With Remembrance Sunday throughout the Commonwealth and Veterans Day in the US approaching, what better time to think about the Great War, especially as 100 years ago the guns were firing from the Swiss border to the Channel.   Here on Lard Island we’ve been gaming this most innovative conflict for many years, tracing the incredible development of technology and tactics in a four year period.   Throughout this month we are offering a 20% discount on our Great War related products.    That deal includes our ever popular rule for large skirmishes on the Western Front, Through the Mud & the Blood and our Brigade or Divisional size rules for the Middle East, If the Lord Spares Us.  Also included are the supplements, Empire to Revolution covering the Eastern Front for Mud & Blood and the new bumper compendium, Play the Game, which is 276 pages of articles on the Great War taken from Specials over the past eleven years.

But what do the rules do?  Well, through the Mud & the Blood are aimed at large skirmishes, typically a platoon or two a side with some support to assist them.  You can use historical orders of battle, or “build” your own trench raiding teams from a mixture of specialists, riflemen, bombers, trench cleaners, Pioneers, rifle bombers and machine gunners for a particular scenario.  The rules focus on the importance of leadership on the battlefield, with officers and NCO’s pushing their men on towards their objective.  Rules are present for all types of off and on-table support, artillery, machine gun barrages, tanks, infantry guns, mortars and flamethrowers and there is an extensive section covering the development of infantry tactics throughout the conflict.  A typical game may involved a platoon or two of infantry advancing behind an artillery bombardment and then fighting their way down a trench line while off-table machine guns hold off the enemy counter-attack troops…

…or it could be a similar force attacking with tank support…

 
..or a daring night-time trench raid with twenty or thirty men looking to grab a prisoner and escape.
Through the Mud & the Blood were inspired by the writings of Dr Paddy Griffith who was at the cutting edge of the re-examination of the Great War and how men actually fought.  The rules are based on extensive research and reflect the changes of infantry weapons and tactics through the conflict.  Far from being a sausage machine with Generals continuously making the same old mistakes, the Great War was actually the birthplace of modern tactics and saw incredible changes and innovation.  Being fought across huge areas of the globe, the conflict offers the wargamer an incredible variety of environments to fight in, from deserts and jungles to the steppes of Russia as well as the mud and blood, and green fields of Europe.
If the Lord Spares Us was written specifically for warfare in the Middle East, from Gallipoli to the Tigris, Basra to Baghdad, and covering actions of typically between a Brigade and a Division per side.  We will be posting some live action photos of a game next  Monday just to show how the game plays.
Watch this space for more details of Play the Game, the new bumper compendium covering the Great War!