They Died With Their Plastic Boots On!

Wednesday 29th November.

The fake battlefield

The real battlefield.

                                            Headed out west this evening to the Little Big Horn river which just for this evening was situated in the village of Bellesquarry near Livingstone,home of that great big chief Bill Gilchrist where five of us gathered to re-enact that fateful day in June 1876 where George Armstrong Custer's vanity got the better of him.The only difference this evening was that the participants were all in the form of Playmobil figures all neatly harvested by Bill's wheelings and dealings.

Perusing the battlefield.Notice that quick turn of hand by the chief skulker.

An American looking at a better picture of his homeland.

                                             The forces were all divvied out and lo and behold I ended up with the man himself stuck on top of a hill with nowhere to go.Facing me were the forces of Colin Jack who ended up with the braves of Crazy Horse  putting  a smile on his face.Donald Adamson was in his glory as being in charge of the other Indians meant he could skulk around all evening without a bad word being said about him.Mr Ray ended up with Major Benteen's command who's intentions were to ride to Custer's rescue,change history and be a witness at Custer's court martial.

The man himself-George Armstrong Custer.

And with his wee brother.

Hail to the Redskins.

The forlorn hope.

Donald's renegades.

Mr Ray's contingent.

                                              The table was set up just like the actual battle area albeit a wee bit abstract.Rivers ,indian villages and even roaming buffalo were all set up giving us plenty of scenery for our game.

Not for use.

Buffalo on the hoof.

Caught under a buffalo stampede.

Back home on the reservation.

                                       The game got under way true to history with Colin aka Crazy Horse charging towards my beleaguered command situated on their hill carbines at the ready.For this evening's game we were using Warhammer's Legend of The Old West rules and the first part of each turn involves the use of an initiative dice roll which this turn let me move first.I duly took advantage of this by hitting Colin's injuns with a rifle volley stopping his charge in its tracks,causing one casualty and forcing the majority of his lads back.This basically just p'd Crazy Horse off as after that initiative dice roll he could do no wrong.

Chief Crazy Horse.

Charge(in Red Indian).

Lock and load!

Initial success-not for long.

                                         I wasn't bothered as I knew that Mr Ray was going to come to my rescue-Hah!All his horses seemed to be either trotting or cantering as I don't even think the word charge was in their vocabulary.Donald's indian's commanded by  some lad named Chief Lame White Man-must have been one of Donald's esteemed ancestors-headed straight for Mr Ray's cavalry in order to prevent them linking up with my lot.He also sent some lads on foot towards the flank of my perilous position-skulking to the fore.

"What I say goes"

Donald's skulkers.

                                                     Colin then proceeded to begin throwing his long line of successful initiative dice rolls giving him the opportunity to charge in with the full force of his mounted indians and this was to be the norm for the rest of the evening.Although my lads would have some success pushing the mounted indians back force of numbers meant my force were slowly being picked off.To add insult to injury Donald's skulkers were sniping away at my gallant defenders.

"Here they come"

The corned beef on the hoof wins.

Weight of hoofs.

Backmarkers

                                                    Mr Ray's command eventually came into contact with Donald's mounted indians and proceeded to whitle down the opposition but not quick enough to offer any help to my beleaguered forces who were succumbing to Colin's overwhelming numbers as he was dastardly ganging up on my guys usually two to one sometimes even four to one.

At last Mr Ray comes to grip.

And starts to do some damage.

Mr Ray gives them a helping hand.

Success!

                                                      Eventually I was left with Custer,his brother Tom and a single trooper.The trooper went quickly leaving the Custer boys on their own to fend off the bad guys.

Meanwhile back at the ranch

Last man standing

He died with his plastic boots on.

                                       On the other side of the battlefield Mr Ray was getting the upper hand only to see my lads disappear one by one.With the last of Colin's streak of good dice rolls I finally managed to get the advantage of moving first.The only trouble was there was nothing they could do but delay the inevitable.After seeing his brother fall to the onrushing indians Custer senior decided to charge into Crazy Horse in order to inflict some revenge for his lost command and initially this was succesful pushing Crazy horse back and even inflicting a wound but he too succumbed to the inevitable and history repeated itself.

Mr Ray and Donald have a pow-wow.

                                             A great game but I think the result was inevitable-just like history.
                                        All figures and scenery provided from Bill Gilchrist's ever growing Playmobil collection
                                            And many thanks to his wife Helena for providing an excellent meal to start the proceedings obviously thinking again that we all needed fed up.
                                                  See You All When I See You.