A Passed over Donnybrook game that I have just come across!Oops!

This is another game from September before I had taken possession of an iPad to make life easier and also before Nicola had shut down life again.

 Wednesday 16th September.

              First game since lockdown saw me heading out to North Berwick for a social distanced venture into Donnybrook with a game put together by Dave O’Brien consisting of a raid by some North African bad guys on the Spanish Costas.

                  I had bought some 17th century Spanish from Black Angus last year so this was their first outing and true to form being new started the day with a kicking.

           

Dave had set up a knacky wee table with houses and scenery abound and so the scene was sat for some blood and thunder with no quarter taken or given

                The scenario was for the bad guys to land and pillage a Spanish holiday resort and abscond with some booty consisting of beasts and hardware.As this was a raid my senors came onto the table as reinforcements whereas Dave’s guys had carte blanche for the first two turns as only my first squad of militia were allowed to turn up.

                  Dave’s force consisted of a horde of screaming heathens armed with amongst other things spears and bows which initially done the dastardly deed on my militia.To add insult to injury his super dooper Janissaries opened up with their muskets decimating my militia as well as a few shots at my newly arrived picadors.Obviously his plan was to hold the Spanish at bay giving his other miscreants time to pillage the village for all the livestock and anything else that wasn’t nailed down.

                                           I thought that this was going to be an early bath as my forces were dwindling at a fair rate of knots and it was only when his spearman entered the village  that I started to get some payback  and started to successfully shoot back with some telling hits first on Dave's spearmen with my newly arriving infantry engaging the archers.By this time my cavalry had dwindled down to the officer who duly charged Dave's weapon master hoping to do away with this miscreant.Well that was the plan but even though my cavalry officer charged in horse to the fore ,he came off second best after a few turns of fisticuffs.

                                                       My general arrived on and proceeded to encourage his men to greater things and the Spanish shooting began to take its toll on the marauding raiders slowly but surely.My regulars arrived and proceeded to do away with the annoying archers giving them an opportunity to try and head off the looters before they reached the safety of their boats.Meanwhile my general was having a field day encouraging his men to better thing and also doing away with first the commanding general of the pirates and then the invading Iman.the only problem here was that his own force were once again dwindling.They dwindled that much that although the Spanish leader done well mano a mano he couldn't stop the last of the militia headong for the Spanish hill complete with their general.

                                  Dave had slowly but surely dragged and herded all his ill gotten gains back to the boats.What amazed me was that he even stole some pigs which I would imagine would not go down too well in North Africa.The down side to Dave's marginal victory was that he had hardly anybody left to enjoy the fruits of his escapade but at least the remaining rabble would have a good barbeque.

                                              A great game and one that was greatly welcomed as like the rest of us gamers we have had a very barren 2020 games wise and hopefully it will continue even although a second lockdown could be on the horizon due to the idiotic minority.

                                       Heading out to the Garvald Film Studios on Monday for a foray into a socially distanced  In Her Majesty's Name outing.

                                 Watch This Space!!!!!!

                                 All scenery,scenario and Arab figures were provided by Dave himself with interruptions provided by the lovely Lola the dalmation.

Another unpublished post from a long time ago in a galaxy far away!

Sunday 18th August.

       Down to Newark for our bi-annual visit to Partizan and this time was my turn to provide our entertainment in the form of my Bay of Pigs game so we headed down on the Saturday courtesy of the iron horse giving us time to indulge in a few foaming ales and a visit to in my opinion the best Indian restaurant around.

The choice ale of the day.

Old folks day out.

Ray has promised to smile only when Leith is saved.

           Wetherspoon’s was visited and a few ales were quenched before we headed for the Koinonia restaurant in Newark which specialises in Kerelan cuisine from south west India featuring fish and coconut aplenty.

Gandalf chooses his curry.

This was my favourite game which was based on one of my fav war films-Tobruk!

Another run out for our Bay of Pigs game ironing out all the creases before the remaining game shows of 2019.

Bill Miller’s great handiwork of getting the Sea Furys tarted up.

And finishing off the Invader.

My apologies for the very late publication of our trip to The Other Partizan but I’m sure it’ll  bring back a few memories of a great weekend.

                See You All When I See You.

Boston Afternoon Tea Party.

Monday 21st September.

Had another break in this COVID storm so I headed out to an autumnal Garvald for an afternoon of an In Her Majesty’s Name romp set in the streets of Boston circa 1890’s.Little did I know that this was going to be the last game of the year so I’m glad it was an excellent game as always.The main reason I haven’t published this account as my IPhone didn’t like speaking to my laptop so I couldn’t get my blogs published promptly:I have solved this problem by indulging in the purchase of an IPad so when Nicola finally decides that we can get back to gaming I’ll be able to write my blogs a bit quicker.My apologies for the photos as this is another reason why I have bought my new gadget.

