Syrian soirée

Played my first game in a long while once again due to family and work commitments and also due to the bereavement of a very good friend who will be sadly missed in Scottish war game  circles.

           I had to miss last weeks game due to having to work at the last minute.What made it worse was that it looked a rollicking good romp through Second World War Syria.

           I made my way out to rural Garvald looking forward to a good game and I wasn't disappointed.It involved an attack by Austrailian forces on a Vichy French held village supported by squads of Scottish commandos landing from the sea.This gave Colin the chance to practise with a scenario which could end up being our display game at Carronade on the 7th of May.

        At the start the game was played using night rules which would have been good for my commandos but due to bad dice rolls it was the shortest night of the year so as my first commando squad landed they were met by deadly machine gun fire from some French colonials which ended with most of the squad being decimated before they could reach cover.

      On the other side of the table my Austrailian infantry rushed towards the bridge linking them to the enemy when to their typical Antipodian disgust watched as the bridge disappeared into thousands of wooden splinters.This meant the only way they were going to get across was by getting themselves wet.Luckily they don't have crocodiles in Syria.

      My second commando squad landed further up the beach only to be met by incoming fire from a farm building.After suffering a few casualties decided to rush the building,which they did,routing the inhabitants but their own casualties meant they were left with only three men.

     

Colin's mortar opened up on my other commando using a dice he must have purloined from Bart,meaning a six on the first attempt meant my squad was left with two standing.The only saving grace was that I now had enough men to make a third commando squad.Bringing up the rear of the commandos was an Indian antitank rifle team which meant Colin obviously had intended to bring some sort of armour on.

          After my commando squad in the building had recovered from their exploits they turned their attention to the machine gun which they dispatched ruthlessly allowing the remainder of my commandos to scurry into the cover of the farmhouse.

       Meanwhile Colin's field gun had joined up with his mortar in order to whittle away at my Austrailians slowly making their way across the river.

       My hastily made up third commando squad landed safely and headed quickly for the cover of the farmhouse hopefully to use it as springboard towards attacking the French squads holed up across the main road.

         Colin had brought his armour on which attracted my antitank rifle like moths to a flame.After a few rounds of my men ducking from its machine gun fire I finally hit it to disable it and then on the next turn destroy it.This allowed my three commandos to assault some colonial French,destroying them but being destroyed themselves in the process.

          With time ticking on and remembering I had to pick Lady Watson up I went for broke and assaulted the French hq unit only to find another hidden unit waiting for me.After a standoff Colin decided to assault my commandos but lost meaning the game was all but over.

         An interesting game using unusual figures to us but in Colin's universe normal.

         The evening started of with an excellent meal complemented with un verre du vin rouge.

           We are having a pirate game next week in Hugh's honour as this was the game he had organised before his untimely demise.Hopefully I'll have some good pics.