Herts of Lard 2026

 On Saturday Mark and I trekked to Rickmansworth (well drove 45 minutes actually!) for Herts of Lard 2026. This is a day of Two Fat Lardies games and great fun. This year there were 15 different games and about 78 participants.

In the morning I played an Aliens scenario, using a variant of What a Cowboy. I'd never player these rules before, but (as with many lardie rules) they were fun to play and easy to pick up the basics. I got to play with the heroes of the film, Ripley and Hicks.

We got lucky a few times, but managed to kill the Alien Queen. We ran out of time to finish the game, but we had a clear escape route, so the umpire gave us a win. the only player killed was Burke, the Weyland-Yutani Corporation lacky, so no one was sorry about that!

Sucess, Ripley finds Newt!

My afternoon game was a Dark Age base using Midgard. This was a superb scenario, based on the Battle of Cynuit from Bernard Cornwell's novel The Last Kingdom. Despite being slaughtered as the Saxons, I had so much fun I forgot to take any pictures! So here is a shot of the morning game by the scenario's creator, Simon Stokes.

Here is a few shots of the other games.

 

A rather superb 28mm Chain of Command game set in 1940. I loved this railway station, it reminded my of a couple of stops on the heritage railway we visited in Alsace last year.

Another WW2 game, this might have been I Ain't Bin Shot Mum!

Another 28mm Chain of Command bash, again nice buildings.

A snowy Battle of the Bulge game, again Chain of Command.

What a Commando, a WW2 special forces dust up using a variant of What a Cowboy.

Napoleonic ships, not sure what rules, I don't think this was Kiss me Hardy..

A really nice Shape Practice! again based on an incident from a Bernard Cornwell novel.

A Chain of command game set in Normandy.

Another Sharpe Practice! game, no prizes for guessing where this is set.

And one more WW2 game, set in the North Africa. Not sure, but I suspect this was also a Chain of Command game.

There was also Sink the Scharnhorst, a Bag the Hun aerial game, but when I passed by the table there was nothing to see, except an expanse of sea!

This year I arranged things to stay on and join the evening gathering at the pub for a very nice meal and a few beers. I spent a very pleasant evening with a bunch of gamers who had travelled down from Yorkshire, then staggered off to the station and got the train home. A fantastic day and I'm looking forward to next year!

Refighting Chronopia with Midgard 3

 Colin and I tried another outing with my Chronopia armies. This time I had tweaked the Devout list to give them a separate magic user, as the Army Commander had been too busy in the previous game to use and spells.

Turn One:

The Devout start off as the Attacker and move forward. The Stygian match them and I charge my unit of Great Warriors (Knihjts) into the end of the Devout battle line. Out of camera shot are the two lighter mounted units on either end of my line, who were intend the envelope the Devout armies flanks, but both refused to pass their second movement!

The Great Warriors charge! 

A view from the Devout side of the table.

Some outstanding dice rolling for the Great Warriors, wiping the Risen unit out in a single round of melee!

 

Turn Two

The Devout's turn to get aggressive. The fast moving Tormented charge the Warriors in front of them, the Soul Flayer Demon flys across the rocky ground and slams into the unit behind.

 

On the flank the unit of Swordsmen  turn and, passing their second movement test, charge the Great Warriors. Who fail to countercharge!!!

As expected, the Tormented push the little Stygian Warrior back.

As does the Soul Flayer Demon.

But, despite suffering casualties, the Great Warriors push their attackers back.

The Stygian turn and the Priestess casts a Weakness spell on the Cursed Axemen (reducing their armour). Then the Stygian Guardian leads the Embalmed in a charge into the reeling axemen. Gaining a good bonus of Reputation Points, Hero charging, Army Commander charging and targeting the enemy Army Commander. They wipe the Cursed out and their Commander runs to the safety on the nearby unit.

On the other side of the table the Starved charge the Greatswordsmne in front of them. The Starved are a bit of a one-shot weapon, very effective in combate but lacking in armour, so die quickly.

A view of the Soul Flayer from the unfortunate Stygian perspective, just before the Demon rips the last survivors apart.

At the end of Turn Two the Reputation is 8:5 to the Stygian army (I'd already turned the die over before taking this picture).

 

Turn Three

Blood and guts all over the place in this turn, as units fade away on both sides of the table. The Damned (nasty big beastie) charges into a fresh unit of warriors.

Devout Greatswordsmen charge the badly wounded Embalmed, killing it. This is a nasty shock for the Stygian, the creature is a loss of 5 Rep points!!! Somehow the unit facing the Tormented fight it to a standstill.

The Damned gets pushed back and the Staved and their opponents cut each other down, leaving the two Heroes to fight on. In the Stygian combat round the Heroes batter away at each other, taking a wound apeice, before the Stygian falls beneath his opponent's blade.

I manage to charge a fresh unit into the rear of the tormented and the creature is slain. But the battlefield is looking pretty empty now.

At the end of Turn Three we both had Zero Reputation. We decided to call it there, as neither of us could see a way that either side could make much difference in the following turn. A Draw, we had battered each other to a standstill.

A great fun game to play. Very bloody and fast. As neither side had any missile capability to speak of, it was just a case of getting stuck in to the gory business as quickly as possible.

Painting in January and February

 Intermittent mix of things so far this year. Illness meant that I didn't get a lot done in January, so I tried to catch up a bit in February. My plan was to crack on with the mass of minis in my Wildspire Miniatures "Realm Reforged" boxed set, but that has been derailed, by a new game that has grabbed my interest. Of course I'm a gaming butterfly sometimes.

Two armoured adventurers from the Wildspire set.

A batch of frozen rocks for my Jotunheim games.

A pack of Gnoll archers and a Pack Leader from the Wildspire set.

Support for the Wildspire Gnolls, "Dogmen" from Alternative Armies.

"Bring Out Your Dead!" a superb 3d print I picked up from somewhere online.

 It's screaming out for a role in a scenario somewhere.

I also returned to my on-going resorting/rebasing of my 28mm Late Roman & Foes forces. Moving on to the Roman cavalry now.

And as I had a few surplus cavalry, a quick partial repaint of tunics and shields...

Middle Earth Arthedain cavalry to patrol the Barrow Downs during the fall of Arnor.

Now my distraction. I've really got into the upcoming new sci-fi rules by Patrick Todoroff, Scrapjacks. These are all 3d print designs by Mr Big Tong.

My salvage team of "Jacks".

Some assorted nasties to lurk in the wreck, undead spacemen.

Cute little maintenance bots, not so cute when they are malfunctioning!