Gaming at Royal Military College

I had the pleasure to host a War of 1812 game at Royal Military College in Kingston, Ontario this past weekend. Actually, I should say "attempt to host" but more of that in a moment. My sons, Michael and Daniel, both students at RMC, had asked me up to the campus to put on a game with my 28mm War of 1812 collection for them and some of their fellow students. I dutifully trooped along the 401 to Kingston on Saturday and was treated to dinner and drinks with "the boys." Unfortunately, for them, their attempt to out-drink the old man fell by the wayside. In fact, I seem to remember keeping up with the shots (even the evil-tasting Sambucca) and continuing to trounce them at whatever game came to hand (darts, pool, air hockey).

A future leader of the Canadian military trying valiantly to hit the dart board (unsuccessfully, I might add).

But I digress.... After breakfast on Sunday, we repaired to the cadet's mess and set up my game. You can see some photos below that I took with my Crackberry (since I left my camera in Daniel's room...duh).



The game was based (very, very) loosely on the Battle of Bladensburg in 1814. You can see an earlier blog of one of my re-fights of this battle here. The good news is that the table looked good, the company was eager and friendly. The bad news? After an hour of setup and game/rule explanation and a half hour into the first turn, a birthday party group showed up that had booked the entire cadet's mess. This apparently had not been posted or advertised. The cadets regularly use the space for gaming and none had any prior indication of the booking. So, we had to pack the entire game up.

Not a total loss though. We decided that rather than transporting and setting up the game in a new location, we would go to the gaming club room and play a quick game with Daniel's Wild West collection. This would be easier and quicker to setup and would provide a faster game (given that it was now mid-afternoon). I took some quick pictures of the game, again with the Crackberry. All of the buildings and terrain pieces have been scratch-built by Daniel and me and the figures (brilliantly) painted by Daniel. We used the Warhammer western gunfight rules which give a quick entertaining game. The mechanics are the same as for the GW's Lord of the Rings rule set with, of course, period flavour and weapons.

Our attempt at Deadwood. This will grow a fair bit in the near future. Daniel is currently working on an enormous hotel & saloon. We also have some Indian tipis that will look great on the opposite end of the table (it's Hollywood, after all, and historical accuracy is not a priority). Perhaps a train station, a bank, a sheriff's office......

A closer look at the main street. The roof of the barn in the foreground looks great but was a real pain to put together (this building was a joint project between Daniel and me). All the tiles are individually laid and painted!

An admittedly poor photo of some of Daniel's exquisitely painted figures. In some cases, he's painted mounted and dismounted versions of the same figure. Very cool!