Suppose They Gave A War And Nobody Came!

Saturday 29th April

                           

  Due to sometimes charging into things without even thinking(always my mother would have said) I decided to volunteer to put on a game on behalf of a combination of Shug's League of Unpopular Wargamers and South East Wargames Club at a couple of forthcoming events(Thankless task quoted Colin).At this moment I'm still enthusiastic-ask me again in a couple of weeks.

Colin about to give some scenery advice.

Bill waiting on his bacon roll.

The north island before the onslaught

Buildings left over from when the Venitian's were the top dogs.

                              Anyway,I have always wanted to put on a game based on a WW2 attack on an Aegean Island.I had thought of doing Crete but that would involve an awful lot of figures and logistics so I plumped for a variation of a scenario I had seen about twenty odd years ago in a magazine involving a combined air and sea attack on a small Greek island.So I planned for a dummy run in our local hostelery so I could iron out and get some constructive criticism from the more experienced gamers.I invited about a dozen of the usual gamers but on the day we ended up with a total of four of us-comme ci comme ca.

The initial drop

Beware of Greek's bearing gifts.Every one a 65mm.

The scattering of eagles

                                  The game involved as I've said already with a combined air and sea assault on the Island of Pouthena(Nowhere in Greek).The scenario was that this little island or atoll situated east of Crete could prove a thorn in the side of German ambitions in the East Med so a scratch force was taken away from the Crete invasion to deal with this threat.Consisting of a battalion of German paratroopers,a battalion of German mountain troops and a battalion of Italians supported by some hastily gathered armour.These forces were pitted against a hastily formed force of Greeks and British Commonwealth forces who have just been evacuated from mainland Greece.

The Greeks don't want no freaks!

The invasion force sets sail and not an Italian in sight

Empty boats about to head back for more reinforcements

                            The Allies dug in and awaited their fate which wasn't long in coming.The rules I used were the ubiquitous Bolt Action Rules with added paratroop rules borrowed from Rapid fire which consists of dropping one inch square pieces of paper for every individual soldier or piece of equipment dicing for their fate if they hit an obstacle on landing.
                            Dave O'Brien was put in charge of the paras and mostly due to luck and dodgy paper dropping landed most ofhis forces safely and was quick to engage the Greek defenders which their leader(me) hadn't exactly put in the best of defensive positions and didn't take long to secure most of the northern island.
                          Meanwhile in the south island Bill Miller's amphibious landing was plodding along and before we stopped for a sumptuous lunch his forces were ready to swamp the landing beach.

"Tanks a Bundle"

Here comes the good guys

A big bully about to be dealt with.

              After lunch the game restarted with the appearance of a Henschel dive bomber arriving to attack Colin's forces on the southern island causing slight mayhem but not much else.

Hello boys

                 

Reception committee

Looking for targets whilst avoiding flak

Dave's forces on the northern island were apart from a couple of hiccups steamrollering their way to the objective which was the harbour facilities on both sides of the islands.

Searching for cover

Dave's lads about to sprint for the bridge

                         On the southern island Colin and Bill's forces were having a right slogging match with plenty of hand to hand fighting which at one point units were lining up ready to get involved in the ever evolving punch up which ended up with a band of partisans being the last men standing but they themselves were wasted  by some nasty machine gun fire.Boo Hiss!
                          The game came to an end as Dave was out gallivanting in the evening hence the reason he was charging about the island like a man possessed.On the south island a stalemate had occurred and since the Italian's were nowhere to be seen the game was brought to an end.
                  A good game and a chance to play it out before getting rid of some rough edges and giving it a tarting up before the WW2 re-enactment day at East Fortune next Sunday 7th May.Further details can be found on the webpage.
                             http://www.nms.ac.uk/national-museum-of-flight/whats-on/wartime-experience/
                      My thanks to Colin Jack,Dave O'brien and Bill Miller for coming along to the Gothenburg to playtest and also help with their advice and constructive criticism and also to the gorgeous girls behind the bar and the not so gorgeous chef for the welcoming bacon rolls and the delicious lunch.http://www.prestoungrange.org/gothenburg/
                         See you next week for the second game report and also some pics and chit chat from East Fortune.
                                See you when I see you.