Sunday 19 February 2012

James Top Secret Project (tm)

So just over a week ago a select team of "Dark Age A Listers"* and me were invited by James Morris to join him at a Top Secret location just next door to the Wargames Illustrated Office in Nottingham to play a huge game of Hail Caesar featuring loads of Scottish Welshmen cantering headlong into a mass of Teutonic Angles.
The whole spectacular event will be appearing in a special edition of Wargames Illustrated to mark issue 300, and 25 years, of the dear old magazine.
I am thus sworn to secrecy about the details of the whole thing until August or September of this year when the magazine comes out.
However the kindly despotic tyrant of the WI domain, or Dan the Editor as his nearest and dearest know him, has given us all permission to show a few sneaky peaky type pictures.
So here they are:

 Filthy Pagans. Coming over here, taking our cattle...

 Aethelsomethingorother leads the Saxons to war!

 Some fighting occurs

 More stabbing, slashing and maiming

Chaaaarge!

I took about seventy pictures. Then my battery ran out.
Dan had taken around three hundred by the time the bloodshed ceased.
Here's one of his:
Lovely, innit.

It was, I think we all agreed, one of the best day's of gaming any of us had ever had. It looked spectacular, Hail Caesar gave us a great game, the company was excellent, Dan was a splendid host and the banter flowed. I'm really grateful to have been asked to take part.
I am intending to publish a larger write-up when the magazine comes out, but you'll just have to be patient.
In the meantime some of my fellow players have scribbled a few words too:

Finally there are plans afoot to stage the whole thing "live" at Partizan in September. I can't wait.

*James words

7 comments:

  1. Welsh used to describe native inhabitants of the British Isles. Scottish as in they came from what would now be Scotland.

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  2. Fabulous! What a treat to see so many superbly painted figures in action. I must confess to being a complete 'Hail Caesar' convert. My Romans and Ancient Britons have been out on the playing table more times in the last 2 months than they have in the last 10 years, since I bought the rules. I'm desperately trying to complete some more units of 1st Century AD before I throw myself into the Dark Ages and revamp my Anglo-Saxons and Normans inspired as I am by Hail Caesar (and now by your photos!).

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  3. What we used to call Britons, but apparently that doesn't go down to well if you're a Welsh/Scottish nationalist seeking to deny any links to Britain. So they now seemingly get identified by what the AS invaders called them - sigh

    Great report Tom :-)

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  4. Wow!

    This all looks great and I'm gagging at the bit to see the pics in WI.

    Darrell.

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  5. Wonderful photos. Looks like an awesome game. Looking forward to the mag.

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  6. Nice pics!! I have now blogged with pics of my own...

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