Ambuscade! And Tekumel!

The third annual Ambuscade historical miniature gaming day was held last weekend at Guardian Games.   Attendance was again strong, with 34-36 people over the course of the day (three sessions).  This is about the same as last year, although many people who attended as year were not here this time, which means we had a lot of substitution with different people or first-timers showing up instead. I sat out the first session because it's hard to participate in a game when you are having to get up and direct people to their tables or collect donations or what have you.

In the second session I ran my Isola della Scala game which I will also run at Enfilade next month. The game was a productive playtest, resulting in me making some more tweaks for the game next month. 

(Above: my Isola della Scala game)

(Above: the French advance on the village of Isola della Scala)

At prior Ambuscades we did not have a third session because it would have to be a shorter session due to store's closing time of 10pm, but people asked about it last year so I added one this year. The only game I played in this year was Hugh's Tekumel game, with his many splendid Aztec, Mayan, and Tekumel miniatures and scenery.

(Above: Hugh's Tekumel game, starting positions)

(Above: Tekumel game in progress)

(Above: Tekumel game in progress)

This was possibly the single most intriguing and innovative game I have ever played – there were five players and each player used a different variation of the FUBAR simple rules, and players also made agreements or negotiated certain elements of the rules to their liking. The result was I was playing the rules in one manner on my left and another on my right (for example: the players on my left were counting all figures from each unit in the melee as engaged and thus generating a dice, while the players on my right were only counting the first rank), and all the while players were citing rules which did not appear on the playsheets of the other players, including morale rules not written anywhere at all! Talk about fog of war!  Regardless to say this generated a very dissociative, surreal experience for all involved – which is very atmospheric and fitting with the Tekumel setting. I understand Hugh is running this at Enfilade and I highly recommend it as it's an experience like no other!