EBOR LARD 2022 GAMES REPORT

 I attended Ebor Lard, the York event for all things Too Fat Lardies, in 2019 and had a great time so decided as it was back on again, I needed to attend, chum Chris Charlton agreed and also decided to attend.

The idea is that 7 games are put on each for 4 players, and you get to play one of these in the morning and another in the afternoon. Pre booking your preferred games.

There were seven game in total, Chris played this lovely Mauri wars assault on a Pa, 

This Arnham game looked fantastic with all the trees.

Rich's Jungle game had an overwhelming ammount of terrain to represent the jungle. I thought I was on this in the morning but turned out I was doing it in the afternoon.

Kiss Me Hardy Napoleonic Naval, simple but lovely.

Infamy Infamy run by Jon Savage, like all the games this looked amazing, the centre pieces of village and troop ship in particular.

The Dux Bellorum game were waiting for the fourth player to take Arthur, I found out slightly later this was in fact me....Doh! Sorry chaps.

In the middle appropriately enough a lovely Middle Earth Game, 

Lastly was a Kriegspiel game, no table to picture for you, much fun had by all on this though, the next two were shots I took preparing to play the Jungle game before I realised I had them the wrong way around and quickly redeployed to Dark Age Britannia.

Once at the correct game Jez who was running it introduced us briefly to Dux, it was a 4 handed game with 4 players all playing competing factions coming on in the different corners. Each had their own specific objectives and victories points for maximum chaos and fun. The table was also absolutely fantastic, well done Jez.

The game is card activated so the first few minutes were spent watching more and more Irish deploy on my flank, I had no victory points relating to them so decided to eave them to loot and concentrate on the other players. Not the best plan as it turned out.

My first card out was Arthur and his cavalry, beautiful Gripping Beast figures. These deployed outside the gates of Camelot.

Along the road (Lovely rubberised cobbles making a great Roman road) Bishop Sansum and his Christ Preists are practically sprinting to escape the Saxons and pray in the Church at the other end of the table, I have victory conditions relating to them but havent quite figures out what to do with them yet, so I am simply hoping one of the other players catch them them quitely dispatch them so I dont have to.

My second deployment are my archers, I choose to put them in a fortified tower to bother the opponents at the other end of the table.

Straight away Mordred (Simon) deploys a first unit right next to the tower and archers, as the main recipient of my victory points this is hopefully good news for me.

The table itself, like all the others, is full of wonderful detail, the pig pen is a favourite.

More Irish deploy on my left flank and head towards the market looking for loot. Tom has been put in charge of these and is Irish, no stereotyping going on here at all.

Mordreds main force of armoured foot arrive and soon after my archers card is drawn and I get the first casualties of the day on Simons men. As the gate is at the other side Simon is encouraged to sweep around if he wants to assault me. Of course there is the small matter of a Saxon Warband on the way ...

A bunch more Saxons turn up and we are really only waiting for my British foot levy.

Of course when the card does come out we realise the Cavalry have choked the deployment point so they will have to wait for next go.

I was a bit indecisive once my cavalry were able to move, I deployed forward at the edge of the village but was unhappy about goign further and presenting my rear to the Irish. By waiting and seeing I forfeighted any initiative.

Meanwhile Irish light horse deploy and both eh Saxons and Irish begin pillaging the village.

Finally my foot levy arrive and I decide where I am going.

My cavalry will flank the village and try catch the Saxons, my Levy will hold the edge of the two and tired of waitign for anyoe else to deal with Bishop Sansum I will set some of my own men to the task. Lets hope its not too late for decisive action.

Two units of Mordreds men push past the tower to engage the Saxons and I take the opportunity to knock a couple more of them off I get vitory points if Mordred dies and if his force Morale is destroyed so happy to help them on the way.. 

The majority of my cavalry turn around and start to flank the village whilst one unit of 4 trot forward to "have a word" with the Bishop.

A word turns slightly less pleasant and before you know Samsun and his monks are all dead. Oops. Ant the holy thorn has been pissed on which was perhaps excessive, I shall have have a word later.  5 Victory points.

Mordred and the Irish exchange pleasantries and form a loose alliance, lets see what gentlemans agreements mean in these circumsances.

