Carronade '19

Another annual FDWC show over and done on Saturday there and with the weather pretty much perfect, the crowds managed to attend in good numbers and all seemed to generally enjoy the day oot.

The show still seems to grow even though I thought things were at capacity last year but with a couple of extra traders and games on from last years numbers, the guys having opened up another area for hosting things I think things must be at the limit now.

The show was busy from the get-go and didn't really tail off until mid to late afternoon. The traders all reported a bristling trade which is good and all the clubs attending saw plenty of interest in their respective offerings.

The Flea market was bigger than before and was populated for the whole day and the painting competition saw it's highest ever number of excellent entries, so all in all a successful day.

Some of the games in view in the back hall;

In the centre hall;

In the front Hall;

And in the hall upstairs;

The Painting competition as I said had it's highest level of entries to date and with a very good standard too. All the categories had a decent number of entries this year, so all the categories were a competition which is good to see, particularly the Junior category (which even had an entrant at the grand age of 3!).

Some Competition entries;

And the category winners;

Another tiring but enjoyable day, chatting to Joe Public and catching up with bods you only see at shows from the greater wargames fraternity. Next years show is already under planning.

Thud & Blunder Trial

This weeks activities centered around a trial run through of the Thud & Blunder rules from The Ministry of Gentlemanly Warfare  chaps.

A five sided punch up with a fairly standard hunt the treasure and duff up nasty Trolls scenario to keep things simple for the first trial.

Andy W supplied most of the war bands for the trial and Cardboard Ken providing the terrain for the punch up. Myself. Andy W, Ken, Eck and Dougie sat down for the run through with Ken supplying his own band and Andy providing the pre-generated bands for the rest of us.


The five sided game went pretty well and provided a fun evenings entertainment and lots of food for thought for making up our own bands, which was the point of the trial after all. I was playing the Town Watch with generic knight and guard types with a wizard thrown in.

The wizard died almost instantly being a big target for obvious reasons but with limited range spells was easy bait for Dougie's orc archers. The combats about the town went well and eventually Dougie claimed the victory with the most victory points having killed almost all of my band, escaped with treasure and killed a troll.

I took a consolation prize for my knight being the last man standing after everyone else had left, but that was just me, everyone else was leaving anyway.

The rules use the well worn IHMN mechanics which work fine. The introduction of heavier armour types do make some problems with some match-ups being impossible, like my archer shooting at Ken's knight with heavy armour (AV14) could only hope to hit him on a 10 (d10) if he stood in the open and not moving saying 'shoot me'. But if you know the limitations then perhaps not much of an issue. We'll see.

The main thing noticed and agreed by all was that you need to make up your own band to suit your play style and play to strengths. Some well crafted scenario's would certainly make the game a must.

Will be playing the rules again definitely to explore them further and looking forward to some enjoyable games in the process.