Despatches from SPUKORGY'76

On the weekend of All Hallow's Eve is, I suppose, as good a time as any
to have an orgy of wargaming and on that weekend board gamers from all
over the UK converged on Hale in Cheshire for the first ever British
board game get together. I must confess I approached it with a wee bit
of trepidation for most of my experience of wargames with unknown
opponents had been with our miniature figure cousins and, while "off
parade" I had found them all highly likeable blokes, "on parade", or
when actually "playing", they seemed to me to be loud, angry, aggressive
and taking a game all too seriously. So it was that when I arrived at
the Ashley Hotel in Hale, after dumping my luggage and having a quick
wash, I repaired to the games room listening for the loud hum of heavy
conversation and discussion already joined. To my surprise, and delight,
there was none. Despite five or perhaps six games in progress there was
nothing but the quiet hum of conversation, banter and the odd laugh as a
die throw rolled in a more bloody-minded way than usual.

This was to be the pattern for the weekend. From my arrival with the
Scottish contingent at 23.15 hrs on Friday night until my departure at
18.10 hrs on Sunday night, the only voices raised were those of the mock
earnest negotiators during the many "Russian Civil Wars" which were
fought during the two days. On that first evening I played two games.
One, a "Lord of the Rings" game which was less than entralling and the
title of which I cannot remember. The other was after my dismissal from
Middle Earth when four of us played a game of "Emperor of China" (Pub:
G.L.Lamborn) which is a great fun game, a cross between "Diplomacy",
"Risk" and "The East is Red". This was enjoyed by all the players until
Malcolm Watson, an itinerant games importer of no fixed odds, got a dose
of "divine wind", a chance card which calls for an end to the game
regardless of what stage you are at and a general totting up. Malcom
lost (and so did I).

And so (as Pepys has it) to bed at 02.00 hrs approximately.

Up betimes and did bathe in the bathroom provided (the Ashley is well
appointed with bath, shower, wash basin, loo, TV, radio and Teasmaid in,
I think, every room) and to breakfast where, after two fat kippers
together with toast, marmalade and coffee I repaired upstairs to awaken
another of the Scottish cadre, one John Robertson, who had played till
04.00 hrs and thus almost missed his breakfast. This act of charity on
my part earned me a sound thrashing at John's hands (and Arabs) when I
played him at "Jerusalem". The game is a good one and beautifully
presented but the rules are not clear as they might be and we both made
several errors in the playing of it.

However, this is not said in mitigation of my defeat - even by our
rules, I deserve to have lost for one basic mistake in strategy. (Guess
who didn't guard his communications then?) After a pleasant buffet lunch
I was invited to play "Chinese Farm" from e Modern Battles Quad by a
kind gent by the name of Laurence (stand up whoever said "of Arabia")
and, as this was my first experience of these games, while I plowtered
through the rules he got on with a game of "Sealion" on another table. I
think that this split in his concentration allowed me to get away with
the odd tactical nicety which normally would have been seen before it
had time to develop and in the early evening Laurence ceded the game
although it was still in the balance. So cheered I went in to dinner and
was thereafter inveigled (Hell - volunteered) for a game of "Russian
Civil War". From this also I was dismissed but only after stirring
things quite beautifully. It vas while I was resting from my counter
revolutionary activities in a corner of the room that I made the
following notes which I reproduce as they are, in the manner of
despatches from the front.

"The Ashley Hotel in Hale, Cheshire, is a quiet, respectable, pleasant
building and it is probably at its quietest at just after one o' clock
on a Sunday morning. This quiet and respectable facade was totally
belied by the ongoings on the first floor on the morning of Sunday the
thirty-first of October last. At that hour an assassination was being
plotted! Bolsheviks and White Russians were planning to put an end to
Lenin's life! Malcolm Watsonski, a name not unknown in diplomatic and
co-centric circles, was hoping to bring about the downfall of the
apparently invincible leader. As this was happening in the centre of the
room on the far side, Warwick the king maker was juggling lives, crowns,
sceptres and castles as the feudal lords of fifteenth century England
scrambled for power and stabbed one another in the back, front or beer
mug. Walking across the room, if one cared to leave one welter of gore
for another, one could encounter the Nazi Blitzkrieg rolling over the
plains of France, the massed forces of the English Civil War at Marston
Moor while in another corner of the room yet another Russian Civil War
is wending its tortuous way to con clusion. In short, you are witnessing
the fag end of day one of the SPUKORGY.

