Well, here we are, back from Deep Fried Lard with my liver almost intact and having had another great day of Lardy gaming north of the border and a smashing weekend with the clan McLard.
I am not sure how many Deep Fried Lard events we have had now, five or six anyway, and once again the quality of the games on offer was absolutely first class. My only regret is that as I was running games all day I couldn’t take part in some really interesting games. However, for a change I did managed to wield my camera phone with abandon and took some snaps of the games on offer.
I was running Sharp Practice in the morning, a game set in the Peninsular War as Captain Richard Fondler was seeking out an agent known only as “the Man from Del Monte” He had a critical message for the Duke of Wellington, but what would he say? Only Fondler could find out. Needless to say we had a rather jolly time, but with some really tough fighting as the French under Capitaine Piece de la Merde fought back after an early set back to almost, but not quite, snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Only Los Incontinente, the Spanish guerrilla leader could really claim a victory.
In the afternoon I was playing What a Tanker, a game which I really should call by its proper name, Tank Commander, but in usual Lardy style the WaT name has rather stuck and it was fun to see who was the biggest tanker in Scotland. I shall refrain from commenting further.
Actually we got in a couple of games of WaT in the afternoon session. With one game under the players belts I said “okay, you know the rules now, you can run it yourselves while I take some snaps”, and they did without a copy of the rules to hand. That’s one of the things we like best about WaT, the rules are simple enough to learn in one game, but sophisticated enough to provide a constant challenge.
Gerard regales us with his version of the Funky Chicken. Inspirational.
There was plenty of Chain of Command on offer on the day, but interestingly it came in some rather different flavours. The lads from Ayr took us back to 1967 as the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders took on the bad chaps in Aden.
The Jocks of the Argylls got a bit of an early spanking, but then set about imposing what Mad Mitch called “Argyll Law” and turned the tables on the naughty chaps in some style. Soon the FLOSY chaps were singing Shang-a-lang as they ran with the gang in the opposite direction.
Next we were on our way to the paddy fields of Vietnam with a CoC variation for that conflict run by those stalwarts of the McHighland Brigade, Roderick and Gerard. Beautiful terrain here.
Fortunately, Free World casualties were light as there most certainly wasn’t a Doctor in the house. Not a real one anyway!
Sticking with Chain of Command, everyone’s favourite Pop-up Pirate, Angus Konstam, was in da house with his Muddy CoC variant for the Great War.
Verdun was the setting for Angus’ game, the location where his Uncle had been killed while serving his Kaiser, so a real personal slant on this game. German troops took on French colonial chaps using the rules variants from one of the Specials. It certainly looked the part and, again, I’d have loved to take part. The WWI bug is a strong one for me, so I was frothing a bit at the sight of this game.
Just for a change, Jim from Glasgow (Sorry Jim, I think you’re from just South of Glasgow but I can’t be sure) ran a WWII game of Chain of Command, but even this was slightly different at it focussed on Operation Knight’s Move as German paras took on Yugoslav Partizans. Interesting stuff and some really nice detailing inside the houses which, like a fool, I failed to snap.
Next, Lardy stalwart John from Falkirk very kindly responded to public clamour to include General d’Armee in the day and, although not strictly a Lardy set of rules we were very happy to see this on offer. A great couple of games run during the day to much acclaim. Great to see this in 25mm.
John explains the rules to a rapt audience.
Next we had another Sharp Practice game run by the most talented Michael Scott of Supreme Littleness Designs (check out his web site for some really clever MDF stuff) with the most impressive Roman bridge I have ever seen in a 28mm game.
An impressive French column attempted to cross the bridge in the face of opposition from Spanish patriots and it was a close run thing. Stunning looking game.
Finally, we had another game of What a Tanker run by that man Jack from Leith. Jack and some of the lads have been assisting with play-testing WaT and judging by the laughter from the game a good time was had by all.
So, lots on offer at Deep Fried Lard and the day was rounded off with a few pints and a smashing curry in the dazzling metropolis that is Musselburgh.
Edinburgh is a bloody long way from Lard Island, but it is always worth the effort as the Scottish Lardies are a great bunch of lads to game with and the quality of the games is always high and the banter fun. My thanks to Wee Derek the leopard tamer for organising the event and to Musselburgh Rugby Club for allowing us to use their facilities. It was great to be able to watch the rugby as we set up in the morning and to enjoy the hospitality of their bar during the day.
