High Ambition - Low Skill: August 2018

Sunday, August 19, 2018

Call to Arms 2018 - Team Yankee in 6mm

On 4 and 5 August wargamers of all types descended on Wellington for the annual Call to Arms event, which features a range of tournament and demonstration wargames.

My wargaming buddies and I generally attend most years to put on a large scale demonstration games, with Dystopian Wars and Legion being our favourite for the last few year. It's a high point of our gaming calendar, and something that we are always keen on.

This year we decided to go for a two-day 6mm Team Yankee event as we have been playing a lot of it lately and really enjoying it. Day one would involve the Americans and the British defending some vital bridges from a combined Russian and East German attack (Red Dawn), while on day two we would flip it around with NATO forces looking to secure some strategically important Scud missiles (Red Dusk).

You can read about it more on my friend Dale's excellent blog, but suffice to say it was a great time. All the amazing scenery that you can see in those photos is his hard work, and he designed the scenario for the two days.

As usual our ambition slightly outstripped our speed of play, so everyone was completely exhausted by the end of day two (which thankfully finished with a drink at the pub). I am pleased to say that the Warsaw Pact forces (more or less) took the weekend.

I also left my painting run for the Russians late (as usual) which meant two days of pretty full-on painting even before we hit the table. I'll get them photographed soon and up on the blog.

We're already making plans for next year's Call to Arms, however we might reduce our ambition a little in terms of how much we can physically get through. We're also looking at adopting some house rules that might make it slightly easier to dislodge dug-in infantry, as moving these was the focus of both days.

Below are a few random photos from the two days, but do check out the blog (they will make a lot more sense).