Donogh the Viking - Part One

 We had a games night last night (some nights ago at this stage) at Stately Kinch manor and we had a rare old time.  One of the advantages of Donogh's progeny being that little bit older is that he's been making it to games nights with more regularity - but in the interests of company, I just went through my phone and texted everyone who plays wargames. As a result, we had thirteen players during the evening and I split proceedings between the kitchen, the war-room and the living room.

The living room was taken up by Savage and two others, who were playing a card game called Dominion. It's a sort of collectable card game, that isn't really collectable, and involves building a medieval city. Beyond that my knowledge of it is pretty slim - but here's a video review by some chaps who know their onions.

In the kitchen, I left General Du Gourman in charge of proceedings. The lads played a game of Overlord Memoir '44 in there, the Cadets of Samur, I think. There seemed to be a lot of hooting coming from that particular room.

The Battle of Albheura by Woolen - I will never tire of this picture

Far more civilized, but no less brutal, was the battle of Albeura in the war room. Boomer's crack French legions failed to defeat Donogh's ragtag band of Spaniards, British and Portuguese. The feared Polish lancers didn't manage to get into the fight and Donogh managed to pull off an eight-seven victory. There will be pictures on his blog in due course, I would imagine.

Donogh the Viking looking spiffing I think you'll agree

And what was I doing during all of this, well - thereby hangs a tale. Once it became clear that we were going to have more than our usual complement, I decided that what was really needed was another Kriegspiel. The idea being that a relatively simple KS game would be run in tandem with the other games the lads were playing. I would run from room to room every twenty minutes or so, get orders and report outcomes. The game was set in 9th century Anglo-Saxon Britain. Two of the rooms were teams of Vikings out to loot, rape and pillage their black little hearts out.

I wrote a piece about the game, but it was just far too long for a single post, so expect part two tomorrow.