. Eliminating enemy figures should not be a goal in itself, but merely a means to achieve another goal: finding a treasure, guarding a convoy, stealing something and running away. So at least one side should have an incentive trying to avoid combat. But even so, this is difficult if all your figures can do is to fight in close combat, or if the rules system is build around that mechanic.

A better solution is to focus on ranged combat as the primary ability of all figures. If all figures have ranged weapons available (and I'm talking about significant ranges, as in multiple movement distances), we can use the entire playing area of the table. Scenery becomes more important to block line of sight or to seek cover. Movement and manoeuvre (the fun part of most miniature games) becomes again a tactical decision maker rather than merely moving towards each other and battle it out.

It reminds me very much of the Wild West games we used to play quite a lot several years ago. Each player had a few shootists, but the fact that combat was primarily ranged and the table had a lot of terrain and cover, made the game fun.

So, warband games? Ranged combat!!!