Ebor Lard 2025

I drove up to North Yorkshire on Saturday for this year's Ebor Lard. It's one of my favourite wargames events of the the year and I was disappointed to miss it last year due to a family holiday.

In the morning I played in Johno Rollinson's lovely-looking Western Desert game.

The outskirts of Bardia. The Australians were expected from the road 
at top left of the picture.

Using the Chain of Command 2 rules, this was a platoon-a-side affair depicting the first action of the 15th Australian Division. The Diggers (commanded by Steve Porter and Ian Hammond) were pushing into Italian-held Bardia and were tasked with capturing a supply dump before its owners (Jason South and I) could blow it up!

The Supply dump occupied the triangular compound in the picture above.

Jason and I chose a 47mm AT gun (in case the Aussies brought tanks), a roadblock, and a couple of lengths of barbed wire. We also got two free entrenchments but we ended up deploying them stupidly and they were of little use during the game.

The roadblock is between the two houses near the 
damaged truck, the barbed wire beyond at the base
of the hill.

The Patrol Phase was over very quickly, somewhat to the surprise of both sides. We ended up with a skewed battle with the Australians' centre of mass way over on the Italian left.

Italian Jump-off-Points in red, Australian in blue

The game kicked off with the Australian players rolling three sixes thus ending the Turn and with it their pre-game bombardment. However, things went well for them from that point onwards. Despite a hastily deployed Italian anti-tank gun...

... their carrier section were able to rush forward and lock down the  Italian JoP beside the roadblock  before killing the gun crew at close range.

The Diggers surged forward over the next few phases.

Reduced to two, poorly placed, JoPs the Italians were in no position to put together a defensive line with interlocking fire. We managed to get an attached Afrika Korps section into the front of our position and decided that much of the Italian platoon should concentrate on setting the explosive charges.

One Italian squad moved up on the right, though.

Italian squads are huge and frequently
difficult to manage

2" mortar smoke reduced casualties on both sides and an Australian close assault was beaten off by the Germans.

Two Italian light machine-gun teams managed to occupy a building that gave them limited ability to enfilade the road in front of the German position but they lost their corporal putting the defenders' Force Morale down to dangerous levels.

In the end the Italians got their charges set and started the Final Countdown mechanism. With phases running out they were in the process of bugging out when an Aussie lieutenant made a dash into the compound to try and cut the wires to the explosives. 

He needed to score an 8 or higher on his movement dice but rolled seven! The retreating Afrika Korps men tried to drag him out of the compounds gateway as they passed but were unsuccessful.

Johno declared the game a marginal Italian victory but to be honest I think their Force Morale would have reached zero had the casualties for Germans caught in the blast been correctly assessed.

This was a fabulous game played in a great spirit (both sides pointing out things their opponents had missed), that both sides thought they'd lost at several points, and that went down to the last die roll of the last Phase. Terrific stuff!

I tried to capture some shots of all the other games:

David Hunter's Of Gongolfin and the Ruin of Maerbad,
Midgard Heroic Battles rules

Joe Bilton's Normandie '44
Chain of Command 2

Matt Slade's 1066 And All That (Hastings),
Midgard Heroic Battles

Ian Hemingway's What a Scaver,
What a Cowboy variant

Charley Walker's The Nelson Touch,
Kiss Me Hardy 2

John Savage's Tet à Tet, Vietnam variant Chain of Command 2

I'll share more pics in a future post but now on with the afternoon game.

This was Malcolm Bowe's Yom Kippur '73 game using the What a Tanker game system. I'd played WaT a couple of times previously and found that it worked OK but wasn't something I'd rush back to. The experience of the afternoon did nothing to enhance my opinion of the rules.

Malcolm's 10-12mm scale models were nicely painted and the use of dummy tank markers to disguise the enemy until actually acquired was interesting.

The MDF tank "dashboards" worked well and the terrain was convincingly Sinai-like.

Ultimately though, for me, the game failed. Let me express this in terms of the Simulation-Game-Narrative triangle.

