Clotted Lard 2025.

Last weekend the club gathered in Lympstone Village Hall to celebrate Clotted Lard 2025, the eighth Lardy show since we started back in 2018, and another opportunity for DWG club members to enjoy the company of other enthusiasts for the Lardy stable of games, many of who have been coming since the first show and have become firm friends of the club with our regular annual gathering.

As well as enjoying the multiple games on offer and the opportunity to play two of them over the day, with games ranging from Sharp Practice, I Aint Been Shot Mum (IABSM), What a Tanker, What a Cowboy, Midgard, Coastal Patrol, Chain of Command II and Infamy, the gathering would see the club raising monies for our local charity, Devon Air Ambulance, as well as enjoying our usual Devon Cream Tea to keep everyone going in the afternoon.

This year I decided to take a break from hosting a game during the day to opting to play in two of those on offer, thus this show report will differ from those of previous years in that I intend to present it from the perspective of a player, focussed very much on the games enjoyed rather than an overview of the show as a whole.

My game choices would see me in the morning session of play enjoying reappraising myself with the delights of IABSM, a set of rules I played to destruction when they first appeared way back in 2002, and so different from the then typical IGO-UGO playing systems that gave player commanders a control omniscience that real life commanders could only dream of; instead IABSM introduced tabletop wargamers to the principles of 'Clausewitzian friction' and the frustrations of potentially not being able to do things when or indeed how one would like to, a principle that has become in one way or another a feature of many of the games we like to play today.

With their card generated play sequence and the possibility of units not being able to activate in any given turn, or units not quite doing exactly what their player commanders intended, these rules revolutionised the concepts around initiative-driven-activation ways of playing our games and creating some of the command issues (friction) faced by real-life commanders, having to deal with issues beyond their control, and still carry on fighting their battle to achieve a given outcome.

So once we had finished setting the rooms up and helping game organisers arrange their table spaces, I joined friends Phil and Jenny Turner for the morning game as our group of players settled in to recreate some of the drama experienced around the Oosterbeek area of Arnhem in September 1944.

The battle around Arnhem as the British battalions, including the Border Regiment, break off their engagements and withdraw into the Oosterbeek perimeter, 19th–21st September.

During the Battle of Arnhem in September 1944, elements of the 1st Battalion, The Border Regiment, a part of the 1st Airborne Division, successfully destroyed a German PzKpfw B2 (f) Flammpanzer, which was a captured French Char B1-bis tank converted into a flamethrower tank by Panzer-Kompanie 224, using a 6-pounder anti-tank gun. The action took place on September 20th, 1944, near the Oude Herbergh in Oosterbeek, as German forces advanced on the area defended by the British paratroopers.

A Flammpanzer B2(f) which was commanded by Leutnant Siegfried Giesa and belonged to Panzer Kompanie 224. This tank took part in Operation Market garden and was involved in the fighting in Oosterbeek, Holland. On the 20th September 1944, Giesa’s vehicle was on the move but as it stopped in front of the De Koude Herber restaurant, at the intersection of Sonnenberglaan-Utrechtseweg, it was engaged by Captain Peter Chard from C Troop, №2 Battery, 1st Airlanding Light Regiment, 1st Airborne Division. He fired a PIAT at the tank some 20 meters away though the weapon misfired. Armed with grenades, the captain attempted to run around the enemy vehicle and drop a grenade inside. Unfortunately he wasn’t quick enough as the Flammpanzer reacted the quickest and using its hull-mounted flamethrower, spewed fire onto Chard who ran back to his comrades. Enveloped in flames, he screamed at his men to shoot him and end his misery. As Chard did this, he was grabbed by his colleagues who rolled him around in the sand and were able to put out the fire. The burns the 24-year old officer received were so severe that he died on 9 October 1944 in a hospital in Apeldoorn. While this was happening, a 6-pdr AT gun named “Gallipoli II” from №26 Anti-Tank Platoon, S Company, 1st Battalion, 1st Border Regiment, 1st Airborne Division, which was located at the corner of the Van Lennepweg and the Utrechtseweg, took aim and positioned Leutnant Giesa’s Flammpanzer in its sights. As the tank approached the Oude Herbergh, the crew of the British gun, commanded by Corporal B. Lever and manned by Private Joe Cunnington, Private G. “Taffy” Barr and Lance Corporal Wilf Pridmore opened fire and struck the German tank in the bow, knocking it out. The enemy crew bailed out and ran away, covered by German small arms suppressing fire. Leutnant Giesa was slightly wounded but went on to survive the war.

