"I love the smell of pizzas in the evening!"

Wednesday 27th March
Location-South Vietnam.Or Garvald as it's usually called.

Colonel Kilgore posing before the off.

Set Up.

I don't know how Donald is going to manoeuvre that onboard.

Sleepy Ville.

                                                 This evening's Garvald Film Studio presentation found us in the boonies of South Vietnam with an encounter between American and Australian forces against Vietcong and NVA regulars involving tanks,helicopters and even a couple of riverine boats who were ready to lay waste to everything that got in their way,or at least that was the plan.

And on the other bank.

Doesn't look a haven for bad guys.

There for artistic reasons we were told.

                                                   The gallant allies came under the capable hands of Bill Gilchrist ,Donald Adamson and myself with the Vietcong coming under the control of Colin Jack an Dave O'Brien supplemented later on by the arrival of Andrew Easson and his cave dwelling NVA.

Puff the Tragic Wagon.

"Watch those f'g rotors!"

Donald heading to god knows where.

                                                         Our plan was simple.The two riverines would each eradicate the two villages on the river banks whereas Bill would stay back and garrison the base in case of any bad guy incursions which no doubt would occur.I thought it was a safe plan until straight away when Donald showed his lack of nautical knowledge by moving his riverine into reverse thinking that he was going forward.We should have just surrendered there and then.

Hiding amongst the moos.

Donald deviating from plan.

And suffering the consequences!

                                                                   The thing about most Vietnam games is that you don't see the VC until you are literally walking over them or sailing past them in our case.as soon as I moved my riverine it came into the sights of Dave's hidden RPG but luckily for me it missed.Not so much luck on the other riverbank as Donald deviated from plan and decided to land short and deploy his personnel carrier festooned with infantry which attracted the attentions of another RPG this time hitting his target and destroying the carrier with the loss of a handful of infantry.It was going to be a long night.

The bodycount.

Andrew's lads moving that fast that they are just a blur.

                                         

More like Dave-setting up an ambush.

 We played two turns before heading for some rations coming this week in the form of pizzas and foaming ale from the nearby pub.Andrew by this time had joined us and so we all trooped back to the game room to see if we could improve any and bestow the American way on these revolting VC.
                                     

RPG!

Honest it's flying.

Honest it's flying-take two!

 The game continued with Donald deciding to reverse his boat,hitting the pier he had started from.My boat had taken an RPG hit from Colin's side of the river reducing my speed.It was time for my fire power to let loose but to no real effect.Dave revealed a heavy machine gun which proceeded to pepper my boat with bullets and cause casualties.Bill meanwhile was digging in,awaiting the attack coming from some sneaky hidey hole no doubt and it wasn't long coming in the form of NVA regulars emerging from caves situated at the side of our homebase.

One of the rock formations were shaken and this guy fell out.

                                                             On the sight of these regulars Bill launched one of his helicopters but not as one would assume to attack the newly arrived bad guys instead headed towards Donald's isolated depleted squad who themselves were coming under attack from a newly arrived VC squad courtesy of Colin.

What a twanker!

Attacking from the rear.

Bill deciding to park his lorry on all the dead bodies.

                                               Meanwhile my riverine had taken another rocket hit and was in danger of coming to a halt becoming a sitting duck so I immediately opened fire on everything and anything hoping to deter any attackers.Dave's heavy weapons were done away with but I was finding no success in rooting out Dave's infantry.

"You want us to attack that!"(in Vietnamese)

Cave emerging.

Donald gets some support.

                                                       Andrew's regulars by now had all emerged from their cave's and proceeded to head for our home base.one of his RPG teams fired at the other helicopter which was still waiting to take off but the missile just went right through the open doors.Bill's tank started to manoeuvre around trying to get a better shot at the approaching bad guys doing away with one of Andrew's rocket teams in the process.Andrew decided to rush the tank with his small hq squad but could do nothing except come into range of Bill's dug in Australian infantry which done away with these usurpers.

Aussies abound.

Bypassing the MASH tent.

Ready to attack the tank from the rear.

                                     Donald decided after some cajoling from myself and Bill to head back towards his beleaguered infantry and give them some moral support.I was quite happy for my boat to plaster their target village in order to make my landing pretty straight forward but time was running out.

But here comes the cavalry-glass and all.

Aussies getting stuck in .

                                               With full time rapidly approaching Andrew decided to go for broke with two squads charging towards the dug in Aussies and his other squad hoping to charge the tank from the rear and do away with it.By this time both of Bill's helicopters were in action with one of them supporting Donald's infantry in their struggle against Colin's VC and the other just hovering around our base looking for targets off opportunity coming in the form of Andrew's squad who had just bypassed the MASH tent in order to do away with the tank.When they finally arrived at the rear of the tank they found that were was sweet FA that they could do.His other squad meanwhile were having a wee bit better luck as on their first attack they done away with about four Aussies but brought themselves in to the sights of the remaining Aussies who took revenge eventually doing away with Andrew's squad

Colonel Kilgore comes to the rescue much to Donald's chagrin.

The Final Whistle.

                                                     The full time whistle arrived with the game at stalemate.A great time was had by one and all.The figs and scenery were provided by both Colin and Dave with Dave himself providing the rules which he had used a wee while ago and wanted to use them again.Good rules but need some amendments to cover such things as riverines.
                                                        Hopefully we'll see you next week when the Garvald Film Studios will be putting on a nice sixties crime caper where hopefully I'll get a chance to use one of my Jason King type characters.I have four and hope to paint up a few more courtesy of Crooked Dice,