53 boxes of minis loaded for a weekend of TtS at the Wargames Holiday Centre, I reckon there are just over 4000 miniatures plus terrain. Should be a riot! I am hoping that I've not forgotten anything...
Showing posts with label Wargames Holiday Centre. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wargames Holiday Centre. Show all posts
Friday, 6 November 2015
Tuesday, 11 August 2015
Fun at the Wargames Holiday Centre
I have another weekend of To the Strongest! gaming at the Wargames Holiday Centre near Basingstoke on the weekend of 6th to 8th November. The games I anticipate running include:
- Thapsus - Caesar vs. Pompey and Juba in North Africa
- Megalopolis - Antipater’s Macedonians attempt to seize a mountain pass from the Spartans; this game reduced us to tears of laughter, back in May.
- On the road to Ravenna - Late Romans, Roman deserters, Goths and Huns battle it out in Northern Italy
- Zela - Caesar chastens Pharnaces’ Pontics; or not, as the case may be…
- Athens and Sparta – will Athenian numbers triumph over Spartan prowess and drill?
- Take the High Road - the Romans intercept a raiding Pictish army
There will be as many minis of as my car will carry - and I have a very big car! :-) We usually have three or four games set up at a time and people get to play most or all of them over the course of the weekend. If you've not played before I can instruct and give you a rule book to take away at the end.
We usually stay in the local Hilton which is very nice and surprisingly cheap. A fine time will be had by all!
Best, Simon
Tuesday, 19 May 2015
Fun at the Wargames Holiday Centre
I have just enjoyed a splendid long weekend of gaming with Mark Freeth and friends at the Wargames Holiday Centre. I won't write it up at great length (because I may write it up as a magazine piece) but here are a few shots to be going on with (all clickable).
This is a shot down hill from Pictish lines towards the advancing Late Imperial Roman army. The Romans made it all the way up the hill, but the Pictish cavalry turned their flank and won the battle.
Above is Chaeronea 86BC, looking from behind Pontic lines towards the Romans and the eponymous acropolis. We played this twice, with each side winning once. We used my "To the Strongest!" rulebooks throughout. Everyone seemed to pick the rules up very well, enjoying the card play.
Below is Megalopolis 331 BC. The WHC has a super hill 9" tall by 9' long, with the Spartans and allies deployed along the crest.
In this game a Macedonian phalanx hacked its way up the steep hill between two small woods and past a surprised shepherd, harassed all the way by peltasts. Eventually reaching the crest, but unsupported, the tough veterans succumbed to volleys of javelins and arrows. On the other wing the Spartans and allies actually swept down from the hill and nearly broke the Macedonian left.
This was my favourite out of the five battles. It was intended to have a duration of around 90 minutes but was so even (the advantage swinging back and forth several times) it took over three hours to conclude. Eventually the Macedonian numerical advantage told and the Spartans were carried home on their shields. 'Twas ever the way with newly painted troops.
Below is the Kent 55BC game. The distant black dots at the end of the table are Caesar's relieving Xth legion - the VIIth, in the foreground took quite a pasting!
It was great meeting Steve, John, Rick, Philip, Juan (and Harry) and I can rarely remember a wargaming event with more laughter! I strongly recommend a visit to the Wargames Holiday Centre. Mark has some great games coming up this year including Waterloo and a super Sudan campaign. He is always a fantastic host and a great asset to the hobby! If you fancy coming along for the next Ancients event, drop me a line and I'll mail you once I have details.
Monday, 1 September 2014
Back from the Wargames Holiday Centre
Had a very enjoyable long weekend in Basingstoke gaming with a fine bunch of chaps at the Wargames Holiday Centre, near Basingstoke. Much lead was shifted, and fun had. Not a lot of photos were taken though. :-(
The below is of a game I am using to teach the rules and to test the maniple vs. legion mechanics for our Pydna game on Sunday. Watching the phalanx struggling up Mount Olocrus was a lot of fun. The Roman velites were particularly effective at discomforting the Macedonians.
Another battle was Megalopolis 331BC, AKA "The Battle of Mice". This was weighted in favour of the Macedonians, but the Spartans made them work very hard for their victory in both games.
The third of 5 was a battle in Kent in 55BC, with Caesar trying to rescue his ambushed foragers. He succeeded once, and failed once. I made good use of the WHC's very large tables and terrain boards for this one.
Alas I have no photos of the other two games. I was very happy with the way the rules worked, and took away some useful suggestions. But boy, am I knackered! :-)
Tuesday, 15 July 2014
Return to the Wargames Holiday Centre...
I shall be heading back to Kingsclere on the 30th/31st August for another weekend of gaming at the Wargames Holiday Centre.
This time I'll be bringing 8 battles, and making the most of Mark's excellent large gaming space by running four at a time, in parallel. Rules will be my "To the Strongest!" set, which are easy to pick up and sufficiently fast that players should get to fight most of the battles. I shall be bringing my Spartans for the first time, as well my Macedonians and three different eras of Romans with their various allies. Do drop Mark a line if you are free...
In other news I have just started work on an entirely new Roman army, of which more, anon!
Monday, 30 June 2014
A weekend away at the Wargames Holiday Centre
On Friday I motored over to the Wargames Holiday Centre, with a carload of Really Useful Boxes packed with terrain and miniatures.
Mark Freeth met me and together we set up three games on his tables. One of the nice things about the WHC's boards is that some feature hills much larger than I have storage for, and so I made full use of these. Also I couldn't resist using some very old Peter Gilder buildings from the WHC's Scarborough days to represent the town of Chaeronea (below).
The players arrived around 9:30 AM on the Saturday, and began playing shortly after 10:00 PM. I ran around like a blue-bottomed fly, fielding questions and relating historical anecdotes.
Below is the Pontic phalanx, drawn up in front of their camp.
A view over the plain, from the citadel:
Below is a shot of the Boudiccan revolt game, which was called "The Only Way is Eceni". The Romans and Britons won one game each.
One Roman auxiliary cohort was comprehensively surrounded, below, but successfully fought off many charges.
I didn't take any decent photos of the third game (below), which featured late Romans assaulting a Pictish line up a massive, heather-covered hill. The hill was a monster! It was a fast moving game and I have plans to expand it with more units, and even more heather.
Late on Saturday we replaced two of the games with even larger battles, which were gamed on Sunday morning (whilst I struggled with a massive hangover).
Thapsus (below) is a battle I've fought many times. Both games on Sunday were very close and, unusually, Caesar lost twice.
The final game was a reprise of the Partizan Cremona game. This was a massive slogging match between two evenly matched Early Imperial Roman armies. This time, both games were draws; the Othonians just couldn't break through.
Everyone managed to play each of the five games, once, and I hope everyone had a good time. Mark kept things moving along nicely, and made sandwiches and buckets of tea.
We ran all the games using my "To the Strongest!" rules, and, by the close of play on Saturday, I felt that everyone had a really good working grasp of these. I think everyone enjoyed the novel playing-card driven nature of the rules. By lunchtime on Sunday, we'd introduced most of the rules in the "advanced" section, and players were using the stratagems and some of the obscure rules, such as "orbis". A lot of intelligent questions were asked and some good suggestions offered, so I have some work to do in the week ahead.
It was a splendid weekend which I very much hope to repeat, in the early autumn!
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