Phil and Jenny had recently visited the battlefield where our action took place and used that experience to inform their delightful table married of course with their usual attention to matching it up with an equally glorious collection of model figures and vehicles.

We quickly sorted out sides and I joined fellow clubmate Jack to command the German forces as we quickly decided to focus our efforts to take the ornate art-deco restaurant that was shelled to smithereens by the Germans in the actual battle, being that it occupied a vital position overlooking the Driel Ferry on the Lower Rhine (see the map above, showing the location of Driel) and a potential crossing point for the Polish Airborne Brigade sent to reinforce the bridgehead.

German infantry sections spread out as they move towards the towered restaurant building, with tank support on the road to their right. 

Our force, Kampfgruppe Von Tettau, was the usual hotch-potch mix of former Luftwaffe groundcrew now recently recruited to a ground force role in support of our intimidating force of Char B Flampanzers, clanking towards a series of blind markers set up around the restaurant and in among the light woods that surround the area.

I hadn't played IABSM for several years now, but the sequence of play quickly became familiar again, and the need to practice the 'one foot on the ground, one foot off' method of advancing infantry towards an unspotted enemy, so trumpeted by the likes of General Montgomery, by constantly placing forward sections on overwatch as advancing rearward sections attempted to close on suspected enemy positions.

The use of blinds is a very effective way of simulating jump off points for deployed troops and adds other choices to the players on the attack as they balance the need to move forward with the need to stop and provide covering fire, should the enemy reveal themselves, as well as using activations to attempt to spot undisclosed blinds and force the enemy to be revealed prematurely.

Inevitably the time comes when the defenders feel impelled to reveal their positions and open fire, and thus the first rounds of 6-pdr AT fire slammed into the leading Char B, disabling the tank but not sufficiently to force its crew to bail or to impede its ability to fire.

The Char B responded with a devastating burst of flame that destroyed the 6pdr and its crew but then itself falling prey to a nearby PIAT team as the Borderer infantry revealed themselves, and then to shoot up the first German infantry teams passing through the British smokescreen in the wake of the tanks and closing with the hedgerow in front of the Parachute troops.

Our attack plan was simple in that the tanks were the spearhead to help shoot the following infantry onto the target, namely the restaurant area, and with all the tanks arriving together in front of the enemy a multiplicity of targets ensured some of them would survive long enough to do the damage that was required of them; thus although they suffered from multiple rounds of PIAT fire as they closed the position to begin spraying flame, the damage inflicted on the dug in Paras was horrendous.

As the Paras battled with the Char B's more and more German infantry closed in on their positions forcing a desperate 'Whoa Mohammed', the battle cry of 1st Airborne troops, as the red berets surged out of their trenches to battle hand to hand with the leading sections of German infantry.

Hand to hand combat is always a bloody affair and this fight was equally so with both sides suffering heavy casualties, but with numbers favouring the German troops, the victory went to Kampfgruppe Von Tettau and the airborne troops were forced to fall back shaken, only to be hit by another charge to combat that drove the surviving airborne troops to take shelter in the building.

As our game drew to a close, Phil declared a draw, with the surviving Paras occupying the building ready to sell themselves dearly, but with a sizable group of German infantry in close proximity ready to attempt the final assault that had been enabled by the three wrecked Char B's that sat smouldering on the nearby approach road.

