A Deluge Of Hungarian Greys.

 Time -1944 ish.

Place- Budapest Suburbia

Another easy fight ahead?

Maybe Aye Maybe No.

Suburbs Of Budapest.

  I had eventually found time to nip out to The Garvald Film Studio for an evening of moving lead around as the past few weeks seemed to have found me working an awful lot of Wednesdays interspersed with time away with Lady Watson but since I finally had an evening off and whilst Lady Watson was away wrestling alligators in Florida I motored out to Garvald for an evening of trying to enter Budapest,trying being the operative word.

Typical El Presidente figure-a young lady.

Egging Them On.

Hunting For Ambushes.

          As usual there weren’t many takers for a game this evening so I unusually took charge of the Soviets hoping to get a foothold into Budapest.My plan differed from my usual charging in and I hoped to hop from building to building giving my lads plenty of cover as I didn’t know the opposition’s strength.

The Factory.

The Big Boy Arrives.

To Support the Tank.

     It started well as I managed to inhabit a few buildings without a shot being fired but that was about as far as I got.On entering one building preparing to assault the next one I was fired on by Hungarian squaddies and ended up being pinned down.On trying to activate them they rolled a double 6 forcing them to fire on the nearest squad which just happened to be my platoon headquarters with devastating success wiping them out. They were a big loss considering what was to come.

The Fiendish Panzerschrek Team.

Peek A Boo.

Wasted by their own side.

        On the other side of the playing field 2 of my squads had sought cover in a 2 storey building which drew fire from a lingering Hungarian assault gun forcing the bottom level squad to hunker down.The assault gun continued its progress towards the building and after peeking around the corner of the building found itself facing my company headquarters standing out in the middle of nowhere inviting to be shot at which the assault gun dutifully did wiping them out to a man or in this case women.Welcome to El Presidente’s world.

On Fire But Survived.

Backing Up To The Wall.

Little And Large.

        This was to be the story of the evening as every time I lost a squad I lost a dice which meant I lost a chance of improving my lot. I brought on a field gun which turned out to be next to useless as it drew fire from all the surrounding bad guy squads diminishing its crew rather rapidly-another dice lost.Time to bring out the T34 hoping it would improve on its partner in crime aT26 who couldn’t hit the proverbial barn door and itself incurring the wrath of a German panzerschrek squad that just happened to be in the area.

Fire’s Out.

El Presidente’s Gendarmerie Squad hiding behind the pin markers.

         The T34 fired on the Hungarian assault gun forcing it to retreat till it found itself backed up against a factory wall and eventually evacuated by its crew.The local squad embedded in the factory was having success pining and diminishing both my squads in the neighbouring two storey building as lack of Soviet dice and successful initiative dice meant the Soviets just twiddled their thumbs albeit under fire.

Waiting for the first draw.

  El Presidente produced an anti tank gun to try and destroy the T34 turning the scrap into who was going to strike first.Luckily for once the Soviets struck first and the Hungarian gun was destroyed.This turn of luck didn’t last long as the marauding panzerschrek finally hit my T26 and destroyed it.Game Over.

T26 finally bites the dust.

       An enjoyable game which shows how a lack of dice can sway a game.All figs,scenery and scenario provided by El Presidente.Our next game will be a Christmas game which I hope will evolve into a year long campaign game unless El Presidente does away with the main protagonist like the last time I tried a campaign game.

             I intend to produce a prologue before the game as an hors d’oeuvres.Enjoy!

Callejon sin Salida(Slippery Slope)

Fecha-Miercoles Agosto 6th

Lugar-Spanish Slopes of Garvald.

Welcome to my post which was three months waiting for to be able to add photos due to Google’s petulance telling me my photos couldn’t be uploaded but after three months “Hey Presto!”the only good thing that came of my phone updating.

     El Presidente had done a deal with Count Konstam of Orkney for the purchase of an awful lot of Spanish Civil War figures which was much to my dismay for if I had known they were on the market I would have gazumped him as the Spanish Civil War has been always been one of my fancied eras for which I have always considered a slippery slope meaning it would probably commence a huge spending spree.

Nacky Wee Armoured Car.

The only “Spanish”scenery that El Presidente possessed.

         Not to let the figures go to waste El Presidente had set up a game but due to people not being let out or designing new ways to thwart the traffic in our local theme park we found ourselves going mano a mano in a basic skirmish with the object to be the last man standing.

My Guardia Civile enthusiastically heading towards their first battle.

The Fascisti.

A certain journalist who would rather be in Key West.

I took charge of the Republicans whereas El Presidente took charge of the Nationalists hoping to end the insurrection quickly.My plan was my normal plan to charge in and take possession before the Republican norm of indecision set in .Un pequeno pueblo was set up and the main object was possession of the majority of buildings so of we charged rapidamente.

Heading for cover.

