Grogten 2026

It was touch and go for a while, whether I would be able to get to Tenby, but thankfully it worked out. The anticipation for this is huge and it’s a big lift this time of year, something to pull you out of the January blues.

I’m rarely excited at 4:30am, but getting up early for the journey to Tenby has a real buzz about it. As has become tradition I met Jeremy‬‪ at a pick up point on the M6 at 6.30am and we were off on our way. The weather was clear, no sign of snow and we had a great journey cutting across Wales - much of the scenery is stunning and we pass through plenty of pretty towns and village. And of course we talked all the way (and on the journey back), politics, gaming and just about everything else!

And before we knew it we were in Tenby. This year a few of the gang had arrived a few days earlier than us, so we quickly settled in and cracked on with some gaming.

Call of Cthulhu: A Time to Harvest

Our host Bagpuss Grognard‬ kicked off proceedings with an epic Call of Cthulhu session. We were eager to get stuck into some gaming and before we knew it we were playing a bunch of students sent to investigate a research site near the tranquil town of Cobb’s Corner. Many of the Dave’s pregen PCs were based on characters from Scooby Doo, Whacky Racers and the Flintstone, such as mine Norville “Shaggy”, Rick Knott’s Daphne, Viscount Jonkeer’s Barney Rubble, Jim “Old Man Slippers" Failing Forward’s Dr Richard Dastardly, Sam0Vail’s Fred Flintstone, and the outlier ‬‬Jeremy‬‪’s Martin Feldmen. We were joined by an ensemble of other student types who we thought were likely to be red shirts…

This is a Cthulhu adventure in the classic format, head to a small town, investigate weird goings on, lots of interesting NPCs and strange happens and a dangerous and disturbing finale. Overall a great day’s entertainment, we played for pretty much 10 hours solid (with a few breaks), this really set the bar for the gaming ahead.

MERP: Before the Snow Falls

It’d be no surprise to anyone who knows Bagpuss Grognard that the second game he chose to run was Middle Earth Roleplaying. We played through a cracking adventure from the Dark Mage of Rhudaur book, taking on what seemed an easy job - guard a caravan across a troubled region to two border forts. How hard could it be?

With masterful map making and some great cardboard minis we had a few dangerous encounters as things took a bad turn leading to an exciting grand finale. We had some great crits that helped us take down the big bad’uns and managed to avoid them ourselves. Despite it’s quirks, MERP is a game that always delivers and we had a lot of fun looking up those big crits.

The Black Sword Hack: The Star Envoy

As more grognards had arrived, for the Thursday evening and Friday morning we split into two groups. While Jeremy‬‪ ran some Liminal (which I believe will be a game long remembered for all the wrong reasons), I played The Black Sword Hack with Rick Knott as GM.

This was a tidy hex crawl adventure set in a strange science-fantasy setting where we had to track down and save an envoy from another planet who’s ship had crash landed in the wasteland. Black Sword Hack characters are crazy with some interesting abilities - I played a Barbarian who packed some real wallop, when they were able to hit their target!

I really like this small hex crawl format which is a great option for a one shot. There was plenty of variety and we only covered half the hexes. Needless to say we were successful in our mission. I’d definitely play the Black Sword Hack again.

Dragonbane: Dark Deeds in Last Hope

It was my turn to GM on the Friday morning while Jim “Old Man Slippers” Failing Forward ran a WFRP adventure for the other half of the group.

I wanted to run an adventure I’ve ran before and knew would work at the table, so I went with the Shadow of the Demon Lord adventure I converted to Dragonbane for Grogmeetish 2024.

IMHO it’s a cracking little adventure with a nice investigative thread and various paths to follow, and I beefed it up with an new encounter and a few extra monsters. It was the first time I have run Dragonbane face to face, so it was interesting to see how competently it delivered a great adventure - it’s really up there with my favourite games. As far as I could tell the players really enjoyed, I certainly did!

The Hooded Man

Sam0Vail had pulled together a home brewed adventure for our ragged band of outlaws. As character generation is quick we created our own PCs and I played John the Carpenter and strong, agile type with a skill in… carpentry. While our PCs were mundane, they all seemed quite capable.

We were called on to help a wandering Benedictine priest, Brother Barnaby who we had rescued from Norman guards, and were charged with taking him to Brother Oswin in a nearby monastery. Much treachery was afoot but I won’t go into any spoilers in case Sam runs this adventure again - it was a great adventure with a thematic ending.

The Hooded Man system is really neat, with a d6 dice pool that does what it needs to and gets out of the way. I’d definitely play it again and even picked up a copy myself.

Mythic Greece Pendragon: The Prison of Tartarus

Grogten Saturdays are reserved for Sam0Vail’s epic Mythic Greece Pendragon sessions, a full day of playing through an epic tale where we face our fates, call on the gods and take on the Titans and their allies.

Once more I took up the mantle of Diomedes, a demi-god beloved by all the other heroes (although they may not agree on this). Bagpuss Grognard reprised his role as Ion who at the end of the last tale became a constellation in the night sky, and this time had his soul drawn into a mechanical owl (just like Bubo from the Clash of the Titans). Although Bagpuss Grognard wasn’t able to talk directly as Ion as only Orestes (played by Doc Cowie) could understand him, Bagpuss Grognard recorded a set of owl sounds to grab our attention, it was a lot of fun.

The adventure itself was truly epic, and on our journey to confront our ultimate foe we fought monsters from myth and legend such as the 100 headed hydra, removed Medusa’s curse and once more saw Doc Cowie as Orestes strike the pose to boost the party’s abilities. And of course the Stethnos Sisters (Aggie, Cassie and Babs) made another appearance, guiding us with their songs, ably delivered by Sam himself.

The battles were fantastic, with Jeremy‬‪’s Greek miniatures bringing the game to life. Pendragon is a great fit for this type of epic adventure, with larger than life heroes confronting terrible foes. I’m not sure how Sam will top this next year.

Food, Drink and Good Company

As always with Grogten weekends, the great company is what makes it - nothing beats time spent with good friends fuelled by fine food and drink.

Food highlights included:

• ‪Jeremy‬‪’s Bobotie for Wednesday’s tea

• Bagpuss Grognard’s Pad Thai for Thursday’s tea

• An tasty Lamb Bhuna and Dahl from Jim “Old Man Slippers” Failing Forward‬ accompanied with Biryani and Riata by Bagpuss Grognard for Friday’s tea

• The traditional Saturday morning fry-up from ‪Jeremy and Jim “Old Man Slippers” Failing Forward‬

• Saturday tea at Tap and Tan with a few pints of an amazing Welsh stout.

There were also plenty of snacks and beer to keep us going, along with the usual post game relaxation in the lounge with some fine whisky.

As with all Grogtens, it’s all over too quickly, and being utterly exhausted we called it on the Sunday, heading home a day earlier than planned. But we had an amazing time with 33 hours of top gaming, plenty of laughs and lots of great memories.

Of course this wouldn’t happen without our amazing host Bagpuss Grognard who is the very spirit of generosity and the source of many, many laughs. Thanks so much Dave, can’t wait until next year!