Thank you to Phil and Jenny for putting on a very entertaining scenario and to Chas, Jeff and Jack for providing the fun of playing it.

So with a quick break for lunch, the afternoon session soon beckoned with a scone, clotted cream and jam to look forward to a bit later and also the next game which was a complete change of theme and indeed century as I looked forward to a bit of Sharp Practice action in the Peninsular War, with fellow DWG clubmate Bob.

I'd had the pleasure of play testing Bob's scenario at our last club meeting and having played the Allied Anglo-Spanish force, I opted to have a go with the French this time, being careful not to give anything away to my fellow French commanders as to what might happen, so as to keep the game fresh for my fellow players; and with myself taking command of the French hussars and voltigeurs found myself at the head of the French column tasked with marching out of the town to the opposite board edge whilst escorting our waggon load of ill-gotten booty.

The congestion of French troops trying to extricate themselves from the tight streets of the Spanish hamlet replicated the play test game and the situation presented soon caused enough suspicion among my fellow French commanders, that troops were soon positioned facing outwards from the route of march in anticipation of any potential ambush along the way.

As the French infantry guarded the route of march, the light troops and cavalry assumed the role of advance guard as the more open country beyond the shallow creek beckoned an increased opportunity to manoeuvre, should a fight develop further along the road.

Of course as I suspected we didn't have to wait long for the British and Spanish opposition to make their presence known, as the Spanish guerrillas in the town, supported by light cavalry with lances took the opportunity to add a bit more chaos and confusion amid the streets of the town, this while British infantry started to emerge from the olive groves and small buildings in the open country beyond the town. 

The French seemed to give a better account of themselves in the town fighting than before, but the poor old French hussars got a right seeing-too from combined British musketry and rifle fire, as they vainly attempted to manoeuvre their line into a position to charge.

The French dragoons witnessing the remnants of the hussars ride back past their position, tucked into dead ground behind a large hill, wisely decided on discretion over valour and stayed put, leaving the battle on the other side of the hill to the voltigeurs and line infantry pushing out of the town and over the bridge.

British firing superiority was taking a heavy toll on the French as they attempted to dispute the open ground, but the threat to the French rear and the booty wagon seemed to be being contained, but the French progress was slow because of the fight in the town and the unequal struggle over the river was made worse by the fact that the small number of French units fighting the British were in desperate need of reinforcements that were otherwise engaged.

The situation remained somewhat deadlocked as we called the game to a close, with a strong force of French holding the town, but with a formidable British roadblock growing in strength beyond it.

Thank you to Si, Chris, Alistair, Ian and Bill for their company and the fun of the game and to Bob for letting us play with his marvellous collection of toys.

Our team of players and game organisers for Clotted Lard 2025

As always much fun was had by all, with a great choice of Lardy games, lovely tables and figure collections, good company and an enjoyable day doing what wargamers do best, all this whilst raising money for a very important local charity, the Devon Air Ambulance who help lots of local folks and perhaps even more, the thousands that visit the county every summer on holiday to the region.

Thank you to the DWG Clotted Lard organiser in chief, Colin, running this his second Clotted Lard event, to Jack for providing the cream teas from his bakery, and to fellow DWG club mates who helped set up and prepare things for our guests, and to the Lympstone Village Hall committee who have supported this event for the last three years and enabled our use of their magnificent facilities.

Here's to Clotted Lard 2026

JJ

Wars of the Republic - Ancient Pyrrhic War Skirmish.

I had started building a Roman Republic wargaming collection but had never actually played a game

with it, and I didn’t want the miniatures to languish forgotten in a box. To bring them to life on the table, I picked up a copy of Wars of the Republic from Osprey and was eager to give it a try.

