Blog-Con Two: an After Games Report

A bumper update here on the Blog to cover the really excellent Blog Con 2 this weekend just past in Yorkshire. Staged at Elvington Air Museum in wonderful weather, there were 13 Bloggers including myself who made the trip for a really excellent day’s gaming.

If you’ve not been to the Elvington Air Museum near York, I can warmly recommend it. It’s easy to find, with great parking and good accommodation in the VC room for a couple of games. Having the canteen just outside the door was also a great feature!

The first game – The Return to Serenity Flats – was played by 11 of the Bloggers and featured the various forces of the law attempting to arrest the famed desperado, Budgie Ray. It was an absolute blast. I reprised my role from Blog Con 1 as the Sheriff, but had just as little luck. 

 Once again I was out-smarted by the other lawmen, especially Canadian Mountie Curt Campbell and the dreaded Pinkertons, and was reduced to running after the 3.10 to Yuma express to try and catch up in a depressingly familiar scene which echoed back to what happen in Blog Con 1!

A great game with multiple fatalities, all humorous. I felt truly sorry for Lee’s Dalton Gang gunman, who complied with my call for him to drop his weapon (he was carrying an illegal weapon in City limits…), only for me to sheet at him when he did so (…littering, including dropped weapons, also being illegal within City limits). Sorry, mate!

The second game was run by me. Entitled “Get Carter”, it featured a raid across No Man’s Land by volunteers from the 8th Batallion of the Northumberland Fusiliers seeking to recover their captured Captain. I’ve placed the scenario onto Google Drive, and you can find this in the section on the right of this Blog entitled “Playtesting Scenarios, Campaign Diaries, Play-Aids and Painting Guides”.

I really enjoyed running the game, which turned out to be the typically frantic close quarter fighting trench raid which the Northumberlands only just lost when German Eingreiftruppen swarmed down the communication trenches. In retrospect, perhaps the scenario allows the German Eingreiftruppen to arrive a little too early, but there was genuinely not much in the game by the end. The Germans won, but only just.

   

Post-Blog Con 2, Dave, Marian, Curt, Sarah, Phil and me enjoyed a truly handsome meal at the St Vincent Arms in Sutton-Upon-Derwent before adjourning to The Old Rectory in the village where we were spending the night. Both the pub and the B&B are highly recommended if you are passing that way, with the St Vincent Arms serving immense “Yorkshire Portions”. A great end to a fine day’s gaming, with a huge thank you to Dave for organising and to everyone for attending!