A precariously positioned machine gun.

Digging In.

    The first two turns consisted of both of us running towards the nearest buildings interspersed by our own visit to the local taverna for some Portuguese culinary delights-near enough.

More Evil Fascisti.

Dropping Bombs.

Rallying around the flag.

        Basically the rest of the game consisted of shooting to gain some advantage before charging in and doing away with the enemy.My problem is that El Presidente was having better luck with his yellow dice and the sixes were just rolling off especially when it came to shooting down my poor socialists just as they were preparing to rush a building. I was hoping to deplete the opposition before charging in but high numbers didn’t exist in my dice rolls therefore my first hand to hand consisted of six against ten and force of numbers won the day.First blood to the fascisti.

They Seek Him Here They Seek Him There.

The Armour Makes An appearance.

I Thought It Said Groucho Marx.

           The game then fizzled out to a shooting match with El Presidente gaining the upper hand and then to add insult to injury he brought on a tank albeit a Panzer 1 which I suppose is an asset if the opposition don’t possess any way of dealing with it apart from suicidal charges but all it did was strut up the village main street.My reinforcements consisted of some brightly coloured infantry to which I was informed were militia-not much hope then especially as they were classed as green.They headed for a building that had recently been vacated by one of my depleted Assault guard squads and had enough time to shoot once and be shot at before the final whistle was blown.

Rallying My Troops.

Rounding The Corner.

Last Stand Of The Righteous.

         An enjoyable game with scope for some future games to complement our VBCW games.All recently procured figures as well as scenery provided by El Presidente.

            See You All Soon.

       This has been a Garvald Film Studio production.

Flaming H**L

Time- Wednesday 2nd July

Place-Iwo Jima(so I’m led to believe)

My Lads Sunbathing.

Turned up at Schloss Garvald hoping for a nice leisurely silly game only to be confronted by a table set up for the Marines to invade not the proper Royal Marines but the bunch from across the pond.Hoping for an easy evening I was informed that there would be no support from either aircraft or naval gunfire.It was going to be a long evening or not as it turned out to be.

The Tori gate objective.

The Jungle and The Deadly Cliffs.

Here We Go.

          Herr O’Brien had played the game the previous week so knew the skinny about the game as he proved to lethal effect.After the beach merged into the local jungle we also had to contend with bunkers situated on top of very precarious cliffs.

Olympic Style Sprinting.

“I Am The One And Only “

Our Only Successful Squad.

         Oor Andrew and myself took charge of the Marines with myself leading the marines gung ho style up the beach whilst Andrew was the man in charge of the armour.I moved all the infantry up the left side of the beach hoping to get into cover quickly with Andrew moving the armour up the other side which in reflection was not the best idea as it split our forces up.I had worked on the principle that that Herr O’Brien would be a sneaky chappie and have numerous calamities waiting for us in the jungle and lo and behold he did.As soon as one of our tanks moved into the jungle it was attacked by a squad of Japanese infantry which were probably akin to berserkers and proceeded to clamber all over it hoping to do away with it swiftly.

Lurking In The Jungle.

Looking For A Lucky Shot.

Looking For Cover.

     Meanwhile on the other side the only piece of armour in the Japanese inventory appeared in the form of a Ho-Ni tank which was basically self propelled artillery armed with a gun and nothing else not even a machine gun which did help to provide it’s demise as although it was initially successful in doing away with one of our Shermans it’s own defensive frailties resulted in it being fried by our flamethrower team .Revenge!

Revenge Time.

First To Fall.

Banging on The Side.

        Meanwhile on the other side the continuing attacks from the Japanese infantry proved fruitful in doing away with another Sherman.In the middle of the beach one of our infantry squads was being pinned down and whittled away by every Japanese support weapon that could be brought to bear including a direct hit from a mortar which sounded the squads death knell.Hopefully our other squads would prove more successful-nope!Watch this space!

Finally Opened Up.

Fried Ho-Ni.

         The first of our remaining squads finally reached the edge of the jungle only to be confronted by another hidden Japanese infantry squad so after a few skirmishing shots which gave the Japanese squads a couple of casualties I charged in hoping numerical superiority would count-nope!My squad was wiped out. 

Another Kamikaze Squad.

       Our third squad also met the same fate so once again it was down to my flamethrower team to exact revenge,which they did but it still left us with one tank and a few support squads left so full time was called rather quickly.

Cleaning Up.

“No I’m Not Smiling-Much!”

         Another great game which shows that charging in rugby style doesn’t always work.All figs,scenery and scenario provided by El Presidente as well as an excellent repast due to the local hostelry having the cheek to take summer holidays.

      Samurai I believe next week with Comrade Gilchristi and Cheif Skulker wanting to check rules and playtest.Sounds like an occasion for bickering.

     See You When I See You.

     This has been a Garvald Film Studio Production.