Operation Market Larden

Saturday dawned bright and beautiful and once again it was an early start to set of to a wargames show. This time for once we headed North to the Wyvern Wargames Club situated outside of Evesham, who were holding a day devoted to the Too Fat Lardies rules sets. Craig and I were both keen to try out the forthcoming Chain of Command rules, which from the demo videos on Youtube looked extremely good.

After a nice journey up the M5, we arrived just after 9.00am to find a packed village hall where the show was being held. Due to a clerical cock-up the Wyvern chaps hadn't put us down for the demo games, depsite the relevant e-mails and payment being sent to them. However this was soon sorted out but huge demand for a go at the CoC rules meant that it did not look like we would get to have a go. Only time would tell. 

However a couple of the chaps at the club had put on a Russo-Japanese War game using slightly modified 'Through the Mud and Blood' rules which looked interesting, so we sat down to give this a go. Stu of Dust, Tears and Dice Blog fame (a great Blog that is well worth checking out) and Mark  hosted the game and were great chaps who patiently took us through the rules so that we were able to pick up the game mechanics very quickly. The game ebbed to and fro over a couple of hours, but in the end as the Japanese players we had pretty much run out of troops to take the objective so conceded the game. I took a few pics as we went which can be found below.

The Japanese attempt to flank the Russian trenches.

The Japanese play hide-and-seek in the corn.

The Russians wait with Slavic stoicism.

Chinses troops add support, or at least that was the plan.

Looking towards the seemingly impenetrable Russian trenches.

A lovely suprise in the form of wonderful cakes from the TFL boys, with a great message! If only all gamers followed this saying...

The Japanese in position to attack the Russian trenches, but in the end to no avail.

The Chinese seem to sense that the day will not be theirs and lag behind.

So after a brief lunch break we checked out a few other games and then headed over to the CoC table that had been so popular in the morning. A game was in progress so we sat down to watch and were able to chat with Rich from TFL as the game went along. Initially we thought we would miss out on a chance to give the game a go, but luckily for us the game quickly finished. Rich had only planned on running three games but very kindly put on a fourth for us despite being in demand from the very start of the day.

In short the game was everything that we had hoped it would be. We picked up the basic game mechanics very quickly and so they moved along at a nice pace. Rich intervened where necessary to explain or elaborate on points as and when it was necessary. The game again ebbed and flowed with the Germans in a slightly better position by close of play.

The British on the right side of the road, the Germans on the left with the village as the objective.

A firefight develops on the British right flank.

So the trip was definitely worth it as we got to play a couple of great games, but crucially try out Chain of Command which was our aim. These are definitely rules that we will both be buying as not only are they fun to play, but they are suitable for solo play and emminently 'tweakable' for other periods such as the AVBCW and SCW. The rules are due for release sometime in August, so we will just have to be patient!