The Dastardly Regular Opponent and I live roughly 45 minutes away from each other – a little too far for a school night game but perfect for me to nip over on a Saturday evening. We’re aiming for at least one game day a month which so far we’ve managed to hit. When I gave him the options for this session, he moved rather quickly to sign up for another game of What An Operator – in part because we both enjoy ultramodern stuff but also because he’s fresh off running a few games of What A Cowboy derivatives (mostly underhive gangers) for his scout group. Now knowing a game just enough to get yourself into trouble, I began roughly planning out what the mission would be.

All it needed was me to quickly get some terrain together…

Last time we followed the adventures of Commando Global Solutions, they had just captured special forces working for a foreign nation inside the borders of Shyluz. Luckily for CGS, nothing bad has come from this (yet) and so the team are free to continue their contract working for the Shyluz Ministry Of Interior. Which means they are taking a trip up north.

While in Southern Shyluz most of the rebel groups are related to the Bazi Empire, the North sees an underlying tension with the Tsardom, especially among isolated communities that see themselves more closely linked culturally with their former rulers rather than the government to the south. There is a background level of support for Tsarist insurgent groups, with the wooded valleys providing ideal locations for training and hideaways before attacking symbols of the “godless illegitimate regime” as online recordings of such attacks refer to them.

Imagery from Rettung’s Mimir satellite observation system (for which Shyluz pays for access) allows for easy monitoring of the large-scale picture in the region, letting the ministry gather large. However, the intelligence recovered can only act as the first step to reacting – actually confirming the presence of rebels and their equipment at these locations means the Ministry must rely on contractors and local law enforcement to perform inspections and gather on-the-ground intelligence where possible before committing to direct raids (which are unpopular with the population).

Commando Global Solutions has been hired to perform one of these intelligence missions in the far north of Shyluz close to the border with the Tsardom. The farm has seen an unexpected level of activity, with multiple satellite passes showing an unusual amount of goods being moved to and from the barn as well as the root cellar under the property. CGS are to perform a touch reconnaissance – enter the property under the cover of night, and check the outbuildings for evidence. ROE is only to engage in self-defence – this is supposed to be a recce, not a raid.

After the briefing of the task, I let the Dastardly Regular Opponent decide how he was to perform this recce. He settled on a four-person team, who would have parked up a valley or two over and trekked in on foot to perform his operation at night. Out of the four, one would sit just out of the play area providing overwatch (limited in his actions but harder to hit due to being so far away) armed with a sniper rifle with an NVG optic. The setting of ChargeReal has a much wider tech level, so we decided that CGS (being a PMC with a limited funding base) is rolling relatively low tech – no NVGs but weapon lights.

However, both teams get to have some say in how the mission will go. Although CGS entered the area relatively covertly (arriving in a single vehicle with only a single team), the presence of an unknown SUV in the hills quickly spread among the communities, reaching the ear of the rebels. Different strong points in the surrounding area react differently but the target of the recce decides to pack up and move key assets out of the farm before they are discovered. This means when the CGS team reaches the area, personnel are hard at work, with limited illumination, moving objects from the barn to the vehicles.

Before the first turn started, I shifted a few things around to represent the information that CGS had received being slightly out of date. It was mostly a few subtle things, such as moving vehicles around and shifting the piles of construction material.

As you can see, the farm comprises two structures, a small barn and a farmhouse. An outside toilet and the root cellar entrance filled out the rest of the points-of-interest, while an under-construction structure sat at the edge of the woods. We assumed all terrain outside of the groups of trees was dense woodland, preventing easy line of sight. My opponent was aiming to recce the barn and the root cellar by simply moving into contact with them, while avoiding being spotted.

Also yep, apologies for not getting the root cellar and toilet entrance painted up, I ended up spending a chunk of time getting the newly printed buildings and ran out of time on the other pieces. I’ll get them painted for the next time.

The team began their infiltration from the woods, taking advantage of the in-construction shed to hopefully break line of sight and stop themselves from being spotted in the darkness. They managed to get a little bit of movement before suddenly, the pair of guards outside the barn looked into the darkness and managed to activate with 4 spotting dice, letting them peek into the gloom and realise they had guests. A pistol shot rang out and suddenly we were action on.