This was part of covid lockdown project by the Duke of Garvald.More pictures can be seen on the  Bad Sqiddo games Facebook page.

   Anyhoo!The game involved an altercation between the crew of the Nautilus trying to get one of their crew out of the local “nick”which was being protected by the local constabulary.

The Nautilus was captained off course by Captain Nemo aided and abetted by his motley crew including his daughter Rani.

Hardit Singh leads his thugs on a no holds barred rampage through the Boston docks.

Final fight.

Colin was in charge of the Nautilus crew and went straight for the jail to try and finish the game quickly but the true forces of law and order stood their ground and gave as well as they got 

One big scrap.

Most of Nemo’s crew ended up fighting one on one against my girls and boys and it was my girls who gave as well as they got.My police constables weren’t so lucky and tended to dwindle.

Captain Nemo and his female entourage .

My loyal band of fuzz,led by Inspector Reid on secondment from Ripper Street.

Two-gun Tess leads another pawn into the fray.

Innocent dockworker is dispatched.

Captain Nemo watches everybody else scrapping around him.

Parasol Patty was the difference between my lads standing or falling as her parasol acted as a shield until we realised she maybe wasn’t as good as we thought rule wise.

A little bit of distraction.

As you can see as all who know Colin,he has an awfy lot of female figures,and they were well to the fore.

Parasol Patty oot for a daunder.

Local railwayman swinging his lantern.

Steam Hanson cab.

What a way to go.

Hold on to your horses.

Close up of the final scrap.

The Nautilus crew came close but no gold medal as the game fizzled out to a draw.We were hoping for a rematch but Nicola shot that down in flames.

Violet Smee-jailbird awaiting freedom.

The naughty Nautilus arrives.

Nice cleavage!

Hardit Singh looking for more victims.

A fitting end to a close game and a chance to shift some lead-albeit very carefully.I have another report to publish involving Donnybrook but I’ll have to wait to see how to shuffle pictures around on this machine.I hope that you all are having as good as it gets lockdown and hopefully we’ll get back to some semblance of normality next year when we can back to spending money on a pile of lead that we won’t paint.

                         

                   See You All When I see you!!!!!
 Monday 21st September 

The Trouble with Rubble!

Saturday 15th Feb.

                                     

Donald telling us all to be politically correct.

Patiently waiting on the bacon rolls.

John Wayne in all his glory.

 First big battle of the new year saw us residing in the Garvald village hall for a multi player Korean War scrap involving nine players and a stack of toys.Chris Henry and our gamer in residence Colin Jack had concocted and created a Korean game loosely based on Inchon and had provided all the figures and scenery for our game.the remainder of our motley crew gathered together to indulge before the threat of Storm Dennis sent us all scuttling home.

Bill's squad gets decimated by the booby trap.

Rob's marines hit the beaches.

Andrew C.I.C of the Yanks.

Artillery Island.

                                                    We all gathered for the usual pleasantries and bacon rolls before divvying up the forces.I found myself in charge of the Chinese army with the opportunity to combine with my Korean brethren and drive the Yankee invaders back into the sea.Well that was the plan.The playing field was divided up into three tables worth of scenery for easy access to the figures movement.

More Yankees land.

Dave taking the artillery from the rear-Ooh Painful! 

Welcome to the beachparty!

Didn't last long though.

                            Bill Gilchrist,Rob Anderson,Peter Nicholson and Andrew Easson took charge of the invading capitalistic pigs whereas Dave O'Brien and Donald Adamson took charge of the oft picked on North Koreans.They were ably(I say that loosely)supported by the Chinese hordes looking to rescue their Korean brethren and keep the red flag flying.

Not letting the war get in the way of a good martini.

Unused Sea Furies

                                              The Chinese weren't going to arrive until turn three so Donald and Dave were left to their own devices and had a couple of tricks up their sleeves so after the initial naval bombardment arrived and done away with one of Donald's skulking squads the marines came ashore strung right across the table.My plan was to hang back and wait until the Yanks had landed and were making their way overconfidently  towards the centre of town before appearing right behind them and doing the dastardly deed as only the wily Chinese can achieve.Donald and Dave revealed their hands.Donald revealed that one of his buildings was booby trapped and when Bill's first squad went charging in the squad was decimated.On the other side of the table Dave had sprung his surprise by attacking the American artillery positions situated in their rear doing away with potentially dangerous Priest Self propelled artillery.

Corsair Threesome.

Chris's biplane arrives but done nothing.

A Shooting Star recce.

