Bloody Big Battles Bash Day 2017

The second Bloody Big Battles Bash day took place on Saturday 18th February 2017 at Wolvercote village Hall near Oxford. The day was organised by Crispin Matson and The Oxford Wargames Society.

Again there was a fine selection of games on offer

• Isaszeg, Hungarian War of Independence 1849
• Tapio Bicske, Hungarian War of Independence 1849
• Gujrat, Second Anglo-Sikh War 1849
• Magenta, Franco-Austrian War 1859
• Koniggratz, Austro-Prussian War 1866
• Shiloh, American Civil War 1862
• Spotsylvannia, American Civil War 1864
• Mars La Tour, Franco-Prussian War 1870
• Gravelotte, Franco-Prussian War 1870
• Rasianiai, WW2 1941

I was games master for Magenta in the morning and did intend to play Gujrat in the afternoon but General Fatigue got the better of me and sadly I had to give it a miss.

In between gm'ing I did manage to take photos of some of the games. And in no particular order...

Isaszeg, Hungarian War of Independence 1849

Scale: 6mm

The least number of bases I've ever seen in a BBB game - 14 on one side and 8 on the other

Koniggratz, Austro-Prussian War 1866

Scale: 10mm

I played in this last year. I believe that this will be at Warfare in November.

Shiloh, American Civil War 1862

Scale: 3mm

This caught my interest as it used 3mm figures from Peter Pig's ACW Naval Range. PP can expect an order from me.

Spotsylvannia, American Civil War 1864

Scale: 6mm

This was an afternoon game so I only got the setup

Rasianiai, WW2 1941

Scale: 6mm

This is an intriguing variant of BBB for WW2. Bases are either battalions, companies or HQs.

Mars La Tour, Franco-Prussian War 1870

Scale: 6mm

It ain't BBB Bash day without an FPW game

Gujrat, Second Anglo-Sikh War 1849

Scale: 6mm

I had my eye on this as I was going to play in the afternoon. BBB works well with colonial wars. The Sikhs won this battle despite a valiant last urn effort from the East India Company.

Magenta, Franco-Austrian War 1859

Scale: 10mm

I gm'ed this one so there are quite few more photos. It ended up a glorious victory for the Austrians as the French only captured 1 of the 3 objectives

Warning - if you don't like smiley faces then look away now.

It was unfortunate that we couldn't have gamed in the afternoon but that's life.

All of  the games showed that BBB is a versatile set of rules albeit geared towards the smaller scales.

The WW2 game showed that the BBB engine can lend itself to other periods although this maybe because it has a certain level of abstraction.

Chatting to people brought up other periods such as the Thirty Years War , Marlborough's Wars, the Seven Years War and Napoleonics. Personally I'm thinking of Mongol tribal warfare.

A day well spent.

There are loads more photos at my photobucket account.