Open Day 2022

After a two year break we are back with our Open Day. This when we put on many games and open our doors for all to come and visit and get a much wider idea of what we do and the games we play. We try to put on a good variety of games across all the popular periods and scales, all of which are open to visitors to join in.

This year the games we will have at the Open Day are:
Fallujah Show Game – Modern (20mm)
Hammers Slammers – Sci-Fi (6mm)
Spanish Civil War – SCW (15mm)
Biggles Show Game – Fantasy (25mm)
FoG Game – Renaissance (6 or 15mm)
Zona Alfa – Sci-Fi (28mm) – Put on by the Milton Hundred Wargames Club

Further details of some of the games can be seen below:

Fallujah Show Game – Modern (20mm)

Fallujah, Iraq, 2004. Adjusted Force on Force rules. 20mm scale.

This game represents a small area of the city of Fallujah and is between the US Marines and the Iraqi insurgents. This conflict attracted ‘foreign fighters’ from all over the Middle East and as far afield as Chechnya and Europe to fight Jihad against the Coalition forces. Players can be either USMC or Insurgents, both controlling fire teams/squads of troops.

Various heavy kit (AFVs, Heli’s, Arty etc) can enter the table through the drawing of Fog of War cards throughout the game.

Hammers Slammers – Sci-Fi (6mm)

The campaign on Roche’s World had been a long, drawn out affair. It initially started as a minor internal scuffle over mining rights between the Sons of All Mankind, a grouping of colonists mainly of African extraction (the name was a reference to the origin of modern man in the African continent) and the New Baltic Union, a colony whose ancestors arrived on the same ship from Northern Europe several decades later. Like all decent civil wars, it spread unchecked to encompass agricultural and fishing rights, access to the planet’s only decent starport and, finally – the main cause of most of humanity’s more irrational wars – religion.

Both sides rapidly exhausted their own modest security forces and to prolong the agony started hiring mercs. The NBU pinned their hopes on two experienced armoured battlegroups; the more senior (ie better paid and expected to handle the bulk of the heavy lifting) were the Zaporiskiye Brigade with their preponderance of modern main battle tanks. The other was the recently reorganised Anders’ Legion, a unit which had endured its share of ups and downs (including the death of the original Colonel Anders in suspicious circumstances). Anders’ son Jens, a tank platoon commander at the time of his father’s demise, inherited the family business, gave himself a promotion and restored the Legion’s status and finances. He oversaw a re-equipment program that introduced the Rapier heavy tank to the Legion’s inventory as well as upgrading the infantry’s half-tracks.

The SoAM countered by engaging Colonel Alois Hammer and his feared regiment, known as Hammer’s Slammers. Equipped as well as any unit in existence, this elite armoured force was to provide the spearpoint of a thrust deep into NBU territory and bring the war to a rapid close. Unfortunately, having mortgaged their future and that of several generations to come, SoAM were unable to provide much else in the way of supporting forces beyond their own poorly equipped and badly led militia, so the initial attack failed to get off the ground and the whole campaign degenerated into a quagmire of small skirmishes and police actions. Hammer was forced to disperse his troops into small packets in order to fend off the attentions of several other less experienced (ie cheap to hire) but tenacious merc units that kept popping up on the NBU’s side of the front line. The Slammers were winning, but only very slowly.

So Colonel Hammer was not a happy man.The extended campaign had frittered away many of his seasoned troops, not to mention the wear and tear on some very expensive hover tanks. Few had been lost to enemy action – the enemy didn’t have much that could defeat the armour of an Icarus M2A4 blower tank – but a worrying number were stuck in repair compounds and firebases with worn out fan bearings, damaged skirts or fritzed electronics. And to cap it all, he’d heard that this cursed civil war had come to the attention of the Terran Authority, who had elected themselves as peacemakers. A ship full of TA Starmarines was due to land in Langerhaven, the planet’s only starport, with a brief to end the fighting. If this happened, Bonding Authority rules dictated that none of the mercenary units would get their full campaign bonus, only their basic fee. Hammer had negotiated an outrageous completion clause with the SoAM and he needed that money – tanks cost a lot to repair and replace, and the men and women of his regiment could desperately use some R&R.

