Hungarian Bridge Too Far.

Wednesday 25th September

                                               This month's gaming came to its conclusion with a return to the WW2 struggle between Hungarians and Soviets circa 1944.This is another of Colin's fav periods and on arrival at the Garvald Film Studios we were introduced to a games table with for once didn't have much scenery meaning cover was going to be at a premium and this was going tobe crucial to this evening's game.

Not a lotta cover!

The Gallant Hungarians

The evil Soviets.

                                  As I said Colin had set up a game between Hungarians and the evil Soviet invaders and involved the struggle for another bridge.At first there was only myself and Bill Gilchrist to fight over the bridge as Dave O'Brien was on babysitting duties and Andrew working.The scenario that Colin had devised involved Soviets(Bill of course)holding the bridge and myself having to evict him from the premises.Entrance points for the Soviets were planned before the game by Bill and lo and behold they turned up without any hindrance behind my much maligned Hungarians.

"This is the plan(in Hungarian).

The only obstacle to success.

My Turan tank.

                                   

"Onward to victory(in Hungarian)

 My plan was to race to the bridge before Bill could react and stake my claim for the arrival point of my reinforcements but fate and the good(lucky)dice rolls of the Soviets shot that idea down in flames.Bill's emplaced gun opened fire on my infantry squad making them duck and move very slowly towards their objective.After this Comrade O'Brien arrived and took charge of the menacing Soviet tanks which appeared piecemeal right behind my Tiger tank and my Hungarian Turan tank and lo and behold after a few turns turned both my tanks into scrap metal.It was going to be a long night -again!

"What The?"

Even with dragging these dice behind them they still caused damage abound.

                                            Pizza and beer time arrived with the Hungarians hanging on for dear life and hoping for some respite with Andrew's reinforcements and hopefully good dice rolls-HAH!The pizzas and the ale were quaffed and we trooped back to the Garvald Film Studios and the culmination of our game.Since I hadn't achieved my turn three objective of ownership of the bridge,Bill was given  the choice of  access points for my reinforcements and lo and behold they appeared on the other side of the table.

This weeks half-time entertainment!

And it's f'ng noisy!

                          Andrew was in charge of the reinforcements but as usual his dice rolling wasn't very good,in fact "barn door"rung a bell.The reinforcements came on as far away from the action as you can imagine but not as far away from the range of the Soviet tank guns as one would have liked so as soon as our Hungarian crewed Panzer 1V arrived on the scene it drew fire from all parts of the field and being no real cover it was just a matter of time before it turned into scrapmetal.

Boom,Boom,Boom!

                                 

The pizza infused reinforcements.

 The only positive aspect of the evening for the Hungarians was when Bill decided to rush our HQ unit which was ensconced in about the only decent wood on the board with his Soviet female section and for once Bill's dice were found wanting ending the hopes and dreams of the ladies.Revenge was sweet as every machine gun on the Soviet tanks was turned on the wood and the demise of the HQ squad was inevitable.

Directing the play.

And dealing with the girls.

Hoping not to draw fire.

                                                Our last piece of armour arrived on the board in the shape of a autocannon armed Nimrod tank which was basically an anti aircraft tank therefore it was only going to scratch the paint of the Soviet tanks and therefore was kept in as much cover as we could find.It did do away with the Soviet machine gun but alas that was its only success but at least it survived the evening.

Dave about to take a pot shot at my tank.

Bummer.

                                There was nothing left of my forces on my side of the river and Andrew's beleaguered  forces were drawing the amorous attentions  of the Soviet gunfire so we decided it was time for a tactical withdrawal and therefore the field of battle was left into the care of the Soviets.
 Another great game which would have been better if all the Soviet tanks hadn't arrived at once shooting the Hungarian plans down in flames-literally!

Bill gloats.

To the glorious Soviet motherland-or something like that.

                                                                Many thanks for Colin for putting on the game and supplying all the  figures,scenery(what there was of it)and scenario.
                                       See You All When I See You as I won't be gaming next week due to the worky thing.Well I have to pay for all that unpainted lead somehow.

     

How To Lose A Battle In One Charge!Haynes Manual Not Included.

Wednesday 18th September.

The field of play.

Donald reminiscing.

                                          This Wednesday's Garvald Film Studio's outside broadcast found us in the sunny climes of Billsquarry,situated in the sunny ville of Bellsquarry tacked onto Livingstone participating in  an American War Of  Independence skirmish straight out of Bill's imagination.It involved a two way struggle for a bridge.Colin and Donald Adamson took charge of the British hoping to impose some order into the local inhabitants who came in the form of Continentals and militia put into the incapable hands of Bill and myself.I hadn't played these rules for a while and it showed right at the start when my lads went charging into an empty field well short of the enemy who used it too their full advantage.

