The Battle of Tribola 147 BC at Hereward wargames show

Made my first trip to the Hereward show in Peterborough yesterday, putting on a To The Strongest! game with James Morris and Simon Miller, along with Matt and Doug. 
James devised a scenario based upon the named action, where a column of Romans impetuously followed their Lusitanian foe into a valley where they were properly ambushed. I supplied the Romans, Simon is the author of these rather spiffing rules, and James brought his lovely Spanish army and all of the scenery - including the rather special mountain that was, of course, Keren in a previous life.

View from the mountainside

The Spanish start to realise that the Romans aren't running away!

Simon doing the wargamers point

Simon explaining finer points of the rules

All in all a very successful day. I didn't actually play - mostly hovering about chatting with punters and helping the gamers who joined in.

We all expected the scenario to pretty much lead to a Roman squishing, but the first game went on for ages and actually very nearly turned into a Roman victory as Tim (I think) , took grave offence at the audacity of these Iberians, and went on the offensive, not trying to withdraw his army at all, but rather crush the Lusitanians in toe-to-toe combat!

The Romans get offensive!

In the afternoon, a rather smaller engagement was played, using the leading legions , and I believe this went a little more to plan, with Matt being assisted by a young lady who took the glory.

I had a bit of a look around the show but didn't buy anything. (apart from a bacon cob!) It's noticeable how many smaller games there are these days - lots of 'big skirmishy' type of things - not that that's a bad thing - people seemed to be having a lot of fun over both halls, and many games were still in full swing as the traders were packing up after 4 o'clock.

Having picked up Sharp Practice 2 this year, I've yet to have a game, and I'm starting to work out the best way to do it. (I'd really like to collect stuff for the 'Maximillian adventure' but cost is a limiting factor).

A few crappy pictures from around the show..

This was actually a very loud and fun game, doesn't look like it here does it?

Culloden

I was just thinking.. 'Could I use Sharp Practice' for Mars? And Yes, yes you can.

A real masterpiece this one - Benfleet

Now that's what 'Saga' should look like!

A few more pictures just didn't come out very well, but there were some other nice looking games on display.