As a quick side note, for sneaking around at night we had to add some nightfighting rule. We decided to keep it simple – spotting at night requires an additional spotting dice to be spent. This rule is nullified if the character has NVGs (in this scenario, no one does), NVG/thermal optics (only the CGS sniper does), a torch is used (by either the shooter or the target) or if the target has been firing. This means that most targets will need at least one spotting dice to engage now, but actually shooting has the potential to set off a chain of shots that make spotting the force even easier. We also added radio comms, which let you use wild die and spotting die to share information around the team.

Now technically at this point the team could have backed away and reported in but circumstantial evidence isn’t evidence. While two operators found cover and started returning fire at the pair behind the truck, one of the more cover operators headed to flank around, keeping to the forest surrounding the farm to get a better angle and approach from the rear.

Out front, while the marksman was busy keeping the pair of gunmen by the outside toilet busy, the main pair found themselves stuck in the construction yard, popping off shots at the pair with pistols as things started to go away from the plan.

The appearance of a gunman with a PKM from the barn was definitely a cause for concern – the first burst sent the team leader sprawling in the dirt after a successful dodge while the second was only prevented by a well-timed bonanza token to interrupt. The gunner finished his activation by diving behind cover.

Moments after spotting the machine gunner frantically reload, the flanking element spotted the root cellar door opening to reveal more enemies joining the fight. Interestingly, this fighter was not dressed as a civilian, with Rettung pattern web gear and helmet breaking up his outline. Worried about the possibility of being overrun, the flanking element snapped off an ambushing shot with a bonanza token, forcing his target to dive back into cover.

Unable to get the angle on the remaining CGS operative from the truck, the machine gunner started looking for where best to shift to get a good firing arc. Unfortunately, the dice were against me this turn – only one movement dice and I almost rolled snake eyes on it. However, it did give them a reasonable position, setting him up with a narrow-angle just in case the final CGS operator on this side decided to advance.

The team leader, after having been shot at by a machine gun somewhere in the darkness directly in front of him, decided to shift around the barn to attempt to get a better angle and to maintain momentum rounding the corner, he spotted a shadow at the far end so, bringing his rifle up and thumbing the switch on the weapon light, he illuminated the rebel lurking there. One quick burst saw the enemy fighter injured, unable to dodge the sudden attack.

Of course, all this gunfire attracted the attention of the machine gunner. Stumbling through the darkness towards the source, he rounded the corner to see the CGS leader standing against the barn, rifle still low at the man he’s shot at. Bracing the weapon against the metalwork on the cellar entrance, it looked like it was going to be a very painful burst of fire when…

The flanking operative spent a bonanza token to interrupt. Rolling very well on the activation dice, he managed to get enough movement to sneak up behind the machine gunner before dropping multiple shoot and wild dice to deliver a good old round of brawlin. The end result was a critical hit, closely followed by a roll on the crit table that delivered… instantly dead. It’s easy to visualise, just a pair of hands emerging from the gloom, the knife shining in one as it embeds itself in the gunner’s neck before he can get a shot off – and then the professional nod between the two operators.

We were getting into the late stages and unfortunately it was only at this point I got to deploy the rest of the rebels hiding in the root cellar. This pair, armed with the Rettung G36 and wearing Shyluz Army web gear came busting up the stairs and managed to put some shock down before nipping into cover. However, man of the game, fresh off murdering the machine gunner, decided to pitch a grenade over the bunker top – a grenade that landed perfectly, didn’t scatter and then delivered multiple critical hits to both the new arrivals and the rebel leader, taking them both out of action. This guy will be receiving the bonus for this operation.

Not pictured throughout this entire game was what was going on over on the far side. The CGS marksman off-board managed to get some shots on the pair of goons with AKs behind the white SUV, killing one and forcing the other to attempt a risky crossing across the open to take part in the fighting, whereupon he got taken out. There was also a rebel marksman hiding in the bushes who was entirely useless, not able to get a good angle on any opponents and failing to even get off the board once the time ran out. Overall, a disappointing result for the rebels!

