My wargaming activities have, for several years, centered around a circuit of three or four conventions a year. Gaming projects for 1996 have included large presentations at Augusta, Atlanta, & Nashville, twice. My friend and collaborator Tim Lee and I usually come up with one or two big (also noisy, foolish, and occasionally sweaty) events for large numbers of willing stooges, and hawk the offending result around the circuit until we think we've done enough damage, then we come up with something else.

These games involve lots of spectacular scenery, which I shamelessly attempt to sell right off the table, sometimes actually during the game itself ("You can have the mountain for $50. For $100 you can have it right now, take it off the board, and charge through the place it used to be onto the enemy's flank ---": not really!), cunningly devised personal objectives of a nefarious character, and hardly any rules at all.

Tim and I devised a fiendish U.S. Cavalry scenario taking the bluecoats into Mexico against renegade Apaches It involved three different tables, actually the same one with the scenery moved about. All the players - up to 20 on the last occasion - were at least nominally on the American side, including a drunken ex-Confederate, Senator Blowhard and his niece, Binky Bagshot & Gunga Din, a reporter and photographer, and Captain Mark Fuhrman's company of Texas Rangers.

In the first effort at this game (at the "Siege of Augusta' convention in January) my players (I counted 15 of them!) made a complete dog's breakfast of the whole thing. The army was totally flummoxed by the senator's demands for proper food, lodging, transportation etc,, then by the arrival and behaviour of the Texas Rangers, who insisted on arresting a man of the 24th Inf on trumped up charges. They also shot one of the Apache scouts, causing simmering discontent when the Captain did nothing about it.

The old rebel, Branchwater made himself generally unpopular, though at least he was active. The photographer looked for posed photo-opportunities every ten minutes, causing a good deal of dislike, and a lecherous trooper was fended off successfully by Miss Blowhard. There was a good deal of drinking by the civilian wagon drivers. Zeke and Zach (miners robbed by the Apache) were robbed once again by Captain Fuhrman's men. The Mexican border Rurales collected a fee and offered to act as guides. The senator got lost.

Binky Bagshot was gallant and dim-witted. The Rurales' cousins ambushed the Rangers out of general dislike. Nobody did much about that, either. Finally the force staggered onto the final table, where Apaches hiding in a cave attacked the Captain (riding alone with his standard bearer behind a skirmish line of the 24th), and almost killed him; he shot the standard bearer's horse in the rear end by way of an accident, and rode off.

The cavalry troops did not act in concert, but dismounted where they could not see one another, left inadequate guards, and so had all their horses stolen. The Apache scouts deserted to the enemy after the scandalous treatment they had received. One troop attacked a cave in one of the big mesas (a huge piece of styrofoam terrain with lift-off sections), only to have the Apaches escape out of another cave. The other troop did the same thing, but the other exit was being attacked in strength by the 24th.

What this meant was that the Apaches looked at the opposition, decided 4 swiving troopers were a better bet than 12 infantry, and came out with knives against Branchwater's men. The Apaches won the nasty lime melee, and took off on the already-stolen horses. In the meantime, the Rurales kidnapped the senator, his niece, and the whole baggage train; they'd be a lot safer, really, in Mexico.

This was a pretty disastrous result for the U.S. Army, what with the loss of all the supplies and most of the horses, and a long walk back to the border. Could the players do worse?

Take II

At Atlanta in March they tried. Once again a psychotic wargamer (hello, Alex Frang) ran the Texas Rangers, with a policy of shooting first - at the Apache scouts - and asking questions later. A very young gamer led his troop of cavalry into a gorge between two mesas, with the expected results, but the singing cowboy - who, for reasons difficult to fathom, led the advance at least was unscathed.

The 24th made a gallant attack on the Apache position on the mesas, while their commander remained as far back as possible. This meant that when he ordered them to fall back rather than continue the assault, they only got the order once they had actually taken the crestline, they retired, and the Apaches crept back to shoot at them as they did so. The game ended in a massive gunfight between the Rurales and the Texas Rangers, which put paid both to international cooperation and any chance of beating the Apaches. Once again, the Apache scouts changed sides after receiving really poor treatment at the hands of the White Eyes, and stole the dismounts as payment, this was becoming a theme.

Take III

Tim and I argued as to whether it could go worse for the Americanos. At Nashcon in May we decided, at the last moment, to have no Apaches whatsoever on the opposing side. None. Of course, we didn't tell anyone. The Americans had to march into Mexico, find nothing, and come back. That's all. 20 players. It was a total catastrophe. The rangers, as always, shot at the scouts. The civilian drovers went on strike, the 24th infantry were sent to take over their jobs, a fight broke out. The rangers joined in with gunfire.The singing cowboy kept going around saying "did you hear what he said about you? I wouldn't stand for that if I were you!", which helped fuel antagonisms.