I’ve always been fascinated by the interaction between the Greek and Roman worlds, especially the Pyrrhic War, which marked Rome’s transformation from a minor regional power to a rising force in the Mediterranean over just four dramatic years.

https://www.ospreypublishing.com/uk/wars-of-the-republic-9781472844910/

 

Following the destruction of the neighbouring city of Veii, the Roman Republic gradually extended its

dominance over central Italy. With successful wars in the north and south reducing the local powers of Samnium and Etruria, Rome had become the major power within the peninsula.

Almost every year, Roman armies marched north and south, subjugating more tribes and cities. As Roman suzerainty reached further south, however, the Republic came into contact with the Greek city-states of Magna Graecia, under the loose hegemony of Taras, the sole colony of Sparta and the largest city in southern Italy. 

In 282 BC, the Lucanian tribe attacked the Greek city of Thurii, which petitioned Rome for aid instead of turning to its traditional protector, Taras. Viewing this as an insult, the Tarentines attacked a Roman naval squadron, prompting the Senate to declare war on Taras.

Across the Adriatic, the wars of Alexander’s successors were drawing to a close. The Antigonids had been expelled from the Macedonian throne by an alliance of Alexander’s general Lysimachus and his cousin Pyrrhus of Epirus. Yet Lysimachus claimed the throne for himself, confining Pyrrhus to his ancestral kingdom. Lysimachus was later killed at Corupedium (281 BC), and his realm passed to Ptolemy Ceraunus. Ceraunus, insecure in his rule, was wary of Pyrrhus’ ambitions in Macedonia.

By the end of the decade, the ambitions of all three overlapped: Taras sought protection from Rome,

Pyrrhus sought prestige and resources to strengthen his hand in Greece, and Ceraunus hoped to keep Pyrrhus occupied abroad while he consolidated his power. 

An agreement was struck — Pyrrhus would sail to Magna Graecia to aid the Greek cities, while Ptolemy would provide him with additional troops and funds. With an army of roughly 20,000 sarissa-armed infantry, 3,000 cavalry, 2,000 archers, 500 slingers, and 20 war elephants, Pyrrhus seemed well placed to challenge this ambitious Roman power. 

In 280 BC, Pyrrhus landed in Italy and marched south to meet the Romans at Heraclea. The Epiroteled army won the battle and advanced north toward Rome, but despite the setback the Republic refused peace, raising new legions in remarkable time. Pyrrhus withdrew to Taras. The following year, he marched north again, hoping to weaken Rome’s allies in southern Italy.

With this background in mind, I set up a game to explore how such a clash on the road up to Asculum might have played out. The battlefield represented a Latin colony in Samnium, Pyrrhus wanting to remove the colonists to gain favour with the local tribes while the Romans are wanting to maintain their colonies and the control they exhibited over the Apennines. 

Three clusters of building complexes were positioned across the centre of the table, and whichever side controlled the majority of them after eight hard-fought turns would claim victory. The Wars of the Republic uses a “Commander’s Gaze” system, in which units can only perform basic actions unless a token is spent. These tokens also determine initiative, allow re-rolls, and enable rallying.

The opening stages saw the Greeks and Samnites seize the initiative, surging forward to contest all

three buildings, while the Romans advanced more cautiously. Some accounts suggest the Roman

consul of the year underestimated the urgency of securing the Latin colony. 

The Romans deployed with their manipular legion holding the centre and their Italian allies positioned on the left flank. Opposing them, the Greeks placed their war elephant and light infantry on their own left, while their Samnite allies joined the phalanx infantry across the centre and right. Their formidable cavalry remained in reserve, ready to exploit any breakthrough.

After skirmishing along the lines, the first clash erupted on the Greek left, where their elephant crashed into the Roman lines, only to be met head-on by the elite Roman Triarii, and the battle was truly joined.

While the elephant clashed with the Triarii, the Samnites in the centre smashed into the Roman Principes and Hastatii, while another Samnite contingent on the far right seized defensive positions within a building. 

On the opposite flank, the renowned Thessalian cavalry eyed the Roman cavalry lingering on the far left, each side wary of committing too soon. The fighting was brutally intense: the duel between the elephant and the Triarii left both forces nearly annihilated. (Some claimed the gods made the Triarii’s armour crumple like paper proof, perhaps, that the fortunes of battle can be fickle.) 

