A Day of Virtual Lard

It's amazing where a tweet can lead you.

I'd been simply responding to a wonderful picture Derek Hodge had shared of his mix of Wargames Atlantic and Victrix models to create some incredibly Ray Harryhausen-esque Greek Skeletons.  (You can read about them here.) Conversation moved to gaming (definitely the lack of it in my case!) and before you know it, I was very kindly invited to join a virtual game of Sharpe Practice set during the French Indian War on the Sunday afternoon via Discord.  

Absolutely bowled over to be asked, I had a thoroughly wonderful gaming session with some excellent gents.  It was my first wargame since February, truth be told.  And the chance of gaming Sharp Practice was a real dream come true.

And as that came to an end, I learned of Virtual Lard 3 to take place on Saturday 3rd October.  The games were on the Discord channel.  Signing up was available from midnight that night.  I was put in touch with Jeremy and warmly invited to the server.  And a few days later I found I was one of the lucky eighty people to be allocated not just one, but two games.  The morning I would be led by the excellent Shaun Randell in 'Barkmann Corner Overdrive' for What a Tanker!.  And in the afternoon the equally brilliant John Savage would lead a group of us in A Winter's Tale, a game of Infamy, Infamy.  

Honestly, I was like a kid in a candy store.

And boy was I in for a treat!

Two games with good folks, led by wonderful gents who did a power of work to make these games happen.  I played with people I've only ever had the chance of interacting with through Twitter. (And to be honest, I hadn't joined the dots between all the handles and the people I hadn't realised I had already met in this way!)  
Barkmann Corner Overdrive
As one of five Sherman 75mm Tanks, our job was to take out the solitary Panther at the other end of the table commanded by Andy.  My thanks go to Ioan for screen capturing the images of this one!

I managed to get ahead early in the game, and hide as best as a Sherman can behind a hedge.  And there I sat, overlooking a wheat field and acquiring the target in the edge of some nearby woods.  For some reason Mike's Sherman seemed a better target than mine.  This, you'll understand, was a shame for Mike (who would go on to receive a fair bit of track damage as the game wore on, but not get blown up) but a bonus for myself.  
Joined by two other tanks on the same flank, my shots weren't doing much by way of damaging the Panther.  But they did make him realise he would be better somewhere else.  And as he began to retreat, round the farmhouse you can see in these pictures, I decided the best thing to do was get in quick and let off a shot up his rear.  I got to the edge of the farmhouse, but the dice meant I was just short of getting a bead on him.  Oh well, I thought, at least he's gunning for Mike again.  And then, as The Colonel came into range and began trying to fire, another of those pesky cards was played.  And before I knew it, Barkmann was reversing right towards me.
Our muzzles practically met as his gunner fired.  

How he didn't damage me is anyone's guess.  That this happened again before I could move was beyond my understanding.  I tried to shoot back, but apart from making hims lose a Command Dice temporarily, my shots were just bouncing off him. 
And then, as I managed to back off, Andy's bad dice turned and I blew up.  I'd like to add that I began on the table edge the following turn, and managed to get across the table to acquire and aim.  But the fire dice eluded me.  

And after a dance around a brick shed left too many rear ends exposed for any game to remain totally innuendo-free, The Colonel took out Barkmann.  Nice going for his first game of What a Tanker!

A Winter's Tale
Frazer and I had the Britons, whose job it was to stop Centurion Crismus Bonus getting the supply wagon across the table to the fort. RevBoone and Simon had the job of making that happen for the Romans.  I was absolutely psyched to be playing my first game of Infamy, Infamy, and well chuffed to be playing the Britons.