So he had a plan. Gathering together the bulk of his remaining tanks and combat cars, he was going to go hell for leather for Langerhaven’s starport and seize it to prevent the TAS from touching down. Roche’s World had a bizarre, shifting magnetic field caused by the irregular orbits of its three solid nickel-iron moons, which required any descending ships to be guided down by a network of surface radar stations positioned around the starport. If these could be disabled, even temporarily, the TAS ships would be stranded in orbit and Hammer could finish the war and claim his completion fee.

The problem was, he couldn’t just do it the easy way and blow up the radars with a 20cm powergun bolt – if he wanted to get off this damnable planet, they needed to be kept intact so that the Slammers’ own transports could get them out of here afterwards. So each of the five stations had to be seized and shut down (the tech guys told him that they could literally just walk in and throw the main circuit breakers, it was no more complicated than that) but they dare not damage anything if they wanted to get offworld. And they had to move fast – the TAS ship, the Liberty, had already entered the system.

Intel told him that the radar bunkers were protected by detachments of Guardforce O’Higgins, an Irish unit with a history of problems ranging from drunk and disorderly behaviour while on liberty to a complete collapse of morale – virtual mutiny – during a campaign on Rhynn. So they shouldn’t be a problem, their motley collection of light tanks and APCs were no more than upgraded farm tractors compared to an M2. The satellite surveillance network had been down for several days, temporarily knocked out by a magnetic storm, but the last sitrep showed that the nearest decent forces, a Zaporiskiye composite battalion group, were miles away. A small ship had somehow managed to land at the port two days ago but was thought to be carrying nothing more than humanitarian aid and food supplies for the suffering populace, which had been whisked off to the NBU capital, Nye Oslo, by the monorail that served the starport.

Hammer gathered his senior staff and went through the plan. Time was of the essence if they were to get off this damn rock with their reputations – and bank balances – intact…

Spanish Civil War – SCW (15mm)

Cross fire is an innovative set of World War 2 rules focusing on infantry action at Company level. There are no fixed game turns and no rulers providing a fluid fast moving game which puts the players at the heart of the action focusing on tactical decisions rather than seeking refuge in the rulebook. The ruleset is suitable for other periods and as the armour rules are simple and abstract, they are a good choice for the Spanish Civil War.
A set of 6 mini scenarios are available based on a 2’ square board which will be used for the open day event, each game lasting about an hour so this would provide an ideal introduction to the rules for anyone interested. We may even introduce a chess clock to increase the tension!

Biggles Show Game – Fantasy (25mm)

The labyrinth awaits the explorers

Biggles flies (even further) north, following a trail of clues to the Svalbard archipelago. Biggles and Co. confront old enemies and new; dastardly Nazi’s, NKVD and a lost tribe of Vikings, in the search for the lost Professor Lovell and a mythical energy source.

Explore the lost labyrinth, rescue (or capture the professor), locate the mythical Ragnarok stone and either escape with it or prevent it falling into malevolent hands.

 

BLACK FRIDAY; PEACH TREES MALL, 3 MILE ISLAND EXCLUSION ZONE
PENNSYLVANIA, USA

A Game of Zona Alfa by the Milton Hundred Wargames Club

Peachtree Mall

In 1979 the Three Mile Island Unit 2 reactor suffered a critical meltdown. The resulting explosion caused radioactive fallout to contaminate an area 15 miles wide. The “3 Mile Exclusion Zone” was set up almost immediately, and the area has been abandoned ever since. At least, that’s what everyone is told…

Strange artefacts are beginning to appear on the black market and in wealthy persons private collections. Most of these artefacts are mundane, but a few exhibit strange qualities. Allegedly, these items are from the “Zone”; it turns out there’s a thriving community of daredevils braving the guards and the radiation to go treasure hunting.

Rumours have begun to circulate of a treasure hunter who found an access key to the 3 Mile Bank’s vault. The last anyone heard, he was headed to Peach Trees Mall. If you get there first, you could be set for life…