I was lucky enough to be invited to visit the TooFatLardies HQ on Lard Island on Thursday 29th August, where I was joined by Mike Hobbs, famous contributor to Neil Shuck’s Meeples & Miniatures podcast and author of the Lardies’ War of 1812 special. The reason was to playtest and comment on two river crossing scenarios that I had designed for my column in Wargames, Soldiers & Strategy magazine issue 104, which should be plopping onto your doormats pretty much as you listen to this, so that article can be read in conjunction with the podcast. (The image below shows my initial sketch maps, which will have been beautifully rendered by Rocío at WSS.)
As it turns out, and contrary to what I predicted in my little ten minute special published before the event, we actually played the second, more complex scenario first using the “Big” version of Chain of Command. Rich had decided to adapt my map and turned the table so that we played up the length, rather than across the width, and we discuss that decision early in this podcast.
We were joined in our chat following the CoC game by Alistair Campbell-Grieve, known as @BalooGames on Twitter, and I was able to convince him to contribute his thoughts both as a wargamer and as a soldier who has served in live operations, which added an interesting perspective to our discussions. Clearly, the Lardy rules pass the ‘plausibility’ test.
After lunch, Mike and I stepped back in history to play out the other scenario, this time set in the Peninsular War, with me commanding the French and Mike taking the role of the British with Spanish partizan allies. A tremendously fast and fun game, this restored my morale after having been handed something of a drubbing in the first, and again we sat down for a post-game opportunity to chew the wargaming fat.
Not only was it a wonderful day of gaming with lovely fellows (and a memorable evening of revelry followed these proceedings), but it was also a great opportunity to record a Battlechat with some of the great thinkers of the hobby. You may have already noticed that I really like to get below the surface of things when I can, and this day was no different, an exercise in the philosophy of gaming as much as an opportunity to have fun and shove pretty toys around on pretty tables.
So, my heartfelt thanks to Rich, Nick and Mike, and also to Ally for so sportingly allowing himself to be dragged into the chat.
Henry
P.S. Note that most of this podcast was recorded as a “live’ outside broadcast, with all the hazards that implies from passing airliners to the clink of glasses filled with bubbly fluids.
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