                                             Once Rob's marines complete with John Wayne in attendance had moved away from his landing craft my lads appeared behind them and started shooting albeit without any real success.Rob's mortar made a quick demise but alas the shooting of the remaining Chinese was abysmal giving Rob the chance to quickly retaliate and incur large amount of casualties on my lads.To add insult to injury Chris let Rob fire the machine guns from his landing craft which made all the difference to the eventual outcome.

Katyusha posing.

My gallant T34

Donald not making his assault guns conspicuous.

                                                    Andrew and Peter had landed their marines complete with armour en masse on the outskirts of the town and were ready to sweep in to their objectives only to find that although the buildings were looking prim and proper the whole built up areas on the board were actually rubble and movement was severely curtailed and each pile of rubble gave extra cover for shooting.Saying this Dave's defenders in the town were taking a bit of a kicking as he had no real protection against armour.Added to this was the readily available air support both in recce and attack as an awful lot of planes were appearing on the battlefield.The first appearance was an American Shooting Star making a recce run straight up the town High Street hunting for Dave's hidden units.
             Dave was exacting some revenge on the Yanks by doing away with the artillery position and then heading for town hoping to continue his good luck.Peter had other ideas.On the other side of the table my Chinese beach holiday was turning into a Chinese takeaway as my poor lads were dwindling faster than a plate of fried rice.I was intending using them as cannon fodder but I had hoped for them to last a bit longer.I was also hoping for Chris to let me bring them back on later but nope they were permanently heading for a chinwag with their ancestors.

Looking good-for the moment.

One burns-one hides.

Flattering to deceive.

                                                               Lunch time arrived so we all traipsed across to the Garvald Inn for some much needed sustenance.The foaming ale and lunch were consumed with gusto and had us raring for an afternoon of more fisticuffs.Poor Rob had to bring is dessert with him as he was the only one to preorder one but he was quick in informing us that the bread and butter pudding was delicious.

Andrew's bazooka heroes.

Burn baby burn.

"Got yeh!"

                               The afternoon took the form of a stout Korean defence and a hopeful counterattack by the Chinese.Dave's defenders had like my Chinese regiment had all but disappeared leaving me to take over the reins of Donald's defenders as he had to make a quick getaway due to an evening birthday party.At least in my hands they would have to fight.The Yanks slowly made their way through the well rubbled town fighting for every building,using air support whenever they could to dislodge defenders who were hanging on for grim death.

Care in the community get together.

Keeping the yanks at bay.

                                     Chris and Colin brought on their very needed reinforcements but they dragged their heels into combat and when they did they found that the American tank power much to their distaste.Andrew had success with his flamethrowing tank and combined with his super bazookas was bringing the Chinese assault to a stuttering halt as Colin's tanks started to dwindle.His partner Chris was suffering the same lack of success as Colin as Peter was advancing straight to the enemy rear doing away with the Katyusha battery in the process.Bummer!

Andrew's moment of madness.

                                                 After hindering Rob and Bill's marines for a little while,my Chinese infantry melted away giving the Yanks the chance to regroup and head into town ,albeit it very slowly,and give support to Andrew's marines who were taking a bit of a battering and that was even with tank support as my last unit,a T34 tank was holding up both Rob and Andrew's armour doing away with a Sherman tank in the process.

Keeping M.A.S.H.supplied with booze.

                                             

Another Yankee recce-this time with the wheels down.

  We headed into the final furlong with the defenders holding on grimly to their objective which was the temple building which I found unusual for a communist objective.The buildings around the temple where being fought over with no quarter given with Andrew even throwing in an American suicide attack on a neighbouring building costing him three squads with the loss of only one Chinese squad.Desperate times.Bill's marines finally made it onto the other table as his bazooka squad arrived to take a shot at my assault gun and proceeded to miss the barn door.A quick riposte came in the form of my hidden Korean squad decimating his team.This actually just drew fire from Rob's arriving marines,first pinning them and then destroying them.In the meantime Bill was trying to hit the same squad with his mortar,once again missing the barn door.Rob had moved the remainder of his marines up to clear the local  railway station of Koreans but not before they had hindered Andrew's marines from moving closer to their objective.

                                                   The game finished in a score draw which is a euphemism for stalemate as Andrew and Peter couldn't quite clear the town of Chinese and Bill and Rob dragged their heals bringing their men into the fray.Maybe my Chinese day at the beach was worth it-ice cream cones all around for the Chinese.

Thus endeth the game!

                                          A great game played in the true spirit of wargaming and enjoyed by all including young Katy,Colin's granddaughter who rolled some dice for us in the morning.It's good that kids can still be bribed with a bacon roll and a chicken burger.
                                              Many thanks to Colin and Chris for putting the game together,obviously a project which has been a long time in planning and also Peter in the Garvald Inn for catering for nine grumpy old men.
                                                     See You All When I See You.