"Here We Go,Here We Go,Here We Go!"

The man on the above picture.

                      After a scrumptious meal provided by Bill’s own capable hands we proceeded into the games room/garage to be confronted by a well set out game with tha Americans all ready to defend their newly stated freedom or something like that.After the sides were divvied up we rolled for initiative and in Donald’s words they “batted first”giving him the opportunity to charge forward and stop before the bridge to which he remained for most of the evening using Colin’s Hessians and Germans to do the dirty work.

My lads lined up.

The enemy -Boo Hiss!

Charging too far!

Correcting my mistake.

Colin takes advantage.

But they were seen off!

As I had said earlier I forgot the vagaries of the rules and had my lads charging in to nowhere due to a low dice roll.This gave the dastardly British the opportunity to snipe at my lads. I did think that it could be a short game but my lads knuckled down to the job in hand hoping to at least give a good account of themselves.The plan at least from my perspective was to have at least possession of one side of the bridge and hold off Donald’s half hearted advances until Bill’ reinforcements arrived to win the day.Luckily Donald’s shooting was on the pitiful side but Colin had brought his super duper purple dice and he was rolling sixes even when they weren’t required.

Bill's forces arrive at last.

And getting stuck in.

Half Time Entertainment.

                   My brigade finally manoeuvred themselves into some sort of fighting order albeit with a few hits and received Colin’s charge with the “protection “ of a wooden picket fence.It must have worked as Colin’s engaging elite Hessians were sent flying.Maybe the worm had turned-fat chance!
             

Chaos abound.

Regrouping!

Trying to hold on-note Donald's shirkers nowhere to be seen.

  My little artillery piece was becoming the target of Donald’s amourous intentions and began to lose casualties.Typical of Donald picking on the wee guy.Bill’s brigade came on at their usual two speeds-slow and very slow but at least he made Donald’s skirmishers retreat.Bill eventually followed up and went head to head with Donald’s regulars and once again it seemed as though we could pull this off.Bill forced a retreat from one of Donald’s regulars,followed them up but Bill’s other units weren’t up for supporting leaving Bill’s victorious unit isolated.

Bill goes a step to far.

And suffers!

Still trying to hold on.

But with little success.

One last push.

                Colin finally had his German’s attacking my militia on the flank having firstly made my gallant skirmishers retreat to the edge of a nearby wood and after making them retreat helped his fellow allies attack across the picket fence and do away with my unit in residence.To compensate for this I had to wheel my last unit around to try and stem the onslaught and get a precarious foothold on the bridge but this just resulted in drawing fire from all sides.It was the beginning of the end for these insurrectionists as this picked on unit decided enough was enough and melted away.This combined with the demise of Bill’s attack meant the bridge would be in the hands of the British at least for this evening.

To no avail.

End in sight,time to advance to the rear.

A score draw I think.

               Once again another great game played in the usual high spirits even when Donald kept on about the eight tape measures he had purloined from the Great Game,and couldn’t find one on the night.It was good to play a non silly game for a change.
                All figs,scenario and scenery provided by mein host Wilhem although I’m sure a few of Donald’s stragglers were around.
          Back to Second World War Hungary next week.See you when I see you!
                            Here's a link to Bill's blog for even more photos of our inadequacies.
                            http://blenheimtoberlin.blogspot.com/2019/09/28mm-black-powder-bendy-creek-1777.html
                   

Never Trust A Martian!

 Wednesday 11 September.

This evening's Garvald Film Studios presentation was a sci-fi extravaganza namely a sci-fi epic involving a return to the planet Mars.Namely a return as it hasn't been played by some of the Gamers for over 20 years and the rest of the participants not at all,but what a game it was both visually and entertaining.The actual game was set in Victorian times but was still the same old Victorian colonial style.

The Martian prince's bolt hole.

These pillars are for docking ships.

