News from the Front! – COW2009: Report 1

After a rather bad journey due to three ‘incidents’ (i.e. road traffic accidents) on the motorways that I should have used to get to Knuston Hall, I finally made it there just in time for dinner.

The Plenary Session and Game

After dinner, it was straight into the plenary session. By tradition, the plenary session starts with a short introduction by the organisers, followed by an equally short plenary game.

A general view of the introductory part of the plenary session.

This was a very short icebreaker devised by Chris Ager. Teams of ‘planners’ had to devise a plan to assassinate a famous historical figure. Using charades, cut-out pieces of paper and Play Dough – but no talking or writing – they had to communicate their ‘plan’ to a team of ‘assassins’ whilst ‘bodyguards’ watched. The ‘assassins’ who got the details of the ‘plan’ right before the ‘bodyguards’ could work it out won.

This was just the right sort of game to play at the start of COW – it was short, funny, and introduced everyone to each other.

The results of the plenary game are announced.

After Dinner Games – Friday Evening

Then it was on to the After Dinner Games (ADGs). Richard Brooks and I ran SOLFERINO IN THIRTY MINUTES. It took longer than that to play because the players were interested in how the game worked as much as they were in playing it, and it went well.

Wayne Thomas, Nigel Drury, David Brock, Tony Hawkins, and Matthew Hartley discussing aspects of SOLFERINO IN THIRTY MINUTES with Richard Brooks, its designer.

Saturday Morning

This morning started with a pre-breakfast chat in front of the Hall.

A group of attendees enjoy a short break in the fresh air before breakfast.

Then the main sessions of the morning began.

Trial by Battle

Graham Evans's TRIAL BY BATTLE game attracted a variety of players including Jim Wallman and Tim Price.

Tipperary Mbali Sana Sana

As always, Wayne Thomas and David Brock came up will an excellent game. TIPPERARY MBALI SANA SANA used 10mm figures and models to recreate a battle during the 1916 East Africa campaign.

The Future Generations Experience

Rob Cooper experiences the problems of running a country during the 21st century in Michael Young's THE FUTURE GENERATION EXPERIENCE.

AK-47

Martin Goddard (AKA Peter Pig) and Rob Roriston explaining how to play the newest version of RFCM's AK-47 rules to David Bradbury and John Curry.

Gettysburg

Martin Wallace of Warfrog laid on an impromptu game session using the newly-published GETTYSBURG game. It attracted numerous players including Bob Bowman, Matthew Hartley, Nigel Drury, Alan Paull, and Phil Steele.