Wanting to get some of our forces on the table quickly to generate some fervour, the cards let us deploy both sets of skirmishers and the massive body of warriors on the table before any Romans had really managed to appear.  This we decided was a good thing.  
And before you knew it, Anticlimax was building up some fury. 
And then it really was a case of Infamy, Infamy, the cards have it infamy!  Out rolled the Romans in perfect order, and along came the cart rolling along behind them.  The cards for our troops weren't appearing before the Tempus Fugit, time and time again.  Our Force Morale wasn't affected, but Frazer and I were beginning to wonder if we weren't facing the inevitable.  The Roman archers were raining fire on the warriors.  And I clearly wasn't helping them either.  The one time they activated, they had decided to stand their ground and build up fervour.  Trouble was, I rolled a one.  Which put them all down to a 1.  And that archery fire, and the blooming great Scorpio they had firing into the rear ranks from the fort quickly meant we had shock and not fervour building, and no leaders activated to stem the tide. It was bleak for a while.  
And then things got worse.  Our skirmishers were repelled.  As too were our cavalry skirmishers who, incidentally, managed to flee right into the path of our only opportunity to ambush with the chariots whose card was clearly never going to appear before the Tempus Fugit card.  With no other option available to us, our warriors made a charge at the Legionaries.  It wan;t easy for them.  Laden with shock and not fervour, massive scorpio bolts sticking out their backs and Pilum poking out their chests they ran into the fray...  Well, one of the four groups did.  The others didn't make it in.  

We had a choice when the chariots had a chance to come on: do so without sufficient signa to ambush anything and hope for the best (not easy with some Roman Cavalry waiting for us to do so) or hold off, waiting for the moment that was clearly not going to come.  Thankfully we'd been able to move on the skirmish cavalry that were in the way, and we brought them on.  They could do nothing.

Tempus Fugit again.

And at this point, the cards let those pesky Roman Cavalry activate.

Well, we weren't having any of that now, were we.  No siree.  Checking with Fraser by waving the card in front of my camera, we played the card.  It allowed us to interrupt with an on table unit that hadn't activated.  We pushed the chariots forward, dropped off the noble warriors with Dominatrix n front of the auxiliaries, and retired them as rallying points.  The auxiliaries fell back against this massive onslaught of fervour and javelins.  Crismus Bonus can't hold the Romans together, and as the line falls apart (despite holding half of the Nobles off from smashing the cart) theri force morale drops into the negative.



Crismus Bonus was defeated.  The wagon survived, but the way was blocked. And against all hope, the Britons were victorious!

I simply can't thank Jeremy enough for organising Virtual Lard 3, and I will remain forever in his debt for having the chance to get involved in the day's games.  I woke up this morning with a massive smile on my face remembering all the fun I had the day before.  A massive shout out to Jeremy, Shaun Randell  for What a Tanker and John Savage for my first ever game of Infamy, Infamy. Shaun and John led us through their games with consummate skill, wisdom, patience, advice and support whilst racking up their pedometers by the thousands as they dashed around their respective tables and made everything run so smoothly.  

I'd also like to give a massive shout out to everyone I had the privilege of gaming with.  I wish I'd written down your handles to name you all.  Whether you're mentioned by name above, or missed out due to my own ignorance, can I thank you all for being brilliant and so welcoming.  It wasn't just a brilliant day, it was some of the best gaming I've ever had.  Covid-19 might have mucked up many of our own gaming plans this year, but Virtual Lard brought together fellow Lardies from all over.  I was privileged to game with good gents I probably wouldn't have had the chance to game with in any other circumstances. 

And that's not hyperbole. It's an honest to goodness statement of facts.   It was an incredible day, and I'm privileged to have been a part of it. 

Thanks for letting me share just a flavour of it with you in this post.

Take care, stay safe and spread the Lard!
 

Comments

  1. Great write up Stiu and I reinforce your praise to the organisers. A lot of work went into that day. Also my thanks to you for being the sacrificial lamb that ultimately allowed me to hit Andy where it hurt - up the chuff!
    From The Colonel

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Good to hear from you sir! And I was much obliged to you for honouring my sacrifice with a marvellous shot!

      Delete

Post a Comment