For the last thirteen hours or so, gamers from all over Britain have
been pitting their wits, dice throws and unit counters one against the
other. The games played have ranged from Ancient Greek battles through
reconstructions of the Battle of Chinese Farm in the 1973 Middle East
Campaign to a future view of America being invaded by Maoist forces in
California. The reports reaching your correspondent would suggest that,
in the latter example, the invading forces employed green and black
jelly babies in their advance. I should doubt these reports had I not
been privileged to witness the occurence personally. I can assure you
that the sight of green jellified men some two hundred miles tall
marching up from the Panama isthmus reminded me of nothing so much as
Arthur Wellesley's remark at Water loo: "I don't know what they do to
the enemy--but by God, they frighten me!"

As the time wears on, even the hardened gamers left playing are
beginning to suffer from combat fatigue. The time is beginning to tell
for in the furthest away Russian Civil War an assassin has, all
unknowingly, shot his own leader, while a little nearer at hand, the
Royalist artillery at Marston Moor has just fired on its own side."

Shortly after that report ended a certain ex patriate Dundonian made
certain approaches to me concerning a game called "advice" or "advise"
and a bottle of whisky. This, as readers will surely understand, was in
the nature of an offer I couldn't refuse and so from about 01.45hrs till
04.00hrs on Sunday morning I sat and played and won and lost in about
equal parts that marvellous game - where can I get a copy? - thereafter,
as Pepys would not have written, though he undoubtedly said it often
enough "and sho to bed".

The Sunday was much as the Saturday with games being played by a large
number of people apparently undaunted by the prospect of another Monday
just over the horizon. Indeed, until the start of the dispersal at
16.30 on Sunday afternoon, the evidence of continued enjoyment of the
games was apparent wherever one looked. It is worth remarking that the
entire week end, as far as I am able to tell, was totally good-humoured
and was instrumental in introducing many players to new games which they
might not have considered playing in the first place. This, combined
with the informal social atmosphere and the added spice of the visit to
the Aladdin's Cave of the SPUK warehouse, made the weekend for some and
destroyed the bank balance for others. The Hotel was, as I have said,
comfortable, the company good and the bar, for those who wanted it, well
stocked, so were there no complaints? The only one of any note that I
heard was that the weekend was expensive. This one I don't buy. To
expect to find a bed and breakfast in any hotel in Britain nowadays at
the price we were asked to pay would in the normal run of things be
silly. We were able not just to take bed and breakfast but those who
wanted could have an evening meal as well and share a lot of time with
many like minded people and find a lot of good fun and great relaxation.
It may be that there were people who were there who found the total
outlay of fare, bed and B., and the odd pint of beer a bit more than
they bargained for but even so, surely the question should be not "how
much?" but "was it worth it?" and as far as I am concerned, it was well
worth it. In fact, I will be there at the next one if I can fit it in. I
thought round about May next year.........

Gies ma' SPUKORGY 'n 'at. 

Hamish Wilson


The time is: 29th October 1976 AD SPUKORGY '76

Jon Ormandy and Nick Carter

A weekend of wargames, more wargames, and yet more wargames.

Visitors to the Ashley Hotel, Hale, Cheshire on October 29th may well
have been astonished by a sign which read "Orgy this way"! Those bold
enough to peep behind the wooden screen were perhaps disappointed, cut
nonetheless privileged, to witness the first (of many we hope) SPUK
wargames orgy.

Some 50 gamers from as far afield as Kent and Scotland attended what was
to be a most entertaining weekend. Visitors from afar had the advantage
of sleeping in the hotel itself enabling many games to continue playing
into the small hours. The SPUK premises, conveniently situated about 300
yards from the Ashley, were open on the Saturday from 10.00am to 4.00pm.
Sales of games seemed fairly high despite an increase in prices due to
the sinking (sunk?) pound.

"Conquistador" made its debut in public appearing in both solitaire and
multi-player guises. An advance copy was eagerly examined by all those
with subscriptions to S&T. By now you will probably all have come to
your own conclusions about the game but first reactions to it certainly
seemed favourable, even from the player whose English explorers were
repeatedly driven back by fanatical eskimos!

Since everyone who subscribes to S&T had recently received issue 57,
many games of "Panzergruppe Guderian" were in evidence. This game also
proved to be very popular and there were nearly always one or two games
in progress. Perhaps the most encouraging fact to emerge from them was
that, in spite of there being only one scenario, most of the games
developed differently, various methods of defence being tried and
different directions of attack attempted. One problem is that with SPl's
new printing method, the rules are printed on flimsy paper and ideally
need to be protected if you intend to play the game often.