As a simulation of Cold War era tank combat I couldn't buy it, particularly as on several occasions tanks were able to drive right up in front of an opponent, circle around behind them, and then shoot them a close range in the rear armour! This might be just believable among the hedgerows of Normandy but in the flat plains of Sinai it was simply ludicrous.

As a game, ideally testing opponents' skill and rewarding astute and informed play, it also failed. Apart from the complete inability to defend against the unrealistic tactics described above, the Israelis' only defence against the Saggers was to hope for improbably good luck. 

A further thought on mature reflection: the game was set on only the second day of the war so the Saggers were a new factor and making them impossible to defend against might just be realistic. 

Finally as a narrative, I found the game unengaging. Because the above factors made progress across the table of only marginal value and because the automatic replacement of casualties with new tanks meant there was little progress towards achievement of aims, the game devolved into a series of largely unconnected, mechanistic interactions.

I'm genuinely sorry to be so brutal in my assessment. Maybe it was just me; the other players seemed to enjoy it despite agreeing that the game bore little resemblance to reality.

I want to give some thought as to how WaT might be used to simulate modern warfare on the open plains of Sinai. Certainly some kind of overwatch/interruption mechanism is essential. 

As I understand it, once the initial shock had worn off, Israeli tank commanders adopted a number of measures to respond to Sagger ATGWs including popping smoke, reversing into their own dust cloud and having friends on overwatch to fire at and hopefully suppress the missile controller. Maybe something could be added to the scenario to reflect these factors.

-o0o-

On to happier matters. The whole event went off in the friendliest of manners and the evening social, with steak dinners at a pop-up restaurant on a local beef farm, was definitely the best of any Lardy Day I've attended. Well done John Savage for a stellar job of organisation despite some challenges in the months prior!

The Brawl

On Sunday Gus, Andy, Ron and Phil came over for a first go at Gangs of Rome.

I set the terrain up using most of my current Roman terrain on my Deepcut Studio mat. 

The horrea are warehouses, one of them newly built from a Warbases MDF kit and the other scratchbuilt, originally as a Late Roman church!

The foricae is a block of public toilets. I propped a ladder up against it and scattered some tools about. The aim was to encourage someone to climb up but also as a clue that the roof constituted dangerous terrain.

The Temple of Minerva and the "town house" are also Warbases kits, the latter a villa repurposed by means of some walls (part Hovels, part scratch built). The "temple under repair" is an old resin model I've had for years. Don't know the manufacturer or why I bought it but it was a good excuse to deploy my homemade scaffolding. 

I used a variation on the rulebook scenario called The Brawl. This struck me as a good way to introduce new players to the rules. Two street gangs were to fight each other with points being scored for putting enemies out of action. Double points were awarded for style, something achieved by taking out an enemy in a single activation by two or more means (e.g. missile combat and melee).

I departed from the published scenario in a few ways. Firstly I created 11 pre-generated Gang Fighters and allowed the opposing sides to choose from them. Two of the fighters (Junius the Thief and Molendinarius the Brawler) had additional abilities. If one side had ended up with both of these, the other side would have received the eleventh model. As it was both sides ended up with five members.

Molendinarius the Brawler
(who ended up in the Blue gang
despite his green cloak)

Junius the Thief

Both sides then picked a Leader, Scaevola for the Blue Gang and Lucretius for the Greens.

Scaevola - leader of the Blues

Lucretius - leader of the Greens

My final departure from the scenario-as-written was to allow deployment anywhere on the board. Not sure why I did that but it got the action sorted quickly!

Januarius and Lucretius fighting on the roof
of the small house

The action began with a fierce fight on and around the small house. Januarius of the Blues was put out of action almost immediately. As he took damage in melee and was then thrown off the roof by Lucretius, his demise was considered to have been achieved with style and two points were scored for the Greens. 

