Lard Workshop the Third

 And so to The Old Chemistry Theatre at Nottingham Trent University for the third August in a row. Had readers given it any thought I suspect that they might have imagined a lecture theatre, or possibly a laboratory of some sort. However it looks like this:

It reminds me of an orangery. You can see why it got so hot in the sweltering summer of 2022. It was bearable this year, although all those hard surfaces still made it difficult to hear anything. The keen-eyed among you may notice that amongst the expected crowd of fat, old blokes there are a couple of lady gamers. There were three altogether, out of a total of fifty-two participants, and I am pleased to say that I got to share a game with one of them; literally the first time I have ever wargamed with a female in more that fifty years in the hobby; a red letter day.

I had two excellent games of Sharp Practice, which I'd never played before. It's obviously similar enough to many of the other Two Fat Lardies games, but I think I preferred it. I can understand why I have heard those more committed to the cult of Lard say that it's their favourite. Being card driven the flow of action is by design somewhat arbitrary, but the flag cards do allow players to seize back an element of control, although at the risk of potentially forgoing better opportunities further down the line. That mix of randomness and choice hits the spot for me.

First up was a French and Indian War set game in which I found myself playing Pontiac, who is pretty much bang in the middle of the photo above although you'll need to zoom in quite a bit to see him. Sadly I didn't take any photos of his later successes, when he got tired of standing off and skirmishing and led two successive charges, routing enemy units each time. It goes without saying that they were units of irregulars, even I'm not foolhardy enough to charge British regulars in line. The game ended in an honourable draw, which is of course a euphemism for saying that we all fannied about for so long that we ran out of time. Excellent fun though, and many thanks to Ken Welsh for putting it on.

The afternoon game was set in the Sudan; I put my name down for this one because that period may be James's current project, but (lack of) progress to date has been such that I though I'd look elsewhere for a taste of the desert in case I don't last enough to play with his toys. I must remember to take more photos of these things because the one above shows the position before the hordes of natives arrive and therefore lacks a certain something. The background is that two of the Governor's staff - a Mrs Slocum and a Miss Brahms - have been captured and are being held hostage in the building at the back. I was on the British team and we had force marched to recue them and had to get them back off the opposite edge of the table. First though we get to get into the building, and we decided to shoot first; after all that's our advantage, modern firearms. Sadly our technology was having a bad day; if the Gatling gun jammed once it jammed half a dozen times and the rifles seemed better at obscuring everything with smoke than with hitting the target. The Mahdists, amped up with suitable religious fervour, swept down upon us in sufficient numbers that some were bound to get through. In the end we launched an assault on the house and captured it, but achieved no more than ensuring that the ladies didn't die alone. It was a fairly abject defeat, but really enjoyable while it lasted. Thanks to Chris Smith for putting it on.

I have not got much else to say about Britcon - of which the Lard Workshop is a subset - except that it was good value and the lunch was rather nice. I eschewed the opportunity to go and gawp at the Perry twins, and my only purchase was 'The War of the Three Sanchos', and that was on a whim. I can tell you nothing about it yet as it remains unopened.