Missing out? Plan an alternative!
We had it all planned for last Wednesday, a marvellous 1000 point a side Eastern Front game using the Bolt Action rules down the club house. I had the armies, an opponent and even had the special dice! My loyal forces of the People and Worker’s Army of Soviet Union would undoubtedly vanquish their Hitlerite foes and push them back to Berlin! Urrah Stalin!!!
With everything packed in the car, then came the message… “Sorry can’t make it, how about next week?” My usual comrade in arms, Eoghan couldn’t make it. His work meeting had over-run and he was likely to get there of 8.30pm, perhaps time for a chat but not really for a full game. Thus, no Germans and no game…
Damn…
So what to do… I had plenty of work to catch up on (including one blog entry!) and a demo to finish for Partizan 2013. Or I could catch up with the latest episode of ‘Game of Thrones’… no, that could wait. However I decided to be sociable, I could always instead spend the evening catching up with my fellow gamers at the club. I ended up being very glad I did.
Having entered into our hall (the Kingskerswell Village hall, resembling a giant Nissen hut), I was almost immediately ambushed by James, my usual opponent for Dark Age/Viking and ECW games. He presented me with a surprise, an almost complete article on a battle in Cornwall, complete with original English Heritage report and two maps (one Ordinance Survey) of the site. He related to me excitedly that the forces involved were pretty balanced, which meant it was an even fight! We made arrangements to give it a go next week. I also had long and interesting discussions about the new Tau codex for 40K (lovely models but how much for one of those new battle suits???), Harpies and a new range of ‘not’ Space Marines. Funny how companies price themselves to be that little bit cheaper than ‘the Company’. I would go into more detail on the things we discussed but these topics fall ‘well’ out of the magazine’s remit of ‘Anything on this earth’. Harpies might be ‘in’ but as our conversation degenerated into ‘where to place the flying bases on your Harpy’, so that topic is probably best avoided!
A while back I did have a contingency plan just in case these events like this happen, more of a case of when rather than if… I used to bring along a board game, kept in the back of my car, just in case something happened. The club is well attended, so there are usually one or two players who don’t have a game and are happy to join in a quick game. Games like De Bellis Antiquatis or Hordes of the Things are also good for pick-up games, as long as you have two armies with you naturally… Ah well lesson learnt! I should remember the Boy Scout motto, ‘Be Prepared!’ Next time I will be…