As the fighting continued, Lucretius was then attacked by Scaevola and Aerugo (he dodged Aerugo's pilum) before both he and Scaevola were in turn attacked by angry mobs!

At the end of the first turn all three Mobs (I only have three) were angry and the Disturbance Counter was down to six.

Game turn 2 began with Molendinarius being menaced by a Mob. Some childish amusement was had from the fact that the Mob in question was represented by a shepherd and his sheep.

Further amusement came from Rufinus and Parum Icarus throwing sacks at each other and missing.

The continued fight between the two Leaders, Scaevola and Lucretius, culminated in the latter being taken out. This gave the Blues three points (they missed out on doubling this as the crucial activation involved only a melee attack). 

Having just taken out Lucretius, Scaevola is attacked from
behind by an angry mob. Aerugo is still on the roof
of the small house.

The fight left Scaevola badly wounded but fortunately he'd brought with him a vial of Miraculous Ointment so after taking refuge in the walled garden of the townhouse he was able to recover.

Another mob had by now become scared...

The third turn saw mostly the two gangs throwing rocks at each other. The only point scoring coming when Molendinarius hit Musca with his gladius before throwing him bodily into one of the columns of the old temple. Two more points to the Blues!

Keep chucking the rocks boys!

Turn 4 saw more of the same; lots of brawling but no points scored. The shepherd and his sheep were now scared and the Disturbance Counter came down to 4 but that was as low as it would get in the game.

As the last turn started the Blues were well ahead on points but with a little more luck the whole action might have swung in the final moments. Although Blue leader Scaevola had made good use of his Miraculous Ointment, he had continued to take damage, not least from being attacked by the one remaining angry mob.

In almost the final action of the game Parum Icarus ran past Scaevola and onto the manicured lawn of the town house garden. In doing so he inflicted a point of damage using his Subtle Dagger. Reaching down he prized a rock from the sward and threw it a the head of Scaevola. 

Sadly for the Greens the rock missed and Scaevola would live to brawl another day. The Greens had just missed out on a potential six victory points!

The final action saw Rufinus take down Junius for a final point to the Blues.

Rufinus (right) attacks Junius while Molendarius (rear) assists

In the end, then, the removal of Leader Lucretius and Junius the Thief, along with the very cinematic fate of Musca saw the Blues finish with 6 victory points. Their opponents managed only to dispatch Januarius (albeit with style) and scored just two points.

Gangs of Rome proved popular with the players and we're seriously considering a campaign going forward. More on that and my thoughts so far on the rules to follow in a future post. 

On the workbench

I've been fairly busy over the last couple of weeks with a wide variety of modelling projects, fully illustrating my usual magpie-like approach to the hobby.

For Gangs of Rome I decided I'd like some Roman manhole covers. Access points to sewers and underground locations (I'm being careful to avoid spoilers here) appear in at least two of Lyndsey Davies's Marcus Didius Falco books and I wanted the option to include them in games. A little Googling found some images...

I played around with Tinkercad and managed to produce some approximations. I then stuck the prints to thin plasticard and added my usual Milliput crazy paving round them.

Suitably painted I think they're OK but I'll probably ditch the contrasting stone colour.

Also recently printed was this 1/300th scale Hungarian Air Force Me109:

Not brilliant but it'll do the job when my Magyars need fighter support.

Finally, I'm in the process of completing a second unit of Prussian dragoons for the 1812 campaign. Pictures of these when they're finished but I'm also playing with left-over parts to make a Sharp Practice Deployment Point. 

Not sure why the trumpeter is on foot while the rest of them are fighting; maybe his horse was killed?

A nice antique shop find

Our recent trip to the North East included a visit to Owl and Pussycat Antiques in Whitley Bay, one of the Baroness's favourite shops. An advantage of visiting such places with an experienced antique buyer is that by throwing in something small with a larger purchase, you often get your small purchase thrown in for nowt.

On this occasion I found a few packs of Wargames Factory 28mm plastics and decided that some German tribesmen might find a place as mercenary muscle in Gangs of Rome.

