Overlord and overwatch

The second night of the Soor game was postponed for the most topical of reasons, but I do have some wargaming to report. As a first stop on my trip to London I went to the Overlord show in Abingdon. Now, you have probably spotted that Abingdon is neither in London, nor anywhere near the route from Leeds to London. Still, what's a bit of a diversion between friends? It was very quiet when we arrived, but that probably wasn't surprising as it was mid-afternoon. I would say it was about the same size as Fiasco: fewer traders perhaps, but more games - and better lighting, although I still didn't take any photos. Shopping on the day was restricted to a plastic kit of a WWI ambulance, although I have subsequently ordered a strip of railway track matting from Tinywargames based on a conversation I had at their stand there.

The next day I spent playing a couple of games with Don, previously outed here as my very first wargames opponent from a lifetime ago. I'm sorry to have to report that he hasn't aged as well as your bloggist, although he still had sufficient of his marbles left to take me through both 'Chain of Command' and a preview of the not yet released 'Infamy, Infamy'. These days Don runs with Rich Clarke's posse and is an expert on Too Fat Lardies rules, which doesn't in any way explain why I won both games, despite never having played either before.

The CoC game in particular was a complete travesty. Having unsurprisingly come off worse in the patrol phase I compounded the error by putting a rifle section (I was playing early war French and defending) in a house that could be, and was, battered by fire from many attackers at once. About the only thing I did right was not to bring all my forces on too soon. Having been seriously outflanked I was considering throwing in the towel when I consecutively threw four sets of double sixes out of five dice and so got four turns in a row and was able to reduce the opposition morale to zero before Don could respond. It didn't bear much resemblance to the games we played as teenagers, except that Don was the Germans and seemed to have substantially better troops and greater firepower; that definitely rang a bell.

Second up was the work-in-progress that is 'Infamy, Infamy', with the development of which Don has been quite involved. I confess to having become a bit confused between the detailed mechanics of CoC and I,I by that point, but I enjoyed it a lot. It seems not dissimilar in some ways to 'Through the Mud and the Blood', although the concept of fervour is a well-thought through differentiation between Romans and barbarians. I shall definitely be buying a copy when it is eventually finished and published. I'm not sure how I won this one; mostly by avoiding fighting the legionaries I think.

So a nice time was had by all. It was actually Don's birthday, but thankfully there was less vomiting than I recall from our birthday celebrations as young men. Many thanks to him and Julie for the hospitality.