In the post-game, I revealed to the Dastardly Regular Opponent that a quick scan of the area revealed that the barn was stacked with fuel drums, and not the usual stuff for your truck or tractor – we’re talking aviation gas. The root cellar also revealed a stockpile of arms and equipment, including body armour and rifles still wrapped in plastic and bearing the markings of a freshly imported package complete with paperwork detailing the unit of Shyluz Airmobile Infantry it was destined for; obviously signs that the rebels are up to something. Having captured the last squirter, the CGS team was able to stop the exact details of what went down getting out, although the gunfire echoing down the valleys may put some of the surrounding settlements on high alert. We’ll have to see what the next game is going to be…

Overall, a very fun game for a Saturday night – exciting narrative action and some absolutely glorious/disgraceful dice rolls for both parties involved. Our little tweaks are still fun to play even as we add more, with basic stealth and night fighting helping to make it feel a little less Wild West and a bit more Call of Duty 4. That said, I think I might be going a little too easy on the heroes – time to up the ante!

On a personal note, one thing I have noticed recently is that I am out of practice with writing battle report – well more accurately, I’m out of practice remembering to get all the photos! Usually, I’m able to reconstruct battle reports purely from the photos but the last few have been a touch harder. For the next game I’m going to try and get as many photos as possible soI guess I’ll just need to get some more painted terrain on the board!

In the last AAR I wrote, I was introducing the Corporate and Dastardly Regular Opponents to What an Operator, a variant of What A Cowboy. Well, there is another regular opponent who needed his introduction to the current game as the Former Housemate is someone who usually lightly suffers through my Ultramodern games while dreaming of his true love Necromunda (although actually, I assume he spends most of his time dreaming of Necromunda). However, he always enjoys a chance to roll some dice, play some games and usually get away with some madness. So, after a Thai Green Curry and good catchup, we broke out the BSS buildings and began the latest game of What An Operator.

Somewhere in Southern Shyluz, a group of fighters belonging to the Greater Bazi Reunification Front (an active revolutionary group seeking to reclaim parts of Bazi Empire that have been taken by other nations such as Southern Shyluz, Al-Baawba and more) are making a deal with two arms dealers (Sergi a former paratrooper and Ivan the brains of the organisation) from the Perun League, a nation of states far to the North West that used to be ruled by the Tsar and home to several underground arsenals after the Decade of Strife. This meeting is an introduction, a chance for the parties involved to have an initial face-to-face before weapons and money are put on the table and deals made.

The problem is that Sergi and Ivan are not actually from the Perun League and are not arms dealers – in fact, they aren’t even called Sergi and Ivan. Instead, they are agents of the Shyluz Ministry of the Interior, working to build a picture of the various groups seeking to destabilize the current republic. Unfortunately for this, this face-to-face meeting is about to go horribly wrong – Sergi and Ivan aren’t as clever as they think they are and the GBRF have friends in high places who have access to the details of undercover operatives in the region. Luckily they aren’t alone – four operators from Causeway International (a PMC headquartered in Arcadia) accompanied them to the meeting and have taken up positions close by to assist if needed.

As the meeting breaks down, the conversation switching from a common language over to angry Bazi, Sergie looks at the two fighters in front of him and gently takes the safety off his AK…

Luckily for Sergi and Ivan, the first card out of the activation deck was Sergi. Even better, the very first dice roll of the game came up with exactly what my opponent needed to get his two guys out of harm’s way.

6 – 4 – 5 – 1 -1 – 6

First up, a shoot dice (4 or 5) was swiftly turned into a fully automatic burst that delivered a critical hit to the pair of gunmen they were fighting.

One of the sixes was combined with a movement to perform some Hollywood action. In this case, Sergi grabbed Ivan under the arm and dived into cover, getting the pair of them out of harm’s way. Getting up to his feet, another burst of fire from cover did little thanks to the gun going click (rolling two ones on the shoot roll causes a stoppage that must be handled in the next activation).

