Pictures from Railroad 2008 (Part 1)
Dated: April 18, 2008.
Just a bit of background to these photos & setting… RailRoad is mainly a model railway show run by the Tame Valley Scouts on the edge of Greater Manchester to raise funds to help send Scouts to the World Jamboree. Over recent years, there have been more general modelling displays appearing amongst the trains & for the past 3 years, we've been there, too, running a participation game.
This year, we decided that we would go back to basics… very simple scenery (unfortunately, we couldn't find a green cloth, otherwise we would have used that!), our simple (and "home made") quick-play rules and quick build tanks (Armourfast, of course!). We ran 5 different scenarios where either the tanks were very evenly matched across the board, or where one had a huge advantage in firepower & defence values (e.g. JagdPanthers), but the opposition was far more agile (e.g. Cromwells) - at least according to our rules!!. The individual scenarios were
· Pz3 vs. Shermans in the desert
· Pz3 vs. T34/76s at the start of Barbarossa
· JagdPanthers vs. Achilles & Cromwells
· JagdPanthers vs. Shermans & Firefly
· JagdPanthers vs. Sherman 76s
· JagdPanthers vs. T34/85s
There was plenty of fun (& carnage!) had by all, with at one point a Cromwell & JagdPanther nose to nose slugging it out… and mainly missing!
All in all, a fun advert for what we do as wargamers without anything complex to worry about for the gamers, most of whom were youngsters (sometimes taking on & beating dad!) new to the hobby & showing that wargaming doesn't have to be expensive.
For those of you that can make it, we're re-running this game down at Bovington Tank Museum at their wargame weekend 5th/6th July & also at the Army in York event at Imphal Barracks on 12th July.
Regards
Colin Foster
UK
Many thanks to Mr. Foster