I have just been to BLAM in Woking, England to have some beer and play games with regulars of the Lead Adventure Forum.

It was a ‘jolly good show’ as they say and I managed to play almost constantly.

Here is a small selection of images (borrowed from the others as I didn’t bring my camera) from the different games I played:

The first game I played was Matakishi’s Shadowman game. It was a huuuge display of modelling and I think one of his ideas was to use as much from his personal collection as he could get away with.

I played the part of a Shadowman and had to stop the Dead-do-doos from entering the living world. Unfortunately a dice rolling robot called Andrew May was our enemy on the other side so our Shadowmen got thrashed good.

The game took a good 5 hours so I didn’t manage to play anything else on the Friday. I was never a fan of long games, but this was good fun.

Saturday morning I had a go at Predators by Eric the Shed. It was a fun quick game with hidden movement on behalf of the predators.
I completely failed to kill even a single human being and my co-predator took all the kills himself. That meant that not only did we loose to the human – I also lost to my rival.

 Next I play two games of Scavenge Skirmish Survive. Followers of this blog will perhaps recall that I’m doing something of the same myself, with Steve’s wonderful figures.

 The set up was really gorgeous and had the exact right snowed in look about it.

The first game was played without  a set scenario and lacked a bit for it. This was not a surprise and in the end it wasn’t a huge problem. The rules are still in beta-testing (as they say) and I’m certain a couple of layers of scenario will enrich it even more. 

 I especially liked the railway crossing. I’m afraid there’s no real precedent for anything remotely like it in the rural outskirts of Denmark, but I guess I’ll still feel inspired by it.

 After SSS I featured in a De’ath, Malamute and Bibbly production of Robin Hood. Not the naughty one…

 I played the part of Robert de Corbett (I think) and it is still unclear to me what my motivation was.
In the end I choose to arrest the bishop of Hereford and bring him to my king. The rules used were Sharpe Practise and even though I like that set, I think the numbers of players at the table took away from it.

I managed to get 4 go’s before the game was over. They were a move, move, move and a fight. I was lucky though seeing NurgleHH who simply moved 4 times and never did anything else (ah well he did fall asleep at one point haha!).

Needless to say the set up looked fantastic and so did all the models. I think with a bit fewer players this would be a miniatures feast!

Last and only game for me on the Sunday, before I was out the, was the War of The Roses. The British seem taken with this conflict but I must admit that I know very little about it myself.
The system used was SISSy by Silent Invader and seemed to work just fine.

Having no real knowledge of the conflict I tried playing like it was 1648… and failed! I learned that guns were worthless at this point. So the base of my tactics was completely flawed hahahah! In the end it all worked out and we apparently managed to overthrow the farmhouse defenders we were battling!

In all BLAM 2013 was a really enjoyable experience. After BLAM 2012 I was not sure I thought it was all worth it, but now I feel invigorated and ready to do miniatures again. Of course personal issues are a factor in this as much as everything else. BLAM 2014 – brint it on!