Brought in by the sound of gunfire, one of the Causeway International teams moved from the garage building they had secured and push into the fight. After putting a few shots down (causing more shock to the attacking rebels) the pair worked together to climb up to the elevated position, ready to provide cover.

As an aside, I’ve dropped down the number of figures in groups of henchmen from the three of the original ruleset down to two. With groups of figures only able to spend the same number of shoot dice as they have figures in a group but also having full auto weapons (with two/three shots per dice) means you can absolutely shred, especially at close range. The fewer figures also mean that if you’re playing squad-based games, it lets you fit in several rifle pairs alongside your characters or specialists. It does lack some of the simplicity of the original system (critical hits don’t remove a single figure any more) but I think it feels a little more tactical.

The other pair of operators hit their own rooftop, taking the high ground to start pouring fire into the group below. What they weren’t expecting was the revel with the PKM to open up on them in his activation, putting the pair of them into a two-way firing range with rounds ripping the railings apart.

Pinned down behind the brick piles (and with Ivan a little busy handling bad guys pushing in from the other side), Sergi soon found himself in trouble. With a rebel pushing on him, he had to pull a Bonanza token and interrupt. With his rifle empty, Sergi pulled the pistol from his belt holster and put some more shock onto the attacker. However, it wasn’t enough to stop a pistol shot hit the ex-paratrooper in the shoulder and dropping him backwards with a wound (and one less activation dice).

On the other side, Ivan hadn’t managed to activate reliably all game (enjoying the friction of sudden turns ending, we’re playing around with hiding two jokers in the deck that once pulled end the turn and reset the activation deck). So when the other group of rebels decided to advance on him, frankly we were all expecting him to immediately get the crap beaten out of him. So we were shocked when instead Ivan pulled a John Wick and rolled hits on all his close combat dice, including a wild dice. Safe to say, the attacking rebels got absolutely wiped out by the furious intelligence operator.

With that devastating round of combat over, and after some further gunfire from the PMC Operators that tore apart the other rebels (and more importantly the hour growing late), we decided to call the game then. Sergi and Ivan had managed to survive their little encounter. We’ll have to see if we return to these two later, but it was a fun intro to What An Operator for another member of the Regular Opponents.

Overall, What An Operator continues to be a game that fits very well for the evening games at the moment – it’s hitting the narrative-focused parts of my brain that Skirmish Sangin did when I first got into Ultramodern Wargaming, while requiring far less prep work than many other games need. In fact, for this particular game, I was literally able to prepare everything while talking through the basics. It’s also a simple enough system that you can easily bolt on other parts to the core to expand it in different ways while still being flexible that its just fun to sit down and play.

Now it’s just time to play some more games – there has been a distinct lack of battle reports on the blog and I have an understanding that they are among the most popular articles, as well as being the most fun to write. In fact, I’ve been having so much fun with them, there may be another battle report in the pipe as we speak…

As I mentioned in my last post about Warcry, many of my regular opponents (specifically the Dastardly and the Corporate) play games with me in situations where something easy to setup and hit the table is handy. Starting late at night or trying to get into a lunch break game during a work day requires a certain speed of play but also an ease in picking forces and running, as well as carefully looking at the mental load of a game – something with too much paperwork or tokens can actually be a little much if you want the drive home or afternoon of work to go well.

There is a wide variety of games for Ultramodern wargames, ranging from the incredibly crunchy and detailed for the simulation fans down to sets designed for competitive head-to-head play, where you use the tools of the Ultramodern genre to utterly defeat your opponent. Which is great! I adore BPRE 28mm and it’s been a fantastic challenge to play, pitting the minds of the Regular Opponents as well as teaching a lot of good habits when it comes to playing. But sometimes you want a game that is less focused on the competitive side and a bit more laid back, a chance for you and your friend to get cool figures on the table, play through what is basically a movie action scene and leave me filled with ideas for the next scenario. I adore the narrative that games can provide, actually above the core fact of who actually won the game.

