Thursday 7th January
After suffering no game cold turkey over the festive season I decided with Mr Ray Neal in tow to venture into the dark wilds of East Lothian,casting aside floods,werewolves and goblins to head for the secluded hamlet of Garvald to indulge in an early First World War skirmish at the residence of Colin Jack.
Colin had devised a scenario involving early Germans against French and plucky Belgian forces.I took control of the Belgians,Colin took control of the French whilst Mr Ray was given charge of the notorious Hun hordes.The object was the taking and holding of a bridge over a river.
Colin had included random reinforcements for the allies whilst the Boche had continuous reinforcements.This made for a rather eventful game.
As usual the opening moves meant a mad rush towards the bridge.The Boche had numerous units to start with whilst we started off with three units,local carabiniers,French cavalry and a natty medium machine gun towed by a dog team.
I quickly set up he machine gun in a building where it remained for the whole game unmolested by the Germans which was good as it was classed as inexperienced and would have ran at the first hint of trouble which was the fate of my carabiniers who after being shot at a few times decided to head for the nearest pub in search of some nice Belgian beer.
The Germans headed en masse towards the bridge with only some cavalry and the machine gun to fight them off.
Our reinforcement rule was that ours would appear randomly on a dice roll of a five or a six and consistency was kept up from the previous game blog where fives and sixes were nowhere to be found.This time we couldn't even blame Donald.
My plucky machine gun did cause some German jaegers to dig in,which they did for the remainder of the game and when a German unit made it across the bridge it was promptly charged by Colin's cavalry and made to head for the hills.I think that this was a calculated plan by Ray for just as the infantry disappeared a machine gun opened up on the cavalry causing a few casualties.To add insult to injury,just before that incident my newly arrived reinforcements on attempting to move towards the enemy decided that firing on the cavalry was the done thing due to bad command dice being thrown(double six).
The cavalry retired behind a wood waiting for another oppurtunity to charge some unsuspecting enemy unit.I'm sorry to say the opportunity didn't arise.
Colin's French marines finally arrived into the game courtesy of better dice rolls and they headed straight for Ray's forces who had made their way up the side of the river hoping to outflank our village.Both sides charged into one another for the possession of some buildings and piles of logs.Ray's forces came out on top due to the very basic close assault Bolt Action rules.
Meanwhile on a good reinforcement dice roll I finally took possession of a rather smart Minerva armoured car.It motored into town looking for some unsuspecting German targets.It reached the end of the village where it engaged some Germans who had attempted to cross the bridge but were stopped by accurate fire from the machine gun.This combined with fire from the Minervas gun made the Germans go down and they remained there for the rest of the game preventing more troops from crossing the bridge.
The game continued with both sides looking to control both ends of the bridge by the end of the game.Our side received more reinforcements in the form of some infantry and a French artillery piece which arrived in time for the final whistle.Meanwhile in attempting to command one of my previously mentioned units it once again rolled a double six making it yet again fire on the unsuspecting French cavalry which must have done a lot for French/Belgian relations.
The game came to an end with a slight German victory due to Mr Ray's infantry on the bridge digging deep to avoid Belgian gunfire.
A great game utilising some of Colin's unusual figures(Belgian carabiniers,armoured car and dog teams).
Participants-
The Boche-Mr Ray Neal(he refuses to play French-must be an American thing)
Plucky Belgians-Tim Watson
French-Colin Jack
Scenario,scenery and figures-Colin Jack
My apologies for some of the out of focus shots as I didn't check them after I took them.
The game was preceded by a wonderful repast which Ray and I had wrongly thought had been prepared by Colin's culinary skills but were informed that it was down to combination of Lady Elizabeth and a slow cooker.
Speak to you all soon.
The taxi trip was the usual Paris taxi trip driven by the usual one time racing driver.A brief respite in Gare de Lyon was followed by a pleasant trip through the French countryside courtesy of a Tgv calling at Dijon(and not a jar of mustard in sight) and then on to Basle where we caught a connection to Interlaken.
By this time darkness had fallen and the rest of the train journey seemed uneventful apart from the mode of transport which was a rack railway all the way to the mountain village of Wengen where our base of operations where to be found-Hotel Edelweiss.This hotel was just as I imagined it would be with the large chalet look from the outside and the minimalistic interior look that I love about Central Europe.