Mordred meets the Saxons with two units of troops. The ensuing melee does not go well and he is pushed back with significant losses.

Meanwhile his second unit start sneakign up on me so I charge them with the horse who have just seen to the monks.

Remarkably poor dice see two of the cavalry dead and no loss whatever inflicted on Mordreds troops.

The Saxons follow up Mordreds other troops and beat him again leaving his two units practically destroyed.

I push forward my levy as Mordred enters the centre of the village only to have the Irish charge me from bei=hind, in the ensuing series of Melees against my various foes all three Levy units and the cavalry are destroyed in quick sucession. 

Not surprisingly my force morale is deplted and I am out of the game.

Morfred now turns his attention to the Saxons but with two units gone and the others damaged in the fight with me he is on to a losser. Before you know his force morale is gone and Mordred is defeated. One the upside thats another 5 Victory points to me.

In the end its a convincing win to the Irish with me and the Saxons second and Mordred having recieved something of a kicking. Great fun and importantly I have learned a lot about the rules which I ahve enjoyed, Thanks Jez!

In the afternoon I was playing Far East jungle Chain of Command with Rich. By coincidence so was Simon (Mordred) from the mornings game. Rich's table was probably the fullest I have seen with two carrier bags of Lichen surrounding palm trees, bamboo and swamps.

This game pitched Simon (Mordred from my first game) and I as Japs against Terry and Alex from Storm of Steel as American Marines both of whom had played quite a bit of Chain of Command. Admitting to Rich that I had played just one game and Simon none he pointed us in the right direction.

The initial patrolling phase sees players placing a series of markers and manouvring these that will eventually become jump off points for their forces. An interesting way of deciding where your troops come on Simon and I were happy with our eventual jump off location points.

We were given a couple of barbed wire fences to place, as these are tough to get through we used them to secure the only passage between the swamp on our extreme left flank. This negated one jump off point leaving the Yanks just two near the middle.

The jungle was very effective in the way it looked, but also the rules meant it was a real slog for the Yanks to get though, Conversely as we Japs had our jump off points in good positions, we were able to bring selected units on slowly in reaction to American movements and grind down their numbers.

The Yanks only really had two channels to get through the swamp, we covered one of these with a bunker, inflicting steady losses and shock on the first sections of Yanks under Terry.

A nice rule addition for our bunkers was a green cover dice. As the Japs had cut firing lanes through the jungle there was a good chance that the marines would be caught in reduced cover, so along with the firing dice a green dice was rolled, 1,2 and the saving throws were with heavy cover, 2,3 it was light cover, 5,6 it was in the open. This added a bit of something different to the jungle warfare.

The return fire from the Americans caused no casualties for a number of turns.

As Alex started moving his sections away from the first break int he swamp towards the second, we deployed our light mortars and began to harass his troops as they cut their way slowly through the jungle. Again addign a gradual erosion of fighting ability through casualties and shock.

The Yanks deploy a bazooka to try some bunker busting, they were unsuccessful.

As Alex slowly made his way further forward we deploy a Medium Machine gun in a trench and start to add even more casualties.

The Yanks are ground ever nearer breaking point whilst the Japs eventually recieve one casualty in the bunker. The presence of a leader steadies them and they continue to pour fire into the hapless Americans.

Below is Rich's Jap LMG bunker, lovely stuff.

Eventually on the last go the Americans try to flank the bunker only to have more casualties from the infantry guarding their flank. 

We had managed right up to the last move without deploying any of our main force of three infantry sections, The Americans are in complete disarray and are not going to get through the jungle, their force morale is completely depleted and they concede the game.

Cracking game, fantastic terrain and some interesting amends of COC for the jungle.

Alex was less impressed by Simon 's gold tape measure than some of the other players.

Rich was however very impressed with the gold tape measure and took to singing GOLD! by Spandau Ballet every time he used it.

A fabulous day with a lovely meal and good company in the evening to top it off, I thoroughly enjoyed myself and so did Chris. Big thanks to Jon Savage for organising the event and all the people who ran games, in particular Jeremy and Rich who ran ours.

Cracking stuff.