Enter, What An Operator! John Savage the writer of What a Cowboy ran a rather cool cartel game the system with a few tweaks and I was able to have a little chat about some of them early in the project (unfortunately it was 2021 so I didn’t manage to get figures on the tabletop. I get on well with the Lardy style of rules writing, while What a Tanker and What a Cowboy definitely hits a good balance between rolling dice because it’s fun, while still being something that takes barely any time to get on the table and less time to explain the fundamentals. With a few tweaks to cover automatic weapons from this year’s Lardie Annual (and a few more from myself to account for using teams of trained soldiers rather than mere cowpokes and outlaws), figures hit the board with rapid speed.

I managed to get a test game in with the Corporate Opponent during the week, going from 0 knowledge to a complete game in roughly an hour; a good start, even if we couldn’t take any photos due to playing inside the company office. However, we skipped a few systems that I actually realised are kind of vital so we’ll be doing another game soon. But the things I learnt helped me to set up a game to run during my monthly trip to see the Dastardly Regular Opponent – the perfect setup for a battle report taking place in the ChargeReal.

Operators from the Cyrenician 201st Logical Support Group have been deployed to Shyluz Highlands to locate and secure a missing convoy belonging to a non-government group. Following the tyre tracks of the protected vehicles into dense woodland close to the Bazi border, the team soon find themselves in close proximity to contractors from the Commando Global Solutions PMC who are also in the area investigating the vehicles for the employer. With both teams attempting to secure the objective and prevent the other from reporting back, it would be a bloody contact

To focus on the game, and play something that I’d need to be able to fit on any table we can find in the office, we played a VERY small game, folding down the mat to something tiny. In the middle

I would play the forces of Cyrenice, elite operators operating in a foreign country to secure a national interest, while the Dastardly Regular Oponent took control of the contractors belonging to Commando Global Solutions, a group that has appeared on here in the past (usually getting into trouble).

The two forces were mechanically mirrors of each other – a single Gunslinger-level figure to represent the “hero” of each side and two pairs (one armed with only assault rifles, the other one with a machine gun on one of the operators). These pairs were basically tweaked versions of the Henchmen groups in the core game, reducing the figure count on each base to the more tactical two but adding some more control, over them elevating them from mere background troops to a tactical piece. In regular games, more elite forces will be more of the regular characters, able to act much more on their initiative and take full advantage of their equipment. Assault rifles were set to allow some automatic fire (although not enough to mean troopers would be jamming any time soon) while the LMGs got rules to incentivise finding a firing lane and spending the time to set up and cover it. Although Henchmen can only spend a single dice per character shooting each activation, a single dice for a LMG can still bring the pain if they go fully automatic.

We began in opposite corners, with a convoy of Bushmaster armoured vehicles between us to represent the goal of our investigations. In a bigger game, we’d use these vehicles as task objectives but for this? They were merely chunks of metal to sit between our figures and stop them getting wiped out.

Commando Global Solutions got the first move, advancing their MG team into an area of woodland and setting up, taking cover among the pine needles and watching the gap between the two vehicles.

Rather than setting up my own machine gun to turn the gap in the centre into a two way firing range, I instead set up the Cyrenician operators covering the rear of the second Bushmaster, hoping to prevent any move to outflank me.

As a side note, I’m going to invest in some small mat pieces to make woodland area terrain easier to see without having to have the trees touching each other.

I also advanced my own troops up to the front of the armoured vehicle, aiming to push the flanks and stay away from the large open area, at least for now. However, there was going to be a need to push the enemy and rather than charge a dug-in machine gun, I instead sprinted across the gap.

At which point the Bonanza tokens kicked in, the resource by which characters can pull off moves that change the games usual flow such as interrupts – the machine gun team spotting two operators crossing in their firing line obscured by only light cover, bringing the weapon to bear before hammering away. Luckily my two operators were able to rush to the safety of the vehicle infront, taking only temporary shock which could be cleared later.

However, it was just enough shock to prevent them from using their own Bonanza tokens against the advancing CGS team that lurked behind the vehicle. Bonanza interrupts only lets you use a fraction of your action dice, meaning its quite possible to be left with only a single action dice. I decided to hold my fire and prepare for future engagements.

