"It's a game of skill" SOAC 2024

After missing a year in 2023 I returned to the Society of Ancients Convention (formerly Conference) at Madingley Hall near Cambridge. I didn't go last year as I had some issues with the venue, and I didn't have anything to offer. However, for 2024 organiser West Country Richard assured me that my main concern had been fixed (you couldn't see the tables in the main games room it was too dark) and he also asked me to give a talk. So I was in, and Phil & I headed off on Friday afternoon for, hopefully, a weekend of wargaming fun.

Madingley is a magnificent late 16th - 18th century building. The rooms are comfortable, the services modern, but the interior retains its country house charm.

This is the view from my room out of my mullioned window. I thought I'd woken up in Gormenghast.

The Friday evening isn't part of the Convention per se, but is an opportunity to get on site ready for the weekend, share a meal with many of the attendees, and have a chance for a few extra sessions. This year's numbers attending in total were 45, up 10 from last year, and included a group of WD members.

The Friday evening activities started with a talk on 3D printing, which inspired some heated exchanges. Rather than just tell us how brilliant it all was, and how it was the path to the future, our speaker focussed on the practicalities of it all. In short, resin 3D printing uses toxic chemicals but is entirely safe, as long as you do it properly and wear the appropriate protective equipment (a friend I know who does a lot of it teaches chemistry, for example, and regards it as safer than a lot of what he does in the lab). For me, it made up my mind that I'm not going to bother. If I was 30 or 40 years younger and I didn't have a shed full of toys already I might be tempted, but as it stands, I don't think so. Others took the view that crossing the road was more dangerous, although I don't normally wear special protective equipment and a breathing mask in order to do so.

After the talk I ran the Edgcote Made Easy participation game.

I had four players and several lookers on for the game (I ran it again the following night, with a slightly bigger turnout). This run through notably included Martin Rapier of "The Games We Play" (on the left), the Convention organiser on the right and Adrian Nayler of "Blood Red Roses" just out of shot. As I explained, this game is intended as an intro level game for shows, where I usually play Herbert and a parent and child combo play the rebels. It isn't intended for wargamers trying to be clever. The combat system is ripped off from a GW early game (one of the watchers-on told me it was from "Rogue Trooper", which was published in the late 1980s, so I've been holding on to that mechanism for a long time before using it) and involves rolling dice, then rolling those that hit again and so on. It isn't sophisticated. I tend to greet every outrageous success or failure brought about from simply rolling the dice with the comment "It's a game of skill".

The rules and game over all went down well, and I sold quite a few copies of the booklet (email me at wildrat1460(at)gmail.com if you are interested).

Then there was just enough time to repair to the bar for a drink with some friends from COW.

Saturday morning started with a talk on the post Edgcote period ("From Edgcote to Empingham"), which I wrote for NBS. It's a talk I'm quite pleased with, so it was good to be able to give it to a knowledgeable audience to general acceptance.

New for this year was sign up sheets, which you can see from the easels on the left. "Signing Up" is a feature of COW, and helps game organisers know what to expect. There are some wrinkles to iron out in the process at SOAC, but it worked well. Except for me, as I didn't get most of my first choices so I ended up having a different weekend to the one I'd planned. On reflection I think I was the winner overall from this piece of serendipity.

After the talk I'd been wanting to play "Strength & Honour", but it was all signed up, so I ended up in a Romans v Gauls game in 15mm, using a set of unpublished rules called "Breach & Scutcheon" by Ray Briggs. 

Ray had set the game up for 8 players, with a lot of kit on the table. Personally I think it was too much for a new set of rules. As it was we had 6 players, which seemed about right, but we could have done with a lot fewer figures. I don't really want to compare SOAC to COW, but I think I probably have to at times. I've played a lot of new rules systems at COW, from a lot of designers. Over the years people putting on games have generally learned not to over load players with too much before you start playing. Ray, like pretty much all the people running games here, took 15- 20 minutes describing the rule system. I'd lost the thread quite early on, and it was evident everyone else had too from the questions asked once we'd started. What I needed was to start pushing lead around and find out what I could and couldn't do. I'm a little bit different to some of the others playing the game. I'm mostly there to see and understand a new set of rules. Winning the game is very much secondary. (This differs to the situation where the session is a refight using a known system, where the interest comes from how well the system copes and you really do need to be trying to win).

The system had a number of interesting points, and you can see what the author has been dissatisfied with elsewhere. The rules aren't ground breaking or a paradigm shift. For example, light horse are a little less flexible that usual, and the combat system uses Moral Ratings to determine who can and can't attack. As such they're not exactly re-inventing the wheel, but they are modifying it. This sounds like damning with faint praise, and it is true that although I took away the QRS, the rules won't be gracing the SHQ table any time soon. I have other battle line rules that I can use for this type of game and there isn't anything here that piques my interest sufficiently to prise me away from them. Others round the table seemed to be more excited by them, so it might just be me.

After lunch we had another talk, this time by historian Matt Bennett, on the the Battle of Maldon.

Photo (c) John Bassett

Maldon is the subject for battle day next year. I won't be taking a game. I don't have enough Saxons, let alone Vikings, and it isn't my period (well, not yet). I found the discussion of the main source, a poem, really interesting, and I think I'd need to know more about why it is as it is to get a true understanding of what is needed. The intricacies of Anglo Saxon poetry is one of the gaps in my knowledge base.

