Southend Wargames Club

As announced by e-mail a couple of days ago, I am able to arrange a game at my place over the weekend 13th, 14th & 15th November. It can occupy more than one day if there is interest in doing that but I suspect it will be the Saturday (14th) that most people will prefer.

If you can let me know what period you would prefer, I'll lay out the terrain, prepare a scenario and do any paperwork necessary (Game cards, etc.) I have troops for both sides if we go for a Napoleonic but will need troops from other members for any other period.

Let me know your preferences this Thursday evening.

Cheers,

Mike

The ACW was probably the first period I gamed, using Airfix figures. In the early 1960's there was not a great deal of support out there, and I largely made up the rules based largely on ranges derived from my mum's tape measure and dice taken from a Monopoly game. Essentially, hits were scored on a die roll with modifiers of -1 for every foot for artillery or 6 inches for infantry. Melee was just a roll-off figure v figure, with 2 dice for cavalry. This meant that ACW cavalry tended to be far more powerful than their real life counterparts.

I can remember the excitement I felt when an article about Don Featherstone was published in one of my mum's magazines(!) with pictures of an ACW game in progress and ideas about rules. As I began weekend work, extra money meant that I could afford to get Airfix magazine - with painting information no less - and then visit the Hinton Hunt shop in Islington for some specialist figures such as flag bearers. I still have the first unit of metal ACW figures I ever painted, I think from Minifigs. Then, joy of joy, my first real set of rules from the London Wargames Society. These ha things like unit organisations and morale, and proper casualty rules so units did not get wiped out.

These rules opened up even more possibilities, including campaigns inspired by the series in John Tunstall's magazine. A friend and I played one based on the Ordnance Survey map of Essex, the highlight of which was a Union landing at Burnham on Crouch, with the Confederate defenders withdrawing in a train, presumably to change at Wickford.

All the time this was going on, I was reading as many books as I could get my hands on in the local library, with the Bruce Catton trilogy Coming Fury, Terrible Swift Sword and Never Call Retreat being my favourites. Even now these are some of my favorite books, Catton's humanity and power of description is moving.

However, in my late teens, the local hobby shop in Southend got its first delivery of Napoloeonic figures and I was fascinated by the sheer colour of the period. Whilst I continued to read about the ACW, my time and effort now moved across the Atlantic to the Iberian Peninsula.

In the next article, I'll explain why I decided to get back into ACW gaming after almost forty years!

Well folks I have posted what my new table looks like and hopefully soon I will be able to share with you all my ideas on usefull rule conversions to use the hexes on the Hexon terrain. The photos show practically all my terrain on the table so it might look a tad crowded. I will be investing in some buildings in 1/300 scale as they fit neatly into the hex (100mm flat to flat) and some new trees (as if there aint enough outside). This website is a boon to me as it helps me keep in touch with all my buddies and who knows Mike and I might yet turn it into a shrine to the Goons and Round the Horne (he he you like my little joke my capitain, Blunebotten ace reporter strikes again)

Bill

We attended Boys' Toys at Hylands House, Chelmsford, last Sunday and were very pleasantly surprised at the excellent response from the public both to the show and our own Wargaming section.

As well as Southend, who ran a Colonial skirmish set in the Sudan, a SciFi demonstration game by Essex Warriors (Writtle) provided something a little different and the public participation WW1 aerial conflict "Wot No Parachute" by SEEMS caught the imagination of some young aspiring pilots (and their parents!)

Much of the time was spent explaining the hobby to members of the public and, this being the main objective of the exercise, we trust it will result in an on-going interest by the young people we involved that will help in keeping our hobby alive into the future.

Mike Oliver

All members are free to post comments and questions or answer other posts as they wish. Hopefully, this will become a useful way to exchange views, resolve issues and get information to each other.

Cheers,

Mike