Gus Murchie Memorial Christmas Game 2024 - What a Tanker!

The close of another year of wargaming in the Devon Wargames Group, sees the club celebrating all that's best in our hobby by gathering for our final meeting of the year with our club big-game, the Gus Murchie Memorial Christmas Game, named in honour of a former club member who passed away far too early and who epitomised the passion and full-on love for wargaming.

Those of us who knew the man would also know that Gus joins us in spirit whenever we get together for a big-game; and I know that he, being a keen WWII buff, would have thoroughly enjoyed this year's effort.

Our rules for the game were What a Tanker! (WAT) from the Too Fat Lardies which is unashamedly a fun take on WWII tank combat and a perfect set of rules for use with the large club game we intended, where all participants were engaged in the day playing together rather than our more normal menu of multiple different games.

The cats are herded as Mike R. lays out the set-up and play arrangements for our multi-table, six player-teams, 'What a Tanker!' Xmas game.

However organising a big-game in a club now with some forty full and associate members who may want to attend and play takes a bit of organising in terms of getting the terrain and figure collections together from club members, to sorting out whose coming and then organising the play arrangements, with this aspect of the annual Christmas gathering referred to jokingly, but emphasising the organisational skills required, as 'Cat-Herding'.

As we all know 'Cometh the Hour, Cometh the Man' and step forward Mr Mike R. who put his hand up at the October Club AGM and volunteered to take on the task to herd the cats for this year's game, with some help from veteran WAT players such as Nathan and others, and as was proved, 'A Volunteer is worth Ten Pressed Men' with messages on the internal club forum flying back and forth sorting out who had what, who was bringing it to club, and who was playing, together with a full briefing on arrival, sorting all the attendees into Allied and Axis tank teams, each of three players commanding a tank on the table, that saw us sat down playing in next to no time.

Forum briefing was very helpful in laying out the game plan as illustrated in the sample below by Mike setting out the plan together with help from Nathan and Mark and giving an idea of what went into it beforehand:

'. . . There will be a mechanism (a random selection mechanic tbc) which will mean that if you have a powerful tank (e.g. Panther) you will only get a fixed number of kills with it before you need to change it in a central pool for another tank at random (could still be another Panther, I suppose).

Victory points - as per Nathan's most excellent suggestion - will be based on the points value of your kill. So, if two 12pt Shermans decide to gang up on a 19pt Panther they could get those points for their faction between them, for instance.

Tank dashboards will be pre-filled, and damage tracked on a dice. That way the dashboards can be re-used all afternoon. To make use of the dashboards, each player will need to bring a tape measure, at least 10 dice and four counters (these can be tiddlywinks, buttons or whatever).

A list of which tanks need to be brought by those who have offered will be posted in the next couple of days. (I'm on it, Mark C!)

I will try and arrive by 0930hrs on the day. If I'm late, or anyone else gets there early, we need the pool table as the 'tank pool' (pun inadvertent - see what I did there?!) and four 6x4 tables set up around the hall, please.

There will be an O Group meeting at 1050hrs at which time people will be allocated to their teams. First game (teaching) will kick off 1115hrs. Should be done by 1300hrs. Break for 30 mins, then resume by1330hrs or before, for games of about an hour each. Aiming to be done by 1630hrs. . . '

The terrain and models available from club members meant that we had enough stuff to populate four very different six foot by four foot tables, with three being played on at any one time, and tank models to spare to allow players, having lost a vehicle to have the choice to respawn onto the table with a randomly selected new vehicle or keep the one they had lost previously.

The play on each table was overseen by Mike who called out the time remaining to play as the respective teams attempted to grab points for their respective alliances by knocking out enemy vehicles of getting within six inches of the objective point at the close of the game, before getting an overall state-of-the-game sitrep from Mike and then relocating to a different table against different opposition to start another game.

Thus we all participated in three separate games, but all part of the one setup, enjoying our usual Xmas fare of seasonal snacks and cakes brought to the club by members to keep body and soul together as play commenced after a stop for lunch.

 

As you can see here the Allied and German tank pools were organised such that a player losing their vehicle and opting for a random change could simply roll a die and collect their new vehicle from the pool according to the result, placing their former vehicle in its place.

Like me, not everyone was familiar with WAT, but the mechanics of play are fairly intuitive in terms of rolling dice to decide what the options are for ones vehicle from the menu of manoeuvring, spotting and firing choices and the various exchanges of die results on offer to come up with the perfect combination of manoeuvres to create that perfect fire-solution, as players manoeuvred among the various pieces of terrain to shoot without being shot at.

Hey Paul, do you think that's possible?

Fortunately the club is blessed with several veteran's of Her Majesty's Armed Forces, including the World's oldest tank unit, the Royal Tank Regiment, that invented tank combat from its inception on September 15th, 1916 at the Battle of Flers-Courcelette on the Somme, and so we could turn to Paul to rule on any contentious decisions of play.

Whilst not a game pertaining to be a close simulation of tank warfare in WWII, WAT does produce a fun experience capturing some of the tense cat-and-mouse affairs of big tanks stalking one another amid close terrain, all be it without those darned-pesky infantry types getting in the way with all that new-fangled anti-tank capability.

It was interesting to see how commanders of lightly armed, but bigger gunned tank destroyers or indeed the odd Sherman firefly, hovered on the back of the table as their better armoured compatriots sought to close on the enemy, attempting to get into those preferable side on positions, whist the tank-destroyers indulged in their shoot and scoot tactics of popping over slopes, firing and retiring in the same move.

All this careful manoeuvring produced some excellent photo opportunities as the players were induced to opt for the tactics their historical counterparts were forced to use in reality, tactics not always seen in higher command level games, with multiple model tanks cruising across open ground on the table in majestic lines, track to track, instead of the shy debutantes that was a more characteristic way tanks normally presented themselves on a very dangerous battlefield..

Needless to say our day rolled by with much laughter and banter, as the club enjoyed coming together as one, simply rolling dice and having fun.

As our game reached a conclusion with the last three games finished we got a final sitrep from Mike that, unsurprisingly to those of us driving Shermans around on a table full of late and mid-war German kit, showed an overwhelming victory for the German teams, and all that was left to do after packing away the terrain and models, was to wish one and all a very happy Christmas and to look forward to another club year in January.

Thank you to Mike R who I know has received fulsome applause on the day and on the club forum for pulling our game together and to all the members of the club who took part to create the very fun day we had to end our year on.

The club extends season greetings to all that follow our activities here on the blog, and would wish everyone a very Happy Xmas and Peaceful New Year.

See you in 2025

JJ