Which allowed the CGS leader to prepare to do some Holywood Stuff. If you have a wild dice (a six) among your Action Dice that you roll at the start of each turn, you can combine it with other actions to perform the type of heroics you can see on the silver screen. In this case, combining it with a Move dice to allow a Rapid Transition to Dynamic Prone, letting him come around the corner without being engaged.

And this is where playing with a friend who is in this game for the visuals as much as you are really comes into play. For a moment he and I were sat there at the table, trying to work out how this manevoure would look on the silver screen.

It’s just a shame the dice rolls didn’t go quite as well as he hoped. As the leader sailed through the air and landed prone, the shots he hammered at the advancing operators did little more than suppress them. But, suppressing these guys forced them to use a Bonanza token next turn to attempt to return dice to their hand, pinning them in place for now.

It was at this point that we started breaking out the frag grenades to clear the opposition, the battle escalating. Using the dynamite rules, the Cyrenician troops were the first to deploy them, landing one behind the bushmaster. However, the CGS guys were lucky, with only one trooper being removed and the others just dealing with ringing ears and shock.

The Cyrenician MG team however was less lucky, as a scattering grenade thrown by the CGS leader that was intended for the rifle team bounced next to their position and delivered a catastrophic set of three Critical hits. With each critical hit removing two Action dice permanently and each element having only six to begin with, it’s safe these guys got shredded.

With time running out and having lost a portion of his team, the Cyrenician team leader went forward to brawl, pushing forward to close with the opponents, ignoring an attempt to engage him before he could close. Much as with many other TFL games, brawlin is pretty nasty, with the shoot dice being converted to close range attacked that wounded the opponent and forced him back.

However, even with the Cyrenician rifle team moving forward to surround the CGS operators, they were put into an unfortunate situation. The CGS MG team, having bounced forward from it’s key position got an outflank and setup to cover them. At the risk of being overwhelmed, and with the CGS team demanding a surrender, the Cyrenician SF raised their hands and surrendered, not quite willing to risk everything for this particular mission. With two men out of action on each side, this was a bloody encounter that ended due to poor positioning and sheer weight of firepower.

Overall, that was an excellent game for something that was put on the table in 5 minutes, rules explained in another 10 (plus some in-game flicking back and forth to check the specifics) and then a blast was had for the rest of the evening. It felt very much that the rules provided the possibility space for both of us to play in and then stood back for us to choose what made sense tactically and dramatically, only sticking its hand back in where absolutely needed. We’re going to use the events of this game to decide what’s going to happen next – will the Cyrenician attempt a rescue mission or will it be a tense exchange between the interested parties?

The other bonus for us liking this game is that it provides a mechanical core that, with a few tweaks, can easily be played for a whole host of genres while keeping that narrative feel that both myself and opponents enjoy. Knowing a core set of rules means we can actually get to playing the game much faster than jumping between different ways to roll their dice, letting us focus on the worlds of Cowboys, Operators, Commandos or more. Dedicated systems designed from the ground up for a particular era may provide a more “realistic” game, one where each aspect plays into simulating, but having something everyone knows and can get into (along with a smattering of changes to theme it) with easily means we’re going to be playing a lot more games this year. In fact, we’re already planning a campaign using What An Operator for a project that my patrons have been informed about, something that I’ll be detailing more tomorrow.

Last weekend was Vapnartak in York and, as much as I enjoy the show, I mainly use it as an excuse to gather my Regular Opponents together so we can disappear off to the nearby scout hut and take part in one of our game days. In the past we’ve used this place to play Chain of Command on a big table, a mix of Too Fat Lardies things and more. This year, the plan was Tanks – specifically lots of tanks and the Too Fat Lardies game “What a Tanker”. My original plan of taking the week to prepare the game, assemble and paint the missing tank in my collection AND gather everything together had to be cut down to a two-day mad sprint due to an unfortunate bout of illness, meaning I was up late the night before getting vehicles ready for the game.

