Info on game played LOOONG time ago at Dragonmeet

[KEVP]

I actually attended the very first Dragonmeet, way back in the late 70's or very early 80's. I don't remember the precise year.

But I remember a game that I played there. It was a minis game. The gamemaster had set up a wargames table with a village that had interesting things around it. Each player had their own party of adventurers. The GM had pregenerated these parties, and there seems to have been some idea of game balance in the parties, thus my party consisted of a "light cavalryman", a "heavy infantryman" and a "assassin". I remember another player just had one member of his party, a "superhero". But this was unusual, most folks had three or four party members. The idea was that various treasures were hidden around the village, and so the parties were in competition with each other to find the treasures. We would move our minis around the table, and we would find clues or have combat encounters and so on. I think that none of us actually managed to find ANY of the treasures, but it was a lot of fun. And it pretty much made me a gamer for life.

Does anyone have any information about this game, or any idea what system it would have been? It was too early for Warhammer. Each piece had its own movement rate, which you measured with a ruler. Combat and other things was determined with dice rolls, the only dice used were d6 (if I remember right).

I can remember a few more things about the specific scenario I played, if that would help anyone.

Anyone have any info about that first ever Dragonmeet?

KEVP

[KEVP]

just bumping this so I can mark "notify me when a reply is posted".

--KEVP

[Elrick]

I'm fairly sure that the first Dragonmeet was in 1981. It was held in Chelsea town hall on the Kings Road. I probably still have the programme in the loft somewhere.

I suspect the game you are talking about was 'Cry Havoc' published by Standard Games which was released that year. See: http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1323/cry-havoc. Although it came with a hex mapboard I do remember seeing it played on wargames scenery.

[KEVP]

I've done some more research now.

The first Dragonmeet was on the 26th of August, 1978. It does seem to have been at the Chelsea Town Hall. It's possibly that in fact I may have played the game I am talking about at the 1979 Dragonmeet, but I am fairly certain that I played it at the 1978 one.

It was definitely NOT Cry Havoc. I've played Cry Havoc.

Cry Havoc is a board game, this was a miniatures game.

Cry Havoc has a board broken up into hexes for ease of movement, this game was on a miniatures table just measuring with rulers for movement, like most miniatures games.

Cry Havoc is set in a realistic portrayal of medieval Europe, this game had a fantasy setting (with of course some elements of medieval Europe). There were various monsters, including undead, there were magical things, including a horse that kept teleporting all over the map (that was one of the goals of the scenario, to catch that darn horse!).

Cry Havoc uses uses a ten sided dice for resolution, while I am almost certain that the game I played used only six sided dice.

I probably played this game in 1978, maybe 1979, while Cry Havoc wasn't released until 1981.

Cry Havoc doesn't have "assassins" or "superheroes", or even "light cavalry" in the original 1981 release.

Cry Havoc is a board wargame, with mapboards split up into hexes, and lots of flat little cardboard counters with little pictures and game stats on them. This game was a miniatures game, I hesitate to call it a wargame, more of a skirmish wargame. The organizers of the game had proper wargames terrain, including buildings, and proper painted wargames minis. The scale of the game was 1 figure represents 1 man, so each mini was based separately. I remember that I decided to split my three figures up to explore more of the map, which may have been a bad decision. But nobody else found any of the treasures either!

I hope nobody is offended by this enumeration, this gives me a better chance to clarify what I am talking about.

KEVP

[Baz King]

Back then it was fairly commonplace to homebrew skirmish games. Perhaps you're looking for a system that only ever existed as notes?

[KEVP]

I have to admit (sigh) that that may be a possibility.

But on the other hand, other possibilities might be that it was a modification of some published rules (with the understanding that "published" could just mean something very informal), or else that the creators of the game saw how much people enjoyed the game at Dragonmeet, and decided to turn their "notes" into something people could access. In 1978 there weren't that many published games yet, so if someone came up with a good one they would probably want to draw attention to it.

It's possible (I don't remember for certain) that the game was run by a wargames club, and perhaps these were some sort of "club rules".

But I realize I may be searching for something that just doesn't exist in any form that it can be "found".

Was there ever any sort of detailed review of the first Dragonmeet? Did White Dwarf, or any other British gaming magazines (or fanzines) write articles about it? Any other sources for info on the first Dragonmeet?

KEVP