Shrapnel 2018 Tournament Event Write Up!

May 23, 2018

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Warlorder KarlB writes up his experience at the recent Shrapnel event in Stevenage…

This year saw the second running of Shrapnel at Lost Ark Games in Stevenage. This is an annual event run by the store’s resident Bolt Action gaming group, The Landsers. As a measure of the game’s growing popularity, we more than doubled our number of players over last year from ten to twenty-two, the maximum we could fit comfortably into the store.

The day was played over three rounds with round 1 using the scenario No Man’s Land, round 2 was Top Secret and round 3 was Point Defence all from the main rulebook. We altered the rules for these somewhat, mainly the preparatory bombardments, with incoming giving 3 pin markers on a roll of 6 rather than the unit taking hits. This avoided anybody being too badly mauled at the start of the games and this received good feedback from the players.

A great array of armies were represented including the French, US Rangers, Marines, Bulgarians (yes, that was Bulgarians!), Fallschirmjager and even an LRDG list. After round 1 we were worried that the Desert Group were a bit lightweight but they then proceeded to prove us wrong by completely destroying a whole list of British Airborne to a man in round 2! It was great to see so many different forces being represented and all were painted to a fantastic standard making it a pleasure to observe for us organisers. The unluckiest player award had to go to the chap that rolled two Fubars in a row, painful to see!

The group provided a nice range of tables to fight over too with Normandy hedgerows alongside Sicily and factory themed battlefields on one side giving way to Desert, ruined towns and Jungle on the other. A superb effort from the terrainiacs that added a nice bit of variety.

Victory after the final round went to a US Army list, with second and third being claimed by German forces, but as far as a great day’s gaming, with a great collection of friendly players, it’s safe to say we were all winners in the end and look forward to the next one…