Although my tank selection is smaller than the Creative and Dastardly Opponents, I wanted to get them out of storage and onto the board. With a full platoon of Churchills painted up, I was left with a task list. My AVRE, Crocodile and the first Comet were undercoated, my Stuart was just assembled but a pair of Comets to finish off the platoon were sat waiting to be glued to. So it was time to rush the assembly!

The good news is that my Comets are from Rubicon and Rubicon makes some gloriously easy kits to assemble. They really do hit the mid-point between “model kit” and “wargaming kit”, letting you get them ready for the board in record time (I think the second was assembled in roughly 45 minutes). For these two, I decided to go with the uncovered gun mantle (partially so you can actually move the gun up and down) and did one of them with the hatch open so I could add one of Empress’s tank commanders when I painted them up.

And then it was painting time. By which I mean it was also 10pm and quite frankly I should have been heading to bed as I was on the exit stage of the lurgy that had knocked me for six for the previous few days. Instead, I rushed out to my recently upgraded garage to get to spraying. Due to being an idiot, my painting is always based around a black undercoat, even if I’m about to spray over the top with Army Painter’s Angel Green spray, so there was a frantic moment of running a heater to speed up the drying of the primer ready for layer two. It’s also roughly around this time that one of the exhaust cowling pieces from one of the Comets decided to escape leaving me with some unexpected but not entirely unwanted variation.

Once sprayed up, the next stage was to break out the makeup brush and Vallejo Russian uniform for the actual colour, applying the lighter colour over the surface while leaving the dark colour underneath in the recesses. If I wanted to actually finish them, I’d have painted the small touches and then hit them with white streaks for my winter of 1945 look. However, it was now late and I had to be up early to drive to collect one of the players so having put three colours on them (black, green and different green), it was time for bed.

Having driven south to collect the Former Housemate to then drive north to York, we rolled into Vappa at the sensible time of 11am after the mad rush. The show is still great (the Scarif battle picture especially grabbed my eye) but after collecting my pre-orders (a visit to Empress and Warbases) and wandering around, we nipped back to get playing.

The game of the day was something I’d scrawled down called The Great Swan. Using What a Tanker as the base ruleset, we made a scenario focused on getting your tanks off the enemy board edge, in a mode that at one point had been nicknamed “tank rugby” (we had to talk down the idea of having an actual ball). To add a little depth/chaos, a selection of Points of Interest located around the board pushed teams forward, both to incentivise movement but also to generate Command Points that could be spent on calling in support (we’ll get back to it later).

We’re lucky that the venue available to us thanks to the Dastardly Regular Opponent is both incredibly close to York Racecourse and also has enough space and tables that we can put up some seriously big boards. After bringing all the tables in, it took three full-size gaming mats to cover it in various shades of green, before the pile of buildings, trees and hills were fetched and put into place. We wanted plenty of cover for the advancing tanks, although I did warn them about the issues of what could be lurking in the trees and buildings…

Now if I was to be sensible, we had FAR too many tanks on the day compared to how many got knocked out or even hit the table. However, we were also definitely getting the vehicles out to show off. Which if we’re honest is what wargaming can be all about – getting your newly painted collection on the tabletop and showing off the cool things to the delight of your friends. As you can see, we’ve managed to assemble several platoons of the usual suspects (Shermans and Panzer 4s) while mixing in a few of the classic fun toys such as the Dastardly Regular Opponent’s latest additions with his big cats. There was also a smattering of lighter vehicles, ideal for shooting across the board or appearing in a player’s hand when they least expected it.

So let’s talk about the game. First up, the slightly tongue-in-cheek introduction:

“Gentlemen! Fellow Cavalry Officers! Terrible news!

We have heard rumours from the most reliable of sources (the wives and valets of the General Staff) that our Dastardly Enemies to our East/West are planning to invade our verdant land. As we are all cavalry officers it makes sense that, rather than wait for our enemy to advance and win the initiative, we shall instead take the bull by the horns and prepare a counter-attack BEFORE they can advance! Gather your forces and we shall swan through the green lands of the border regions and into the sweet civilisation beyond! I’ll see you in the enemy’s Capital in time for Afternoon tea!”

