At Last But Not Least!

      Saturday 9th November.

The Three Stooges and their glamorous assistant-she definitely takes her beauty and attitude from her mother.

          The final gameshow for this year found us in a rather frosty Kirriemuir ready to display our last game of a very long game year.Our game this year was another venture into the sunny Caribbean sea and a return to the Bay Of Pigs.The good thing about this game was that we had a couple of dummy runs before the finished article was revealed and what a revelation.

The C.I.A purloined tanks rumble ashore.

                             

Bill Miller's planes just flying round and round.

Karen being regaled by Orkney stories from Donald.

Apart from myself the Gothenburg Gamers were represented by Bill Gilchrist and Donald Adamson as well as my younger daughter Karen who had come along to the Skelp show in October as other representation was not guaranteed due to birthdays and what have you.Bill and Donald were very able assistants as both of them can blether for England,Wales and Ireland as well as Scotland. They kept the onlookers well informed about the game and also informed of the actual encounter.

Reinforcements arrive.

From both sides.

I think Donald should go back to accounting as he's not going to make a living in a casino.

                                The game was set up and the coffee was consumed setting us up for the start of the game and hopefully we would see if Donald could get the invaders any further off the beach than the previous incumbents of the wicked C.I.A backed invaders.He started okay but like the rest got bogged down on the beach.I can't imagine him as a German general in the early days of WW2,if so he probably have reached Paris in about 1942.Bolt Action rules were used which are easy playable even for Donald but as soon as he got his tanks onto the beach,he just kept taking pot shots at the local shacks.

Back to skulking!

More tanks lost to gunfire than in the real encounter.

                                 Bill was doing the P.R work and conversing with the show arrivals.We played a couple of rounds before pausing in order for us to peruse the other games.I found that the show was rather quiet from a trader point of view and found out that the Crisis gameshow was on the same day in Antwerp,Ah! Ces't La Vie as I'm sure they were saying in Belgium.There were an awful lot of good games on show with WW2 games to the fore with Peter Nicholson's Iron Brigade Pacific Island

struggle.Actually SPIT wargamers were also putting on a WW2 Pacific game next table.The Glasgow club were showing their Stalingrad game on in one of the alcoves and vast it was. Leuchars reshowed their last Samurai game complete with Tom Cruise figure but alas no headless Billy Connolly figure.The participation games were led by the Falkirk club's Attack on Pebble Island game which won first prize repeating their Skelp feat.There were other participation games on the go with a nice Dark Ages ship to ship fight courtesy of the East Neuk Irregulars.

Peter Nicolson's Pacific game.

Part 2.

And right next door another Pacific game.

Part 2

Last Samurai

Assault on Pebble Island.

WW2 Stalingrad.

Or present day Glasgow.

                                                    Our game continued with the arrival of Cuban armour to quell Donald's victory hopes but they must have went to the same shooting school as Donald's tankers as they kept missing the barn door.Even worse we couldn't get any air support on as everybody kept on rolling low numbers  with the result there were no nicely painted planes arriving and even when the could roll for plane arrival they couldn't be bother turning up.probably enjoying some Mojitos in some Havana bar.

Percolating T34

Donald brings in a ringer.

Watersports provided.

                                  The game continued after lunch with a few burning tanks on the beach and a stalled invasion-again!Donald even employed the use of a young volunteer but even he couldn't get the invaders moving.The game petered out just in time for the announcement of the winning games and models.I didn't think we stood a chance and I had to be prompted when it was announced that we had the best demonstration game which amazed me with all the great games around.For once I was lost for words so I headed up to the stage to collect my ill-gotten gains which came in the form f a cup which alas I had to give back at the end of the day which Lady Watson decided was a good idea as she had nowhere to put it.

The Trophy!

Peter has obviously been here before.

                                                 My thanks go to all the Gothenburg Gamers for helping us to win this trophy which seemed miles away when I was sitting in my T25 campervan in a rainy Cornwall June painting figures wishing I was in the pub.My partners in crime on the day done a great job dealing with all the questions which suited both of them down to a tee and if my daughter was asked she just made it up-takes off her daddy!I have to thank Bill Miller for the planes which he built and tarted up to make them eyecandy and also El Presidente for life Colin Jack for delegating me the games and p*****g of to the Land of the Rising Sun.Ach well it is his birthday-I'll give him that one.

                                                     I suppose like any person with a catering background you have to think "Well that's lunch over with it's now time to think about dinner!"and think of next year's offerings and spys and submarines stuck on rocks are coming to mind.Speak to you soon as we first have a pirate extravaganza to plan and then another Xmas assault on the North Pole.

                                                     Ho!Ho!Ho!

                                                                   See You When I See You!

                            More Pics on Bill Gilchrist's blog.http://blenheimtoberlin.blogspot.com/