I then went off to the next session, which was again not my first choice.

This was Kim Salkeld's "Aegaeon", a work in development for large scale fleet actions in the ancient Mediterranean. Well, what a piece of luck. One of the highlights of the weekend. Imaginative and original, with bases representing squadrons, allied with streamlined order giving and record keeping, it played really well and gave an interesting and exciting game. The board is a squared grid, which you can't really see, and the bases are double sided, with the fleet in column on one side and line of the other.

There are some things Kim still needs to work out, such as how to handle damaged ships, but I hope he persists with it, because he has produced something unique. 

Before dinner we had a talk from John Bassett about why and how he wargames the classical period, as a prelude to his "Wolves in the Forum" game on the Sunday morning. John's pol-mil ancient games are a unique experience. It was quite quaint to hear them referred to as "committee games", a term apparently used to describe any game that doesn't use figures and isn't a board game it seems.

Sunday morning started with a talk on Masinissa, the famous Numidian king/general from the Punic Wars. I hadn't appreciated that the word "Numidia" comes from the Greek word for "nomad", but I'm also not sure if the word meaning "nomad" in Greek comes from the Numidian people, in the way that the word for the colour "orange" was adopted from the word from the fruit, not the other way round.

I followed that by joining a game of "Test of Resolve". This was a session I had wanted to take part in, as I've communicated with David Knight, the author, about the rules before publication. He's a fan of my original Edgcote book and some of you may remember that I did a voice over for a video of a game using the rules on the Little Wars TV Youtube channel.

The scenario was Hedgeley Moor. ToR is well supported by scenario booklets, as is the 100 Years War variant. I'm glad I played this game, as I've been wanting to have a go for a while. 

I have to be honest and say that I won't be returning to them. The game doesn't do anything for me as a WotR game, although it might be argued that it's quite a good simulation. Players have very limited agency, and the rules are driven by opposed d10 rolls which can give very different outcome numbers. On reflection this isn't as bad as I thought at the time as outcomes are banded by the difference between the roll totals after modifiers, so 0-1, 2-5, 6-9 and 10+. Rolling a 1 generates a bad additional outcome, so you get an adverse effect 10% of the time. 

"Battle" morale is represented by the stack of poker chips. When a unit suffers a loss of resolve, you lose one of these. Units can restore their resolve, but you don't get the chips back. When you run out of chips, bad stuff happens. Move sequence/actions is determined by a set of special cards. Commanders do nothing apparently, except add a +1 modifier, until they die, which is bad. So in summary, when you can do something is random, combat is pretty random and bad stuff is random. Now I like a bit of random, but not the entire game system. The card activation system in theory allows you to see how long it will be before you get a go, but even then when there's a sequence of four or five cards laid out one might be a random card that means your cards are used by the opponent.

Once our army had completely collapsed and fled due to rolling really badly consistently across the three players on our side, I passed on the opportunity to play the 100 Years War variant. Not for me, I'm afraid, although I must praise David for his energy in promoting the system and the level of support he provides, together with his scenario books. The game, however, has only slightly more decision making than Snakes and Ladders and is mainly an excuse to get lots of nice toys on the table and roll dice. Which many may think is no bad thing.

[NOTE: The "it's all random" criticism can be directed at the "Edgcote Made Easy" game I took to SOAC. However, that game is designed for a specific audience, and has a high level of player involvement without the need for understanding, through the dice rolling. That's because it is expected top be played by 8 year old novices, under parental guidance. It's an entry level drug for wargaming. Even so, it has more decision points than ToR, which are there so the adult with the child feels like they're being engaged in the process]

So, then onto lunch, and the "wash up" session to discuss what could be improved. Honestly, very little, just a tidying up of the sign in process. I'd prefer to shift to more on Friday evening and less on Sunday afternoon, but most everyone else did not. Although, of course, that discussion did not include those who'd left early because they had long journeys and could not commit to a 3-4 hours afternoon gaming session.

My last game of the weekend was "Oi Navarcoi", put on by Nick Harbud. This was another squadron based naval game. The rules aren't Nick's, and are freely downloadable if you search for them.

Like Kim's game from Saturday these are trying to do fleet actions by squadron. Kim also played in this game.

These played really quickly, and were genuinely fun. Virtually no record keeping, and a smooth turn sequence - helped by Nick's rejigged QRS.

I partnered Duncan Head. He was less lucky than me, but I was delighted as I achieved a flank/pincer of my opponent's squadron that I failed to execute in the earlier game. I was aided in this by the DBA type need to align the fleets in combat.

This was gratifyingly destructive, although we lost the game due to the complete loss of Duncan's two fleets. 

The game is less cerebral in its playing than "Aegaeon", and is a bit more crash, bang, wallop, all over in 90 minutes. Kim remarked that if he'd found these rules beforehand he would not have bothered with writing his own. That would have been an enormous shame, as he has elements in that game that are unique. It is much more considered, and is (I would say) much more elegant. There is room for both systems.

And then it was time to head off. I found Phil, loaded up the car, and literally headed off into the sunset, driving west as the sun went down. A very satisfactory weekend, and I have every intention of returning in 2025.