After the teams were set up (three vs three, roughly splitting into a York-based team and one assembled from those who travelled to be there), the players rolled off to gain an advantage. The Away team won the roll and decided to gain the initiative in the first turn. This meant that the Home team were able to pick their tanks first. This meant that the game began with the Home Team comprising of a Stuart, Churchill and King Tiger facing off against the Away Team with Comet, Tiger and a Universal Carrier.

The smaller vehicles were listed as Recce tanks in my scenario, meaning they got an extra turn before the battle kicked off. This meant I got to use the Universal Carrier to help demo the game, whereupon it rolled very poor movement while the test firing of the onboard Panzerfaust (the crew needed something to deal with the big boys) only managed to reduce one of the cows to immobile. As the actual first turn began, the Big Boys surged forward, powering down the slope and heading off to battle.

On the other side of the board, the Churchill struggled off the starting line, the King Tiger rolled forward but the star was the Stuart tank SPEEDING off to capture the Point of Interest by ending the turn within 6″ of it. POIs generated 1 CP each at the start of the turn, a generation we had to adjust midway through as the sheer amount of special abilities being thrown around became an issue. You’ll see what I mean in a second.

In the centre, the two vehicles that had already captured one Point of Interest each found themselves rushing to capture the central POI, even as the Tiger on the hilltop tried to range in the Stuart. The Universal Carrier eventually was able to speed into position, forcing the Stuart to push past them to get a flank.

A push that took it into the line of sight of the Comet. The two vehicles were able to bring the other into firing solutions, only for the rounds to go whizzing over their opponent’s head.

This led to the only logical solution. High-speed close-quarters combat around the Point of Interest. Both tanks came roaring around the woods, fired and only caused temporary damage.

At this point, both teams decided to delve into the big box of tricks and call in support. This was done with a deck of cards, with different suits doing different things. The Clubs meant both teams were able to bring in artillery on their positions, the large blast template meaning 2D6 wasn’t enough to stop each tank’s radio operator directing fire onto their rival. First kills of the game and it was down to the artillery behind the lines! Artillery spotted by the King Tiger then managed to shred the Tiger tank before it got too close, adding another point to the Gunners (who then gained a line on the tally board that was tracking points).

However, this skirmish allowed the Universal Carrier to slip through, capturing one of the Points of Interest before streaming towards the board edge. Not even the return of the Stuart’s player in his Matilda (chosen by his opponents after an unlucky dice roll) could stop the carrier from scoring the first point of the day.

Using a pile of Command Points, the Tiger commander decided to deploy his IS-2 far forward, rolling off the newly captured point before planning to advance forward. However, the promise of a gun duel with the King Tiger was too tempting. That said, it was hard to do anything when dealing with the King Tiger’s massive armour value, rolling 12 dice to attempt to save any hits which the player managed to do pretty much every time.

Unfortunately at this point, I was too busy running the game to snap more photos but there were a few more moments of glorious silliness. The Matlida ramming the IS-2, a rogue pilot deciding to strafe the unfortunate Churchill still stuck in its deployment area, said Churchill being pinned down and pummelled so hard that the player decided to abandon it rather than attempting to repair the temporary damage. The game eventually ended when we ran out of time, although pretty much everyone was buzzing with excitement as we packed the game away.

Overall, the game was a great success. Everyone had fun, we slapped some tanks on the table and ridiculous things happened. The rules for What A Tanker were taught in a single session and did nothing to slow the game down, the dice gods showed their full range of blessings and in the end we left the venue planning to get several more large games in this year. Maybe even some of my Ultramoderns will end up on the biggest board?

At the same time, before I do anything with The Great Swan, I’ll need to go back and rebalance the game. Bringing in the support pieces from the cards was fun, but they ended up being a little bit overpowered due to the sheer amount of Command Points being generated each turn. I’m going to have a little play with this scenario and rebalance a few things but if you want to take a look it is linked here.

Next though, I should probably finish painting those tanks…