Annual General Meeting Saturday 13 April 2002
after action report
Well, contrary to expectations, there was a fine turnout on the day, with 19 members present for for the AGM (Happy 21st Birthday!), not to mention a fine variety of games. To prove it, the following photo was taken, those not wearing their HKSW shirts being relegated to the back row.
Apologies to James who missed out on the photo opportunity.
The minutes of the AGM are to be found here.
We bid a fond farewell to Adrian, Matt and Denny, all of whom shortly will or have already moved overseas. Adrian to Shanghai, Matt to Australia and Denny to Canada. Come back and visit when you can.
The
great turnout for the AGM gave us the opportunity to stage a DBM/DBA
competition. The theme was “Biblical” using DBM Book One armies
so Philippe, Jeff, Dieter, Dave, Chris L, Chris B and Peter girded up
their loins in a standard cup/plate knockout format. Although we
were playing for prizes of Early Imperial Roman DBA armies generously
donated by
The game setup worked well and combined elements of DBA, (12 element
armies, small, 30” square, playing areas,) and DBM, (rules and points
cost,) to give us the best of both worlds. The games were played between
equal points, historically matched opponents as follows: “Let My People
Go”- Saitic Egyptians vs Later Hebrew, “Like A Wolf At The Fold”-
Assyrians vs Babylonians, “The Plains And The Hills”- Thessalians vs
Thracians, “The Lions Of The Desert”-Midianites vs Syrian Settlers,
“Stallions and Kings”- Scythians vs Medes, and “Democracy and Divine
Right”- Athenians vs Persians.
In the first round Jeff took out Phil, David defeated Dieter, and Peter
smited Chris B. Chris L drew the bye. Phil beat Dieter in the semis
of the plate whilst Chris B drew the bye this time. Thus Phil and Chris B
clashed in the plate finals somewhere in
So over the four hours everyone got three games, lots of loins were
girded and enemies smited, many libations were made to the gods and a
jolly good time was had by all. Everyone looked spiffy in their
Society T-shirts and now that the idea of a dress code has taken off the
organizers are considering making loin cloths compulsory too next time!
The
visual highlight of the day was without doubt the Stalingrad game played
by Michael and Richard, which was a first play test of Easy Eight’s
Battleground World War II rules. The
terrain which was designed to
look like
The
Easy Eight rules are designed as skirmish rules and can be used for a
variety of figure scales on a one to one unit scale. The
rules use a 20 sided dice as standard, have a turn based sequence and use
a random initiative system (only if you remember to bring a pack of
cards!).
The
turn sequence has five phases:
1.
Mark
Special Fire Modes – pinning fire, ambush, etc.
2.
Rally
Phase
3.
Squad
Morale
4.
Artillery
Phase
5.
Actions
Phases
1 – 4 are simultaneous, but the Actions Phase, which is the heart of the
system where the figures move, fire and die, is where the random
initiative comes into play. Each
figure receives two actions in this phase (unless wounded or otherwise
incapacitated) so that a figure may move twice, move and fire, or, fire
and move.
The
shooty bit requires a sighting check before you can fire, which should
help to avoid most arguments on line of sight.
The effects from a hit range from simply making the figure itself
take a moral check up to blowing the figure to bits and making the ones
next to it take a moral check. In
the game one of the tough Russian NKVD was fired upon, ran away to hide
and next turn became a craven coward!
Since
re-reading the rules it is apparent that lot of mistakes were made, and
that further play testing will be necessary before Michael and Richard can
say that they have fully understood them. One
criticism of the rules so far is that there is a lot of paperwork and
tables to go through and slows down the action, hopefully this will get
better as we play more. They
can definitely see some quick play laminated chart sets or cheat sheets on
the horizon!
Paul
and John tried out the well known rules 'Warfare in the Age Of Reason', in
preparation for a French and Indian War game to be held in the next few
months. It is hoped to stage that classic encounter between Montcalm and
Wolfe, The Battle of Quebec 1759, on the
They decided to set up a simple game with the figures already available to
us with an emphasis on the linear tactics of the period.
Both sides had roughly 6 regiments each.
Since
they would not be using The Jersey Blues or any of the militia regiments
for the main battle it was decided to use them in the trial game. Paul
as British commander had 2 militia regiments, 1 Provincial Line regiment,
1 Regular line Regiment, 1 Medium artillery and a regiment of Rangers.
John, commanding the French, had 4 Regular line Regiments, 1
Militia Regiment, 1 light artillery, and an unit of Indians.
The French with superiority in Regular troops felt that the day would be
theirs, bolstering their confidence for the upcoming big fight!
French confidence saw them maintain their tradition of inviting the
British to open fire first. Unfortunately
this led to the French artillery failing a morale test and deciding to
'leg it', (which is why they probably will not turn up for the
The Warfare in the Age of Reason rules got a thumbs up (especially from
Paul!), the charts and game systems were fairly simple and quick once we
had gotten used to them. A
further reading of the rules will iron out some of the queries and
questions that came up and both look forward to another trial game soon.
Last but not least, Franklyn, Ludovic, Chris Mackreth and Andrzej played the second edition of History of the World. The game, which is designed for 6 players was only play with 4, James unfortunately having to disappear for a few hours due to work commitments. The game worked well despite the reduced numbers. After trailing in last position from turns 2 to 5, Andrzej made a miraculous comeback in the last 2 moves and carried the day; which is only to be expected as its his game!