The May Day Bank Holiday Weekend saw the gathering in East (and West) Ayton of assorted WD3 members for the ‘Big Game’. This was the third year. The first two were run by Henry Hyde (editor of Miniature Wargames with Battlegames) and were ImagiNation games, firmly set in the mid -C18th albeit with a little warped imaginations applied! Here are reports on those games, here for 2011 and here for 2012. This year, although maintaining the ImagiNation theme saw us move forward to the American Civil War but with assorted forces (some conventional and some far less so!) joining in the fight. The scenario was devised and run by Tim Hall using his own rules and the bulk of the troops on the table were from his quite stunning ACW collection. But everyone involved brought their own contingents and some of these were a little ‘unconventional’! We had steam tanks, airships, tunneling mole machines and even an (alleged) vampire! And Russians, Turks, Brits. All sorts! It does Tim credit that the scenario worked so well and that the rules (stretched to breaking point!) survived the ordeal.
But all the above was helped by the participants. As with the previous two years, the game was played in the best possible spirit and the evenings, spent in the Denison and the Forge, were great fun, even if I couldn’t face drinking anything by the third night!
So here is the venue:
And these are the fine fellows who did battle:
And this is the game in full flow (picture by Goat Major):
I had a bit of a disaster with pictures as my phone decided to ‘lose’ about 800 of the photos on it! I managed to recover some but by no means all. And I think I’ve nicked a couple taken by Goat Major.
The report is broken into several parts.
1. The Silence of the Lamms – the action on my flank told by one who was there!
2. The Mercenary Gallery – pictures of the troops people brought (minus the ones my phone lost!)
3. Union Gallery – Tim’s Union troops
4. Rebel Gallery – Tim’s Confederate troops
The latter two galleries don’t really do Tim’s collection justice. It was a pleasure to play with such lovely troops. And Mercenary gallery is missing pics of a few peoples troops for which I must apologise and blame my bloody phone!
So that was Ayton 2013. A great weekend. Great company. My liver will never be the same….
Next year the plan is for a return to the C18th with Henry running the show. I have a LOT of 28mm SYW troops to paint for this and I really best start now!