Fun running Running from Bull Run at Hammerhead

The old voice was a little husky on Sunday morning after two sessions of Running from Bull Run at the Hammerhead show in Newark.

I arrived at the Newark Showground at about 0850 and quickly transferred the boxes of game material to our folding trolley. Apparently the manufacturers secretly designed the trolley to fit one 33 litre and three 9 litre Really Useful Boxes with precisely the right amount of room for a game-marker-carrying toolbox at one end and three box files on top. I was able to get the entire game from the car in one trip.

Previous experience and careful packing of the components meant that I was able to get the game set up before the doors opened to the public. Apparently this was reasonably impressive as one of the organisers suggested I deserved the prize for quickest set-up by a late-arriving game-runner!

I had been a little concerned that I'd be standing around all day with no players (or at least all morning while attendees did their shopping). As it turned out I had two players (Colin and John) in the morning...

... and four (Andy, Alan, Samuel and Martin) in the afternoon.

I think this is probably a benefit of running a game at Hammerhead; a show that makes a feature in its advertising of showcasing participation games. I've not been to an American convention but I suspect the Hammerhead experience is more American-like in that regard.

If I recall correctly, both games were narrow Confederate wins, the second one narrower on points than we all thought during the game. 

The Cub Run bridge comes under artillery fire as 
US congressmen attempt to flee in their Surrey

Confederate zouaves in pursuit of the fleeing Union troops

In terms of the game, a couple of lessons were learned. I thought I'd counted the maximum number of Union figures I could possibly need so I didn't have to bring along the whole collection. As it turned out I must have miscounted and the second game hit the limit and went beyond. I just kept rolling high whenever further groups of fleeing Yankees were needed!

In addition, I decided to try replacing one of the pursuing Confederate Groups with cavalry. I thought they wouldn't be that good in melee but they might provide the opportunity to ride around the Union flank and capture the Cub Run bridge.

Turns out I was wrong and that charging cavalry are more lethal in Sharp Practice than I remembered.

A question that came up, and that I recalled as being unclear in previous discussions, was the speed of cavalry after fisticuffs. I decided to treat them as being at canter pace after the fighting but in retrospect I think that was probably an error. They should probably be treated as a walking pace after the fight in most cases (although one fight was so one-sided in favour of the horsemen that allowing them to continue at the canter or gallop would be reasonable). This would have made them somewhat less dominant as they need to get up to the gallop before they are truly lethal. 

So that's probably me done with Running from Bull Run for a while. Mostly; I'd like to put some effort into other projects but have been asked online for the scenario so I'm going to have to write it up for this year's Lard Magazine!