Reboot and Pickett's Lard 2019

It's been over a year since my last blog post - and quite a year it's been. I went on a phenomenal trip to Ireland and the United Kingdom, started a new job as a seasonal ranger at Gettysburg National Military (gone are the long commutes to Baltimore), my wife and I bought and moved into an 1840s house in Gettysburg, and we found out in February that we're expecting our first child this fall. Though I was able to make time for my hobbies, my blogging fell by the wayside.

Even though there's a lot coming up with work and real life, I've want to reboot the blog for a while now, so figured now was as good a time as any. In addition to changing the name (which was always a bit clunky and no longer relevant to me) I plan on changing the format of the posts as well. In stead of long, overly detailed posts of big gaming events, expect shorter and more frequent posts focusing on my wargaming hobby, but also history books I've been reading, visits to historic sites, and maybe even the projects I'm working on at the park. We'll see how it goes..

That said, I wanted to share a little write up about the first public wargaming event I ever hosted...

Pickett's Lard 2019

As a big fan of the wargame rules from Too Fat Lardies, I've started running games with the "Lard America" group of gamemasters at the HMGS conventions. A few of the other guys live fairly close and we've met up for games outside of the shows, but for while some of us had talked about hosting a "Lard Day" here in Gettysburg. We've heard of several of these events - casual, one-day gaming events showcasing the Too Fat Lardies games for veteran and new (to the rules and/or miniature wargaming in general) to enjoy. In addition to having space available at my church (where my wife is the pastor), we figured Gettysburg would also benefit from being centrally location and allowing us to partake in some battlefield walks in addition to our games.

After dragging our feet for a while, over some drinks at Cold Wars this past March, we decided to pull the trigger and planned the event for May 3-5. Though it wound up being short notice, we were able to put the event and get 13 people to attend.

After having dinner and drinks with those who drove in on Friday, the festivities began in earnest on Saturday morning with the first of two sessions of games. The morning slate featured a game of Chain of Command set in a hypothetical 1940 German airborne attack in Britain, an early war What a Tanker game set in North Africa, and my friend Tim running a game of Sharp Practice with some of his custom Napoleonic Lego minifig collection.

The morning GMs setting up

A cavalry-heavy Sharp Practice game heats up early

Desert War What a Tanker!

I was able to play in the 1940 Chain of Command game - commanding two German pioneer teams supporting a Fallschrimjager platoon tasked with capturing a compound held by a Home Guard platoon. Since I only had a small force and we didn't roll many of the necessary "1"s I needed to active my teams, I was able to mostly spectate as my friend John and his paratroopers smashed whatever our friend Ed's old men and boys threw at us (including antique Krupp gun captured from the Turks in the Great War). Though we ultimately succeeded in breaking the enemy platoon's force morale - making my wirecutting and demo teams unnecessary - we were unaware that on the fourth turn of the game, the Luftwaffe, lacking faith in our abilities, would bomb the facility before we could seize it for ourselves!

The FJs advance towards the compound

The Home Guard Krupp gun

 After a lunch break, we had a second round, featuring two games of Chain of Command - one set in Belgium in 1940 and the other in Russia in 1942. I played in the latter leading platoon of Soviet partisans which, alongside a platoon of Soviet regulars faced off against two German grenadier platoons. It was my first Eastern Front CoC game and my first time playing with "green" troops. Even with the cover of the heavy woods on our section of the table and entrenchments for my squads,  the firepower of my mate Chris's grenadiers were too much to handle. My medium machine gun team was wiped out almost as soon as it deployed, and despite hitting the enemy Panzer IV, the satchel charge and Molotov cocktails of my tank hunter team only inflicted a point of shock on the AFV (on the other side of the table, my comrade Tim's anti-tank rifle team ambushed a German armored car at close range, causing it to explode - but also causing them to flee as a result). As my partisan's force morale started to waver, I threw caution to the wind and brought it my elite squad of Soviet assault troops. With their 10 sub-machine guns they were devastating at close range (rolling 40 dice when they closed within 6 inches of the enemy), and though they inflicted casualties, failed to break the squad that opposed them. Chris was able to quickly recover from this counterattack and broke my platoon, and as the other two platoons were beating each other into a stalemate, the Germans pulled off a victory.

My buddy Evan (commanding one of the German platoons) surveying our battlefield

A pre-game shot of the afternoon's other game of Chain of Command

With the other group wrapping up their second run of the scenario - the objective having been met in the first round in about an hour - we called it a day and after getting the hall nice and tidy, heady for dinner and some well-earned drinks. Sadly, heavy rains the next day canceled our battlefield walk plans, but everyone still had a great weekend!

The Pickett's Lard 2019 crew (sans our esteemed blogger, who took the photo)

We're looking forward to making next year's event bigger and better, so stay tuned!!