AVBCW: Big Game Hereford 2013 – Umpire notes

Phew ! JP and I did a lot of organising over several months to pull this event off. We got more of it right than we did for the first game in February 2012 (sadly not very well documented)…not least because JP’s wife and daughter had the temerity to be ill with chicken pox and he claimed he couldn’t make it – a feeble excuse methinks !

Before anything else I’d like to say thanks to all the players: Jim; Jon (JP); Mort; Rich; Rob; Roo; Tom and Tym.

This time round, whilst the booking of the Village Hall** was easy (and indeed is a great venue) we had to find a new caterer which took a week or so but turned out to be absolutely fantastic as she was using local butchers, bakers and other sources for the food at extremely good prices. She did provide the quote of the day after Rich had explained what game we were playing (AVBCW) about fascists:

I often lay awake at night and wonder how many fascists I know.

Moving on…

Then we had to think up some good “local” scenario based stuff, like the lions, the scarecrow, and most importantly the errant Bishop. Hmm, we should have had a tin-man !

Learning from the battle of Little Hereford, JP and I decided that the attackers of Ledbury (Royalist & BUF) should have more forces to offset the trenches and other defences the Anglicans and Socialists had.

Finally, we wanted a bit of drive or discipline, and so opted to force my own group’s house rules on the event. This went very well, and thanks Tom – you got it right you were following the house rules, no cr@p on the table, so thanks to all the gents as it was a nice clean table(s).

What didn’t work was our naive attempt to keep the two table in synchronisation. Mort warned us it wouldn’t work, and it didn’t. Having Table 2 with experienced players motoring on ahead, whilst Table 1 with several new players was left floundering in its wake. They soon speeded up though.

Mort mentioned putting together a checklist for doing these events and I think that is a good idea so we can share our experience of running large multi player games. This should cover both the logistics and the house rules of playing these Big Games.

This was the sponge dice Rich found when we were packing the tables and chairs away. It’s about 12″ diameter, and we wish we had found it earlier !

Here are some links to blogs attendees have produced:

JP, my co-conspirator Lots of material and photos of Table 2.

Rob, deviant socialist
More nice pictures.

Rich, fascist nutter (scroll down) Let’s Off Road ! Tank commander par excellance…

And finally, the full collection of my photos.

** With two visitors who turned up at the hall, and given this is a”Local Village Hall, for Local Villagers, and we’ll have no trouble here” my status as resident eccentric is now sealed…