As a final, long farewell to Scotland I took a slow drive back down the A7 for Carlisle and enjoyed some fantastic border region scenery. I can’t wait to head back north next year.
15 thoughts on “Deep Fried Lard – A Post Match Report”
Looks a great day! Strange, I never knew Woody was a war Gamer!
The first Deep Fried Lard was run in 2013 https://dereksweetoys.com/deep-fried-lard-2/ . So this was DFL5. Quite a few people have turned up for all of them. Though this was the first time that a Bay City Roller showed up.
Keep up at the back! That’s Derek Longmuir, not Woody. They all came from just along the road in Prestonpans. I am a HUGE Rollers fan. I have all of their albums and two autographs.
Did you guys remember that I met Mad Mitch many years ago.
http://jim-duncan.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/page-3-in-daily-record.html
Sometimes real life is a pain, sorry I missed this one. Looks like some excellent games on offer. And yes, the Borders scenery is very nice.
I’d forgotten that Jim. But I remember it now.
Love the Aden game. Any chance the gentlemen who ran this game could please drop me a line – have questions about figures. I’m at brianjenglish@gmail.com. Thanks!
Holy smokes! That sounded like an excellent day to fry up some different Lardie games off the menu. I have to find a way to get to the U.K. So there is the mentioned of the “What A Tanker” and some glimpse of the some cards for the game in the pics, and the glaring question is; When is when will these be coming out for the rest of us to take the field in an iron pig?
Thank you for sharing the variety pics…gotta love the big ass Roman bridge too…the wheels are turning to make one…
Cheers again, Derek, for organising DFL, I really, really enjoyed playing with Angus’s Muddy CoC and, contrary to my personal forbodings, my CoC Operation Knights Move wasn’t too bad. But seeing how high the terrain bar is set I’ll really need to dig deep and pull my socks up next year……well, at least bring my own mat 🙂
Excellent day. Looking forward to next year. John is from Linlithgow, not Stirling, but close
Apologies to John, now corrected. I always get Falkirk and Stirling mixed up. I shouldn’t really as I have family from Stirling.
Rich, I’ve quizzed my Mum and can confirm I am definitely from Glasgow. She can’t remember which bush she found me under but it was in Glasgow
Special congratulations to Jim from Glasgow (Jamccabe) for his Chain of Command game of Operation Knight’s Move (SS Fallschirmjaeger versus Yugoslav National Liberation Army, May 1944).
I especially liked the use of a Spanish Civil War female Republican standard bearer (from Empress Miniatures) on the Yugoslav ‘jump off point’: Some Yugoslav partisans were veterans of the Spanish Civil War, so they deliberately copied the same style of forage cap.
About four years ago I actually wrote a comprehensive mini-campaign on Operation Knight’s Move for a series of at least nine linked company level scenarios. This was originally for Wargames, Soldiers & Strategy, but I then realised that it would be better as a mini-campaign supplement for IABSM.
A heavily butchered version belatedly appeared in WS&S earlier this year (minus trifling details like Troop Organisation & Equipment!).
WS&S used less than half the material that I gave them and in the meantime I’d already e-mailed a PDF of the full version to Messieurs Clarke & Skinner of TFL.
So, I’m still hoping to work that up into a proper mini-campaign guide, hopefully under the TFL banner.
I’d be very grateful if Jim from Glasgow would be willing to permit the use of photos of his own Knight’s Move game.
Now I’ll drop a line by e-mail directly to TFL to remind them about this.
P.S. – Also very impressed with the Aden game: Any chance of more on this in a future ‘TFL Special’ or Chain of Command supplement / mini-campaign guide?
Thanks for the kind comments, Fingers (the cheque’s in the post :D) Was it issue 89 of WS&S that your stuff appeared in?
I actually replayed this game last night against David Knight from the FDWC as neither of us felt we’d gotten a proper bite at the cherry with this scenario (he because he was generously tutoring a chap through the game at DFL and me because I had only done dry run of the game before running it at DFL) David played the evil Hun and I the gallant Slavs. The result was a severe biffibg for the Partisans. That ask, I have some much better photos from last nights game that I’ll happily email to you, if you want?
Pip pip,
Jim
Just noticed that Jimmy from Kirrie made it into one of the shots. Hoping to make it to this years.