Drumbeat MMXX

We held Drumbeat 2020 on February 22, George Washington's birthday. It was also the 76th birthday of Dick Larsen, who founded the Drumbeat game day event 13 years ago (it seems longer). Dick's idea was to have a mid-Winter event to prime the Northwest Historical Miniature Gamers Society (NHMGS) members for our annual Enfilade! convention in May. I've been coordinating things for it the last few years since Dick's health has prevented him from maintaining an ongoing active role. It kind of runs itself, so it's a perfect gig for someone as lazy as I.

Attendance has fluctuated and costs have risen over the years, which may imperil its continuation. This year we had 13 games with almost 70 attendees. We're open to the public, so we operate on a donation basis for funding. We also provide space for a bring 'n' buy for which NHMGS takes a 10% cut of the sales. In all, we managed to come in at a mere loss of $55.00—a big improvement on last year's loss. Our attendance was higher and the bring 'n' buy sales were greater. It's not certain that we can maintain that going forward. We'll have to have the membership vote on whether we continue at the Lake City Community Center. We're looking into options for other venues, but LCCC has been a pretty good place for the last several years.

Game 1: The Englishman's Lament

I ran two games this year. The first was a replay of my Cnoc Uí Chinnéide scenario for The Pikeman's Lament. I'll be running this game at Enfilade! in May, so I'm fiddling with it to make it work right. The English got their hats handed to them this time after I reduced their firepower. I'm painting more English calivermen now and I've got some English cavalry I can add in as well. I may need another playtest in April or early May.

Game 2: Run faster

My second game was a joint venture with Kevin Smyth. Kevin came up with a scenario for Rebels and Patriots based on the race for the Dan river, which was a prelude to the Battle of Guilford Courthouse in 1781. He and I played it ourselves in the week before Drumbeat and we've been tweaking it since with, I think, more tweaks to come, although the game at Drumbeat played out pretty well.

The Americans have to get their forces over a ford in the Dan river without suffering a loss of more than one unit. If they lose two, it's over for them. Losses inflicted on the British don't factor in, so they pretty much have to make a running fight to get away. In the game at Drumbeat, the Americans seemed well along to winning, having wiped out all the British cavalry and one of their light infantry units. They got some units over the Dan, but still had most on the wrong side when they lost two units to the remainder of the British forces, which amounted to one light infantry, one skirmisher (Hessian jägers), two line infantry, and a light gun. I'm not sure if it's a winnable game for the Americans given the severe victory conditions.

Dice fetish update (Aus Deutschland mit Liebe)

Longtime readers of this blog will know I have a sickness when it comes to dice. I mentioned in a previous post that the antique bone dice I've been using for activations have a tendency to roll snake-eyes. For Rebels and Patriots and The Pikeman's Lament, that's bad, very bad. To see if I could get another set of unique-ish dice to use for more favorable activation/morale, I ordered a set of three from a German craft store on Etsy. They're about 1/2", definitely—though not precisely—cuboid, and handcrafted from laminated bone.

Sadly, I haven't had a change to test them yet. I figure that rolling any two of the three will randomize things a bit more than just rolling the same two every time.

Other games

I was so busy setting up, running, and taking down my games that I managed only a cursory look at other games. Kevin ran a big Lion Rampant game in the morning. Despite my tunnel vision, there were a lot of great games going on around me. I'm very happy with the strong response to the call for game hosts.

Filthy lucre

It was kind of spur of the moment, but I brought a fair bit of stuff to sell at the bring 'n' buy. I have a lot of debris from long-forgotten projects collecting dust in my garage—a lot of dust, actually, because I spray white primer on my figures in the garage and that dust settles everywhere and builds over time. A lot of what I was selling were unpainted 15mm ancients and WW2. At one time, they were a going concern, now they're just concerning. When the dust settled, I walked away with $100.00+ bucks in my pocket. I have a lot more of which to divest myself. That'll be a project for Enfilade!


Dick Larsen

A very poignant aspect of the day was knowing that Dick, the man who founded Drumbeat and was the prime mover behind starting our regional gaming group NHMGS (Northwest Historical Miniature Gaming Society) back in the 80s, is ailing quickly. Dick suffered a stroke three years ago on the same day that Phil Bardsley died. He'd been recovering slowly, but has been wheelchair bound for more than a year. He made an appearance last year, but now he's in home hospice. In addition to his stroke effects, he has liver cancer. Bill Stewart and I visited him a week before Drumbeat and spent about 40 minutes with him. Bill has been to see him multiple times since.