This week we thought we would show you what a day at the Maidstone Wargames Society looks like. As a reminder the society meets on the second and fourth Saturday of each month at the Linton Village Hall between 10am to 5pm, which gives members enough time to pay a couple of quick games or to play something larger.
At our 12th of October meeting there were six games covering quite a varied array of periods and scales.
We start with the game from our featured image above. Andy and Stephen have started a short campaign of the Norman conquest using the Lion Rampant ruleset.
Both have extensive 28mm dark age armies which means as well as being able to play larger battles they also have enough miniatures to represent both forces. This allows them to accommodate new players to the period or scale.
That’s always been an advantage to being in a club or society. I had no dark age miniatures when I first joined, but other members provided miniatures so I could try out new rules and games to see if I wanted to get involved.
We did this for the Saga rules and I now have a sizeable Viking and Anglo Saxon force of my own.
For that big battle feeling Paul put on a Napoleonic battle using 3mm miniatures.
Paul was trying out some home grown rules and the game was a good example of one player providing all of the forces for this epic battle.
All Paul needed were some willing volunteers and so a number of other members joined in to test the rules.
For this meeting Tony F and I had a practice game of Xenos Rampant. There’s normally a good mix of historical and fantasy or sci-fi at the society. I’d not played Xenos Rampant and asked Tony who had played a couple of games to go through the rules with me.
The games were played using 15mm miniatures, but my Xeno Rampant army was still on the painting table and so I used some of my other sci-fi miniatures that would work at any scale.
Namely some 6mm scale mechs and some 28mm powered armour that also double up as suitable armoured mechs for 15mm.
Tony F provided the terrain for the games and we managed to really test the rules and get two games in on the day.
Mark J and Felix had been painting like mad to get ready for the Vietnam game they were putting on. Often at the society someone will put on a larger game that can accommodate a number of players. I believe this game had six members playing on the day.
Again a great advantage of being a member. When real life gets in the way it’s great to be able to just turn up an play. No need to prepare anything, you don’t even need to bring dice or a tape measure, although there is always a shortage of the latter!
The Vietnam game was a nice big one using several of the tables available, giving the US forces lots of jungle to get through.
I didn’t ask who won, but each time I looked over the table there were a number of concerned faces.
John La was also testing out some rules he is writing covering the notorious boarder reiver period along the Anglo-Scottish boarder.
A number of members have been regularly helping John with the rules, I’ve not played it myself, but I do believe the games are now flowing very well.
Also nice to have games that are more scenario based and not just a straight forward battle to challenge players in other ways to achieve victory.
Speaking of scenarios the sixth game at the meeting was provided by Eric who put on a Call of Cthulhu role playing session. A number of members jumped at the chance of a bit of RPG action. In recent times the society has seen a number of members run role playing games.
If you are interested in joining the society or just want to come and have a look at what we do, either to learn more about the hobby or re-kindle your enthusiasm for miniature wargaming check out the details on our about the Maidstone Wargames Society page., or come down to one of our meetings, you can see what we currently have planned on our diary page.
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