Bovington 2013

I attended the annual Bovington Tank Museum Wargames show over the weekend along with John, Chris, Dave and Graham who were running a WSS game based off a set of old school rules.
The game was a success with the public and the organisers and won the best of show category which was a pleasant surprise, especially as the guys had also won the trophy last year.

John, setting out the Teddy Bear Fur Terrain (This is humane bear fur, and
despite allegatons we confirm that no Teddy Bears were hurt during its manufacture)

The Buildings, Hovels and home made sabot bases

Chris, scratch built river

Attacking forces

 

The defenders

Battle Commences, the cannon have home made smoke to show they have fired.

More defenders holding the ridge

The venue is different with games and traders nestled between the tanks which are numerous and  fascinating in their own right. Unfortunately being involved in running the game I could not give the museum my full attention but hopefully I will get back again (may be next year?)

In addition there are facilities to camp on site, including toilets and showers as well as the all-important bear (sp) tent for latter in the evening.

The game used a nice tracking system representing fatigue where units dropped from green to black depending on how many actions they took impact of taking casualties or the fate of random special cards. The lower the fatigue rating the lower the effectiveness of the unit in shooting, melee and saving throws. The effect of this very simple mechanism  was that you were forced to think carefully about which unit you used, if you got it wrong you could end up with a fatigued unit (6+ saves) being attacked by fresh units with 4+ to hit.

The terrain is built up from Teddy Bear fur with the roads cut in with hair clippers. Buildings were from Hovels with the sabot bases scratch built. Figures from a variety of manufacturers but the core came from the new war-games factory WS plastics that allowed the core forces to be built up cheaply.

Attackers fire onto the ridge

 

Defenders fire at the closing cavalry unit

Both sides firing, with armoured cars in the backgound.

More attackers

A poor picture of the trophy with the tank on top visible.