               Five of us turned up at first with the sixth,Oor Andrew making a very belated appearance at the pub due to his train being cancelled-NEVER!Dave O'Brien took charge of the HMCS Pandora and he went under the nom de plume of Captain H.C.Syk with an obvious dislike of his southern earthly neighbours as I was to find out later.Bill off course under the name of Captain Uilyam Gilkristi taking the reins of his very unusual circular Russian ship.Colin true to form had a Belgian airship crewed mainly by women-Quelle Surprise!Our late arrival Andrew was given charge of a German Land Leviathan christened the SMLS Valkrie with myself ably guiding the USCS Astoria,an aerial monitor complete with rocket troops.Last but not least our latest follower ,Campbell was given two bits of junk-sorry two Martian junks and a massive dislike for the European(& American)interlopers even although we started the game as "all pals at the palais!"This was soon to change as his plan was to waylay the convoy that was heading to the Martian Imperial Palace to give some beautiful gifts to his highness.Also one of our participants was to prove a traitor to the Allied cause.

Les Plucky Belgians.

Die Grosse Lande Panzerschiff.

My American Beauty.

The Royal Navy arrives-naturally!

One of the turncoat Martians-Boo Hiss!

And finally the Russians with a ship that was actually built.

              The game started with everybody sailing wily nily with not a care in the world festooned with gifts for the local prince but no sooner had we moved when the dastardly Campbell started to fire on anybody he could mainly Colin.After we played our turn we had random appearances from the very ungrateful natives who wanted to usurp the prince and make off with all the goodies.Two cohorts of revolting natives appeared beside my peace loving ship and since I was the American and didn't understand their lingo I took a pot shot at them with my Lewis gun causing a casualty and generally p'ssing  them off.

"Oh look Injuns on the starboard bow,Shoot to kill!"

                           With Campbell now showing his true colours all the ships began to manoeuvre all over the place trying to get a good shot at him not knowing which one of us was going to be the quisling,but we had a fair idea!Pizza break was called so we all trotted off to the local for the usual fresh pizzas and cold ale to give us sustenance for the coming struggle.Andrew eventually turned up and so we all set off back to the games room and continued our struggle to bring leadership and the European values to these Martian heathens or something like that.  

Just for scenery number 1

Another non playing model.This was actually used in a Martian invasion of Berlin a few years ago.

A natty German bicycle complete with gun-also not used.

             
                                                         Andrew was designated Graf Von Easson for the evening and was given charge of some German behemoth albeit the only machine that couldn't fly.The game got underway again with Campbell getting stuck into all insundry even although he still didn't know who his ally was but that was revealed shortly as during one of Bill's turns he didn't fire at Campbell even although he was at point blank range.Typical Russkie!My plan was to board Campbell's leading ship with my rocket troopers not only to stem his advance but also to try the rules out.

My rocket troopers ready for the off complete with stars and stripes.

Jetting over.

And getting stuck in.

                            My jet troopers headed for their duel with Campbell's crew but before they had arrived Campbell had taken a pot shot and done away with two of my troopers,one being the leader-bummer.The rest just got stuck in and ended up scrapping for the rest of the evening whilst their mothership flew off towards the Martian city to present the offering.Little did I realise when I was hovering over the city that I didn't have anybody to hand it over as my troopers were otherwise engaged.

Bill reveals his true colours.

So the Royal Navy moves to deal with this traitor.

                                  By this time Bill had revealed his true colours and started firing on the allies mainly Dave's Royal navy ship which drew a rapid response from the Senior Service with Dave closing to get a better shot as the Russkie ship had thick armour. Dave also to my disgust also had a pot at Campbell's leading junk which had my lads were scrapping on.luckily no damage was done or the Special relationship would never have got of the ground-literally.

Out come the Zeppelin troopers-Raus!

                                     Andrew was slowly making his way up the planet stopping off to deal with some rebelling natives who were chucking spears at his giant craft.Andrew replied by sending out his zeppelin troopers to deal with the riff raff.Colin was fighting off the advances from Campbell's other junk whilst still flying towards the city hoping to deposit the gift before the end of the game.No such luck as time was ticking on.

Getting a bit crowded.

Colin's Bonne Filles.

                                         The rebels started making a last minute assault on the city but were held back on the main wall but although they breached the side wall they couldn't make any headway before the final whistle was sounded.

They don't have a clue how it works.

Repelling boarders.

Elfing about.

"There's tausends of them!"

                                                 As my ship was moored to the giant pylons I was classed as the nearest to the objective but who cares it was a great game played in the best of spirit apart from Bill the turncoat who we will forgive this once.

Looking for targets of opportunity.

The End Game

                                                          Many thanks to Colin for putting on the game with all these wonderous toys.It's a game as I said they put on for a show away back in the nineties and he has wanted to play for a long time .Hopefully it won't be that long before we play it again.
                                                     See You All When I See You.