The National Museum of Scotland hosted a small wargaming
event in support of their current Viking exhibition on Sunday. I was there with the Falkirk and District
Wargames club (there were 9 of us there in total) doing a large scale Basic Impetus
game of the Battle of Cruden Bay or ‘The Slaughter of the Danes’. South East Scotland Wargames Club put on
Viking raid using the Dux Britanniarum rules.
The Edinburgh Hub partnered with 6s2Hit to present a quick fire game of
The Siege of Paris, a one to one game called Men of the Sword, and they also
supported a painting area.
This was the first time I had taken part in an event outside
of the more traditional wargaming mainstream and I thought it went very well
indeed. Although numbers weren’t huge,
perhaps 250 – 300, most seemed genuinely interested. The guy running the painting table where 28mm
Vikings were being painted up, largely by relatively young kids, had about 80
takers and looked pretty busy for almost all of the day. The Siege of Paris was very popular with the
youngsters and only took about a quarter of an hour to play which worked
well. The Men of the Sword table had a good
number of takers and the SESWC game also attracted interested spectators.
We ran our game 4 times during the day. The battlefield was split into 3 zones
effectively resulting in 3 separate battles each time. A club member was available to play each game
but was ready to give up the slot and/or assist any member of the public who
wanted to have a go. Although that
happened only about a third of the time there was also lots of good engagement
with people showing an interest rather than wanting to actually play. The club had bought some plastic Gripping
Beast Vikings and we gave away sprues to those that had taken part. We also used the opportunity to promote our
show, Carronade, on 11th May.
I hope we get the opportunity to do something like this
again. Usually when we talk about public
participation games we mean games at wargames shows played by wargamers and
their offspring. It was very good to see
an interest being shown by a much wider section of the population and we may
have sparked a lifetime interest in the hobby with one or two kids, or provided
an insight into what is out there to some of the adults. The
Museum was pleased with the event so we might get an invitation back or to one
of their sister venues. All in all a fun
and rewarding day.
Scots settlement
The full table, Scots to the right and Vikings to the left and some of our club members
The Seige of Paris, before the Vikings disembark from their ships
The Men of the Sword gameboard
The Vikings go 'A Viking'