In the centre, one cohort of Principes was lost, but not before taking down two Samnite units. The surviving Hastatii and Principes now faced the imposing wall of phalanx pikemen barring their path to the central objective. Meanwhile, the Italian allies swung wide around the remaining Samnites, cutting them off from the nearby phalangites on the left-hand objective and launching probing attacks against their defensive position.

The elephant ultimately triumphed over the ill-fated Triarii, whose armour seemed to fail them but was soon driven off by a volley from the Roman skirmishers. At this point, the Greek cavalry swept in from reserve on their left flank, securing the area and shoring up their wavering line.

Meanwhile, the Romans had found their rhythm in the centre, steadily driving the Greek infantry back toward the central objective, while the Italian allies surged forward against the remaining Samnites. 

Yet these late-stage pushes came too late to seize control of the objectives, and the Romans had lost most of their command control ability. The Greeks had won the day, but one more victory like that and they are sure to be undone.

Many thanks to our strategoi Johnathan Jones and Owen, and to our co-consuls John Roberts and

Mathew, for both a fun and enjoyable game and for their endless patience as we all tried to

learn a new ruleset. 

Opinions on the system were mixed, with a fair share of grumbles from the veteran ancient wargamers present. However, the Commander’s Gaze mechanic did seem effective in simulating the gradual attrition of the battlefield and the corresponding loss of a commander’s control as the battle wore on.

A Round-up of some of the other Games run in July-August 2025.

With another summer season of wargaming drawing to a close in the Devon Wargames Group, I thought I would draw a line under it by highlighting a few games that had not featured on the club blog but were enjoyed by members attending in July and August and are very emblematic of the rich diet of games and themes we enjoy regularly in the club. 

The club continues to grow and now regularly hosts four sometimes five games each meeting with it not uncommon to have close to thirty members attending at any one time and we still attempt to make sure everyone is included in a game on offer and to encourage members to organise and host games at future meetings.

So it gives me great pleasure to present three more games that have featured this year in the club calendar in July and August 2025.

WWII, Chain of Command

WWII in 28mm and 15mm is a very popular theme in the club as it is in the wider hobby and the DWG plays a lot of games from the Too Fat Lardies stable of offerings, which of course includes Chain of Command, recently updated to the new version of the rules.

https://toofatlardies.co.uk/product/chain-of-command-2-copy/

Jack & Charlie hosted a father and son team effort of Chain of Command, with Charlie taking the lead in this his first game presented at club, incorporating the 28mm WWII collection he has been building and treating us all to a very nicely turned out Normandy themed action.

Romans versus Barbarian Tribesmen - Midgard

Warfare from the ancient period of history is another popular theme at club and who doesn't enjoy seeing a nicely painted collection of 28mm Early Imperial Romans bringing a bit of Pax Romana to a group of hairy looking barbarians out and about causing trouble on the Limes.

https://toofatlardies.co.uk/product/midgard-heroic-battles/

Jason treated the club to his very nicely turned out collection and an opportunity to try out the Midgard rules published by the Too Fat Lardies and written by James Morris.

Vietnam 69, Force on Force

Finally this month, the club was treated to a bit of Vietnam action from 1969 bringing back memories for older members in the club of the Summer of Love, Jimi Hendrix and 'Hanoi Jane' Fonda.

Chas brought along his collection of Vietnam themed figures and terrain to host a game of Force on Force that produces a very playable representation of modern warfare between forces of similar organisation and capability as well as the asymmetric warfare between regular and irregular troops.

With September close at hand, the club is gearing up for its new autumn season of games which will include our annual Lardy event, 'Clotted Lard', together with our Gus Murchie Memorial Big Xmas Game and potentially an additional event in the planning to go with our normal feast of games featured at club.

So lots more to come in 2025.

JJ