The column came to a Mexican town, where the locals got them drunk and looted the wagon train. Another gunfight broke out, in which several characters were shot. The survivors were arrested by the Mexican National Guard --

I shudder to think if any group of wargamers could do worse, so I didn't try. Anyway, a pharmacist from Alabama bought all the scenery off me.

Pirates and Cavemen

Tim and I had put on a pirates vs Spaniards vs cannibals game at the Atlanta con, a scenario of Tim's that we'd had success with a year or so before. I do enjoy operating a band of cannibals, I think I have a talent for it. We ran a caveman and dinosaurs event at Nashcon on the same Apeche scenery with the cave formations, historically wrong in every detail, but notable for its use of 'paper, scissors, stone' as a combat mechanism (one young player had difficulty with the rules to this), much chanting and drumming, and missile combat determined by actually throwing objects at one another over the table. We had few competing clans with a collective IQ of about 40, lots of dinosaurs, mammoths, and sabre toothed thingies. Very educational. We'll run this again if ever I can be bothered to build all those caves --

Our current travelling games, which will take us into the next year, are a scenario for Old Trousers, my Peninsular war game, in which Marshal Ney's corps attacks the British vanguard before Wellington can bring up reinforcements. This is very much a pre-publication test game, and not silly at all, so l'll pass over it in favour of'Battle-Troll', my very silly Viking personal combat game. The scenario is again a multi-character game with competing personal objectives best regarded as 'people's Court with axes'.

Battle Troll

It centres on an argument at the annual assembly in some godforsaken fjord, over possession of a cow pasture and some allegations about what one contestant really does with his cows. The presence of wandering berserkers. a travelling brewer, lurking outlaws, runaway slaves and a Viking in search of his kidnapped daughter pretty much ensure that careful legal argument gives way to armed mayhem within a few turns, but there is plenty of room for double dealing and thefl of livestock. seagoing vessels, other peoples' children etc for the more highbrow of Vikings to prosper.

We've played this twice, with a classic performance from Chris Scott at Augusta last week as the berserker. He succeeded in drinking heavily, egging on fights, wagering on the results, singing football chants, jumping off a waterfall, pissing in the river and finally stealing a longship for a joyride. He revealed afterwards that he had also sneaked an extra movement card with his name on into the deck, thus ensuring that he would get more turns to steal the boat than its owner would to catch him.

I had the great pleasure of spending some time with the esteemed Don Featherstone at Augusta, providing scenery for his colonials game and shamelessly bending his ear over beer on Saturday night. He's amazingly active for a man nearing 80, busier than most of us half his age, and probably physically fitter, too. And hilarious.

A group of fellows took him to a strip club of the roughest type (I'm told. I didn't go, I swear). He told me the following morning that "they had naked women dancing on the tables. They've got nothing like that in England. I'd never seen anything like it". Then he paused for a moment. "I'd go again!"

I have completed the text of my rollicking adventure novel, 'The White Zulu', which has only taken me, what, four years. I hope to find a publisher, but it isn't exactly the kind of commercial blockbuster that the publishing houses dream about. Then again, I have no interest in the kind of subjects that those massively popular books are about, like the late twentieth century.

My other career as maker of model scenery to the disceming collector keeps me covered in paint and plaster in what I laughingly call my free time. I built a Spanish hacienda for a very nice woman in Maryland as a Xmas present for her husband (hello Cathy and Wayne Downey!) while most of the Union position at Gettysburg lay unpainted in the basement for a week. It must have been hard to defend all that hardboard, pinebark and styrofoam.

Other projects this year have been a lot of Afghanistan (acres of the place), some western buildings and a very nice 15mm Rorke's Drift, with all the rooms in the right place. The roof drove me nuts. Even though I am not all that interested in the American disturbances of the 1860s, my customers keep me making chunks of the late Confederacy for them to squabble over. Model scenery pays for car insurance, new refridgerators, things like that.

I am hard at work on a Peninsular war project - my 'Old Trousers' rules plus background, scenarios, and some other short rules - at the behest of my great friend and occasional publisher Paddy Griffith. I have hopes to see this in print before too long along with some other game rules. My "Science versus Pluck" colonial rules are being reprinted by a fellow who lives about five miles from where I went to school at King Ted's, which just shows what a small world it is. And I've done some of a scenery making guide. I want to make it sound really hard, expensive and messy. Don't want people to think they can make it themselves, do I?

Oh, and - very occasionally - I get to paint my own toys.