My Name is Campbell.

Wednesday 19th June

                                               

                This evening saw the arrival of our latest member of our band of retrobates namely the Gothenburg Gamers, who came in the form of Campbell Hardie who as we all know likes to ask for game days but doesn't turn up.Well tonight he turned up for a rollicking struggle between Russians and Poles circa 1920 where cavalry were abound.

Masses of corned beef on the hoof.

Even more.

                                                Colin Jack had set up a scenario involving an awful lot of

                      cavalry charging about the table doing damage to one another.Infantry were in a minority and were there to take objectives as it is not easy to get horses into buildings.Dave O'Brien and myself took on the role of the gallant Soviets complete with Cossacks and armoured cars.Dave had put me in charge so that he would have somebody to blame if it all went t**s up.No pressure.Two can play at that game so I made sure Dave's forces were well to the fore in order to plough the way for my lads to come through and take the credit at the end.Andrew Easson would arrive later in order to bolster the Soviet cause.

But there was some infantry.

With even more cavalry.

                                                   Campbell took on the responsibility of guiding the Poles ably assisted by Colin.The Polish forces were set up around the table ready to snipe away at the gallant Soviets as the went about their loyal duty of preaching communism to the naive Poles.

Exotic aircraft.

                                                     

And still the cavalry keeps on coming.

   There was time for a couple of rounds before

 the pizza break was called so on came the hordes of Soviet cavalry hoping to do away with the scattered defenders and as always the defenders kept themselves holed up in the local village.The hordes of cavalry looked fearsome in their uncontested arrival on to the table but although there were many they were all very inexperienced and hopefully that wouldn't be there undoing.Colin informed me that this was the first outing for a lot of our cavalry so that would probably be the kiss of death for our side.Not too far from the truth.

The Russkie's airforce.

Heading for church.

Andrew's lads head for the bridge.

                                       We arrived en masse hoping to draw out the defenders who were as usual skulking about waiting to ambush my poor cossacks,Campbell brought forward his armoured car but it came to a stuttering halt and basically became a mobile machine gun post without much mobility.The only down side for us was the fact that its presence restricted Dave O'B's movement of his cavalry as they were inexperienced and would probably dissolve into a retreating mass at the first shot.His cavalry remained where they were for a while until we could bring up armoured cars to neutralise Campbell's armoured threat.

The evil Polish cavalry.

And their evil armoured car.

Andrew's infantry trying to keep up with the cavalry.

                                                     Pizza time arrived and we trooped off to the Garvald Inn for pizza and some foaming ale where we were joined by Andrew Easson ready to fight for the Soviet cause-after a beer and a pizza that is.

Dogfight Double.

Getting into a shooting position.

And doing the dirty deed.

But ending up doing not a lot.

                                              The second half kicked off with Andrew bringing on his infantry from the other side of the battle field in order for us hopefully to wrap up this game but as soon as his lorried infantry appeared Campbell took a pot shot at him from the cover of a stack of rocks and with a lucky shot stopped them in their tracks.Both our armoured cars came into play with Dave's charging up the main road only to be stopped in its tracks by Campbell's cowardly machine gun which opened up from the safety of a nearby house causing it to be stopped in its tracks.I brought the other one on from the side hoping to alleviate the danger of Campbell's now stationary armoured car.

My cavalry trying to evict Campbell's squatters.

Dave's big cavalry skirmish.

Whereas my come to take the glory.

                                                         My Cossacks were engaged in whittling down the defenders of the church in order to pave the way for my soon to arrive infantry to arrive and seize the objective.Dave meanwhile found his advance had stagnated a bit as first his machine gun seemed to be caught in a trap and couldn't move and his armoured car proceeded to trade shots with the inhabitants of a nearby house and his infantry after attempting to assault a house full of women decided discretion was the best part of valour and headed for the rear leaving one woman survivor jeering them as they left.This was caused by Dave rolling an awful lot of ones which was to be the norm for the evening as his next attack was to be on Colin's newly arrived Polish cavalry and lo and behold after a couple of attacks his first cavalry unit headed for the hills just behind his infantry.
                                                                     

Traffic jam on the border.

Just about to prove that it's a bridge to far.

  Andrew started to bring on his cavalry and headed for the bridge capture objective hoping to do away with the infantry unit embedded in the rocks and finally moved them but at a great cost to his cavalry.Meanwhile up in the air a dogfight was occurring between our Soviet Albatross and some gaudy plane that the Poles had strung together and after a few pot shots back and forth the natural superiority of our pilot proved the difference in the aerial battle.After the aeroplanes stunning aerial victory it turned its attention on the Polish armoured car causing it just to lose a few flecks of paint but also pinning Poles who were festooned in the nearby buildings.The pilot gave us a wave and flew of into the distant yonder as pilots tend to do.

The Polish charging into my first line of cavalry.

About to take the church.

                                                                    My cavalry had done enough damage to the inhabitants of the church and decided to move off and deal with the Polish brigands who were still gloating over their cavalry victory over Dave.My other cavalry moved up to try and soften the housebound Polish infantry and also support the first cavalry in order to defeat the Polish interlopers.They softened up the churchgoers enough for my supporting infantry to move in and take the objective leaving the cavalry to support their comrades who were not doing well against Campbell's cavalry but done enough damage for my other cavalry to move in and destroy the Poles.
                                                     The full time whistle was nearing so one last push was made to take objectives but alas Andrew's objective was only contested giving us a very narrow victory due to the church coming into our possession.A great game with an awful lot of horse meat on the table but still very enjoyable.
                                           All figures,scenery and scenario provided by Colin and of course the Garvald Inn provided the pizzas,Our next game will be our Bay of Pigs game at the Glasgow Game show followed by another jaunt to 18ct Venice.
                                                        See You All When I See You.