Quadri-games proved enormously popular, most likely because they are
both quick, making ideal time-fillers, and simple - nobody wants to
spend ages reading rules when they have travelled miles for a week end
of wargaming. Quadrigames seem to offer a sufficient challenge for even
the most experienced of wargamers however. Particularly popular were the
"Napoleon at War" quads and the various shades of "Blue and Gray" but
all the quadri-game sets were represented at some time or other. The
playing of the different sets of quadri games seemed, with uncanny
regularity, to go in distinct phases - "North Africa Quads' on Friday,
"Napoleon at War" on Saturday and Sunday, and "Blue and Gray" and
"Thirty Years War" on Sunday, with odd games of "Modern Battles" and
"Island War" Quads in between.

Non-SPI games (shh!) were in the minority throughout the whole of
SPUKORGY '76 as one might expect but among the more popular titles were
the colourful "Bar-Lev" and "Jerusalem" and various Avalon Hill games,
in particular the recently published "Russian Campaign" which seemed to
play quite well and "Kingmaker", an update of Philmar's immensely
popular Wars of the Roses game.

Among the more popular SPI games were "Sinai", "Spartan", "World War
II", "Borodino" and several very lively games of "Firefight", SPl's new
modern tactical game. Other, yet more popular, games are mentioned at
greater length elsewhere in this article.

One of the highlights of SPUKORGY '76 was SPl's recent publication,
"Terrible Swift Sword". This game attracted almost as much interest from
other gamers as from those actually playing it. With its three very
colourful mapsheets and hundreds of counters, "Terrible Swift Sword" is
certainly attractive The game was played all day Saturday, yet the
players were unable to complete the first day of the battle of
Gettysburg which it simulates. This gives some idea of how long the game
can take if it is played in full longer than the real battle actually
took. However, the players certainly seemed to be enjoying themselves
and "Terrible Swift Sword" looks like a must for any wargamer who is
interested in the American Civil War. The game can be played in its
entirety, or one of the three one-day scenarios may be played. We were
told that it is possible to play certain scenarios using only one or two
of the maps at least some of the time. Another very colourful game on
show on the Saturday was "Invasion:America". Four players took part in a
game of this novel SPI publication and were having great fun, one of the
players even recruited several units of Jelly Babies!?* While this game
attracted much attention, the electronic randomizer being used in place
of a die attracted even more!

Two gamers who obviously intended to make the most of the weekend, had
the idea playing two games at once. Using fairly simple games such as
the quads (in this case two "Napoleon at War" games), two players can
complete moves in approximately the same time can 'simultaneously
simulate'. It is not advisable to do this with a pair of complex games
as you have to keep a careful eye on what your opponent is doing other
wise you may miss something important and lose the game, or rather
games.

Several gamers at SPUKORGY '76 possessed acrylic sheet which they placed
over their game map and moved the counters on the perspex cover. This
not only protects the map but it also helps to keep it flat - it can be
very annoying to have vast ridges in a map even more annoying when all
the coun ers jump out of place after you have tried to flatten them. A
perspex cover also allows you to plan moves and make alterations to the
map without actually drawing on the game map itself. However, this
perspex sheet is quite expensive, costing up to œ5 for two square feet.
Gamers who would use it often may still consider this worth it though.

Another good idea picked up at SPUKORGY '76 was the use of plastic
folders to protect rules booklets, one folder being used for each sheet
of rules so that they can be read without actually removing them from
the protective folder. These folders are available separately or in book
form from Boots and WHSmiths shops.

Before we draw this article to an end, we would like to mention local
gamer, K Broadhurst's creation "Strategos". This game is about the
Pelopponesian War between Athens and Sparta. Athens being a naval power
and Sparta a land power, it is necessary to defeat your opponent on his
own ground in order to win the game. The game has an attractive map,
uses leader, naval and land units and rules are included to allow for
Persian and Sicilian participation. Several players tried and liked the
game and Malcolm may consider publishing it. We could certainly do with
some more British games on the market.

Towards the end of the weekend a competition was proposed to choose a
name for next year's SPUK wargames orgy. The prize of an SPI tee-shirt
deterred any would-be entrants. Thanks are due to all those who helped
to organise SPUKORGY'76 and in particular to Malcolm Watson. Thanks also
to all the gamers at SPUKORGY'76 who made the event so enjoyable for one
another We look forward eagerly to...... '77.