The COGS, (Chesterfield Open Game Society), annual show was held at The Winding Wheel, which is located right in the Town Centre of Chesterfield, just opposite the famous Crooked Spire church.  The event was held on Sunday November 7th 2004, and was open from 9.00am until 4.30pm.  Our huge LOTR mega game was just one of many games being played at the event.  The other game featured on this page is a WW2 war game in 1/48th scale called Kelly's Heroes, which is loosely based on the Clint Eastwood movie of the same name, I was involved with that game also on the day, being as I wrote the rule set for the game

The table we used for our LOTR game measured 30 feet long by 6 feet wide, the actual gaming area was 27 feet by 6 feet, this was covered with all of our terrain and scenery pieces.  There was well in excess of 1000 miniatures on the table,  points for this titanic battle will have exceeded 15000, exactly how much over 15000 we went, we do not know for sure.  There were 16 players taking part in the game.

To make the game interesting objectives were set, these points are identified as Gem Stone markers visible in the pictures. Some of the markers were designated as Special Events which introduced characters such as Grima Wormtongue, Gollum, Frodo, Sam, Merry, Pippin, Tom Bombadil & Goldberry, Barrow Wights and Treebeard.  The other markers designated how many Victory points that objective was worth, normal playing cards were used to represent this, and they can be seen in some of the pictures as well.  The Victory points and Special events were randomly chosen, by drawing playing cards to see what the event or objective was to be.  Yith, (Richard), had put some thought into devising this, and it made for a far more interesting game.

The LOTR game was started just after 9.00am and we finished playing at just before 4.00pm, having managed to play something like eight or nine full rounds, which all things considered was no small achievement. 

The final result was also a bit of a surprise, the Evil side had accumulated 89 Victory points in total, the Good side having accumulated 95 Victory points, a very close game indeed, even closer than the last time we had a game this big, considering the size of the gaming area

Below follow a selection of pictures taken during the both of the gamea.  Enjoy.....

The Lord of the Rings.

Kelly's heroes.