WorLard 2018

Adventures in Durham with the Lardies

Saturday the 21st April saw Durham Wargames Club run their annual Too Fat Lardies event, organised by that very nice chap, Jim Catchpole, of the Durham Wargames Group.

Though it's a one day event, the Durham Wargames Club are in the very rare and extremely enviable position of having a dedicated premises in which to game so Jim Catchpole, John Ewing (my nemesis in Operation Martlet) and myself managed to fit in a game of Coastal Patrol, umpired by John. 

Vane Tempest Hall which was, if i remember correctly, a former Yeomanry Barracks. The lucky chaps at Durham Wargames Club have access to most of the central upper floor.

Coastal Patrol is set in WW2 in the English Channel and has British Royal Navy Motor Torpedo Boats versus German E Boats either on patrol or on convoy escort. The rules are available in the Too Fat Lardies 2011 Summer Special.

The game itself was great, with the Germans (me) seeking to attack a British convoy (John) protected by Jim's MTBs. It used a set of blind markers to replicate attempting to spot the enemy in the dark. Naturally, being setin the dark, i forgot to take photos!! 

Saturday morning saw the actual event start. There were a few choice games available (the idea is that you let Jim know in advance what you would like to play from the games on offer for both the morning and afternoon session) including What A Tanker run by the Lardmeister himself, Richard Clarke. 

What A Tanker gets underway and already Matt Slade of Glenbrook Games is thinking ahead to his dinner

Tension mounts as the six (yes six!) Sherman commanders try to out manouvre Richard's Panther

The other game going on in the room in which I playing was a 20mm Very British Civil War themed game of Chain of Command set in  Durham. I didn't get any of the details of the game but it looked very pretty

The game I played was Sharp Practice set in 17th Century Ukraine with a force of Ottoman Turks carrying out a punitive raid on a Cossack village. The figures are 40mm and looked very, very nice. If memory serves they are by Irregular Miniatures.
I took the role of the Cossack commander against two Ottoman Turk commanders (Dave Knight who I know from the Falkirk and District Wargames Club and Warwick, who's surname I have shamefully forgot, a local gamer and the chap who supplied all the figures, boats etc for this game) and the game was ably umpired by Jim Catchpole

One part of the Ottoman Turks forces

Brave Cossacks

more blinking Turks!!

a Cossack commercial craft! Apparently the Cossacks of this period were more water based traders rather than the fierce horsemen that we know of nowadays; well I never...

The Cossack trading town of  Grubbibolbag with it's improvised defences made up of reinforced wagons, a couple of which were armed

even more Turks; hordes of them!

Cossack skirmishers and regular troops

Reinforcing the town

A lone gunner, his comrades dead or wounded, carries on dutifully

The Cossack village commander, Bohdan, rallies his troops

Unfortunately we didn't manage to play the game through to a conclusion before lunch. Jim decided to leave the game as it was and Dave, Warwick and another player played the game to a conclusion in the afternoon. Me, I was off to sea with Kiss Me Hardy! The photos of which will be in another post in the form a batrep but I'll leave a photo here as a taster

I didn't manage to get a good look or any photos of the other games in the other gaming room. i did manage to get some photos of the other Sharp Practice games forces. This was set in the Italian Wares of the Renaissance Period. The figures are beautiful as you will see from the photos and, from what I hear, the game was great fun. 

After the event it was off to a nearby pub to relive the glorious highs and crushing lows of our battles and to cool down with a pint or four as it was a particularly warm day. This too was a nice extra, the chance to sit in a pub over a few beers with fellow wargamers and chew the fat. For my part I had a really nice chat with David Hunter, who I knew from the Saindoux Campaign mentioned in a previous post; good to have a good chin wag with him. And Matt Slade, noted wargames figure painter and figure modeller for Saddle Goose Designs tee shirts.

Thanks again to Jim Catchpole and the chaps at the Durham Wargames Club and also all the chaps who put on the games.
Looking forward to the Scottish Lardies event, Deep Fried Lard, in June were yours truly will be runing a game of Sharp Practice