The figures are just about the same size as the official Gangs of Rome miniatures from Wargames Atlantic, which is slightly disappointing as I'd have liked to see my Germans noticeably taller than their Roman citizen opponents!

They aren't the best models - a bit wooden in pose. I think I'll probably base them singly for use in Infamy Infamy. 

Looting on the streets of ancient Rome

Today I had a first, solo, go at using the Gangs of Rome skirmish rules from Footsore Miniatures & Games.  

Looking back at this blog I see that I purchased version 2 of the rules at Fiasco in October last year but the serious push to actually play has been on-going for just five weeks. Not bad going!

I set up a 3'x3' area using my Deep Cut Studio city mat (with some plywood and a metre rule defining the playing area as the mat is 4'x4').

The buildings are a mixture of actually-Roman stuff built for Christmas 2018's Dark Ages game, some buildings that looked vaguely believable because of their pantile roofs, and a few pieces knocked together recently.

While the set up was on the table, Postie arrived with a couple of additional MDF building kits; a temple and a granary from Warbases. More on these later!

Having just used the basic rules, I've found them to be fun and quite clever in places. For example. I was wondering why they have separate "Move" and "Climb" activations when the distance moved is the same in both cases. The answer is that the results of failure are different between the two.

Fail your die roll to Move and you just stay where you started, fail you roll to climb and you fall half the height you were attempting to reach and take damage accordingly. Cleverly, though, climbing a ladder is counted as a move so is safer and potentially quicker than shinning up the scaffolding elsewhere.

I used the first scenario in the book in its "Core Rules" configuration. Basically it's won by the side that gets the lion's share of four resource tokens scattered around the board. On this occasion the Green Gang led by Molendinarius were successful.

I think Gangs of Rome would make for a great Saturday Afternoon Wargame[TM], possibly even giving us a campaign to follow the soon-to-be-finished Siege of Hachigata series.

Upgrading the dice tower - Revised!

As things stand my recently completed dice tower is a little plain. 

It was always my plan that I improve the thing to make it sit a little more comfortably among a range of terrain types. Adding a Neodymium magnet to the front wall has allowed me to attach a couple of temporary fixtures.  

This first one goes down the generic fantasy route:

It's a plastic bit, probably Games Workshop I guess, that's been in the spare bits box for years. It's painted in a dark bronze, dry brushed with brass and then covered in my usual home-made verdigris wash.

Alternatively I can bring the tower into a more historical setting with this little window.

It's made from pieces of thin card and an off-cut of Wills plastic pantile sheet.

And, added since the original post, another generic fantasy option is this:

First Gangs of Rome models

Three weeks ago I took delivery of a box of Wargames Atlantic plastic Citizens of Rome. Having spent a fair chunk of the intervening time gluing and painting I'm now very nearly in a position to get started with the rules. In fact I've painted 19 figures; very nearly one a day.

As I reported previously, the box gives you enough parts to make 30 miniatures with the emphasis on gang members in combat poses.

However I did manage to produce a few figures that will pass for less violence-focussed civilians:

The 80mm sabot base identifies these miniatures as composing a "mob" into which fighters may disappear if things get too hot.

The ducks are some white metal castings that were sitting in my spares box awaiting a useful purpose. the racks of amphorae are 3D prints from Thingiverse.

Another mob base is this shepherd and his flock, obviously more relevant to rural games or to muckier parts of the city.

At the moment I don't really have any Rome-specific terrain so this photoshoot features my Warbases villa standing in as a large town house.

A mixture of homemade and Hovels resin-cast walls provide privacy to the senatorial family who live here. It seems they aren't at home as a number of ne'er-do-wells have penetrated the garden.

Fortunately the Vigiles Urbani are on the way:

I've found scribed Milliput to be the best way of making paved bases. Here we see a couple of vigiles bases, before and after painting. Each base gets a coat of Vallejo Basalt Grey before the individual stones are picked out with Pale Grey.