Ritorno a Venezia.

Wednesday 8th January

Dave's heavily protected tower sans choir boys.

                                           First game of the year not only found us returning out to sunny Garvald but also returning to the streets and waterways of Venice.this time with another fantasy angle albeit the struggle between post Mussolini Italian forces against vengeful German forces commanded by Herr O' Brien who in his usual customary manner wanted total annihilation of any Italian resistance.The Italian forces were commanded by myself and also found ourselves not only confronted by German soldiers but also some unseen subterfuge in the form of some dodgy dice pulling by the enemy.I couldn't even physically blame the actual dice as they were mine.

Colin's Venice is getting crowded.

With a few more added buildings.

And another big gun purchased on Ebay.

                                                 I was on a strict schedule due to an early work start on the Thursday morning so we wasted no time in commencing hostilities.The object was possession of three game markers which had been placed on the table so as always we headed for the nearest marker,take possession and fight for the remaining marker which Colin Jack had placed right in the middle of a bridge in the middle of a helluva big killing ground.

Non participating Italian gunboat crewed by females-surprise surprise!

My gallant first squad heading for their inevitable doom!

Dave's German sailors about to get wasted.

                                                        We both rushed on towards the nearest marker but Herr O'Brien decided to deviate with his Kriegsmarine squad and charged into the building where I had placed a marker.Only problem from Dave's point of view was that it was already occupied by my first Italian infantry squad.A ruckus ensued and lo and behold the German squad was given a kicking by my patriotic Italians.1-0 to Italy but I'm afraid that was to be the major Italian victory of the evening as a combination of Dave's Teutonic hordes and the aforementioned dice appropriation.

Herr O'Brien's ghastly Germans.

And the choirboys are still chanting away.

"Spread out in a bunch!"in German.

                                                             My meagre forces apart from the victorious first squad slowly made their way on to the field with my sniper taking up residence in a canal side house with a great view down the canal and waited for some pickings which proved to be rather slim.I tried to get my mortar squad on the table but on their initial dice roll rolled a double 6 meaning they about turned and headed off the board and there they remained for a few turns before plucking up some courage to return to the fight.

Nasty Nazi's.

An evil machine gun team.

About to have a few artillery shells dropped on them.

                                        Dave's Germans were slowly making their way down his side of the canal aided and abetted by the lack of Italian dice being drawn giving a very safe passage to their defensive points.We actually played a few turns before heading for our usual pizza and ale break were we were joined by Andrew Easson and his lovely wife Lesley.She had joined us on the promise of a pizza paid for by her husband    

The paras arrive.

And ready to make a last gasp dash to the bridge.

 
                                    We consumed our delicious pizzas and headed back to the struggle going on in the games room.No sooner had we arrived back when the dastardly Herr O'Brien decided to divebomb our entrenched first squad.the problem was that they were not entrenched enough and were annihilated.Revenge would come but not as drastic as we hoped.Andrew was given charge of the Italian paratroop reinforcements and also an artillery observer giving us a chance to decimate Dave's dodgy defenders.

"There's that b*****d calling for Stukas!"(In Italian)

                              Dave had changed his fire towards the neighbouring building of the now rubbled building and pinning my second squad and since we weren't getting any dice luck they remained there for the rest of the game but at least they held out.Our plan was to wait for the end of the evening and charge the contested bridge.Our mortar had a change of luck and zeroed in on one of Dave's buildings and started to pick off some of the defenders.This combined with our artillery finally doing some damage albeit not catastrophic for the Germans.It basically made them just duck their heads.

Andrew's paras heading for the bridge.

                                   Most of the rest of the evening was taken up with both sides taking pot shots at each other but the only real damage was the destruction of my sniper team.We were maneuvering the paratroop squad up for a last minute dash on to the bridge when the last teatime dice was drawn-bummer!I called it a day as I had a 4.50 work start the following day but the remaining combatants decided to play another turn but I am led to believe the Italian paratroops made it so near but yet so far-Questa e Vita!

                                       A great game to start our gaming year albeit a scrap that never happened at least not in Venice.
                                      All figures,scenery and scenario provided by Colin Jack as well as being guilty of some of the dodgy dice appearances and Donald wasn't even there!
                                            See you all next week when we are revisiting 7TV as a precursor to Andrew's recently aquired Apocalypse game being tried out.