One Never Learns!

 Wednesday 10th November 

Seven Years War Sci Fi!

              We all trapesed out to the Dacha of Comrade Gilchristi for a rip roaring game of Seven Years War involving a skirmish between Prussian and British forces and the French usurpers backed up by some Irish hangers on.The game was preceded by an excellent lunch at the local carvery and it was great just to be gaming on one of Bill’s great set ups.I am not usually a lover of these big battle games but once in a while it goes down a treat.

The field of battle.

My forces gather 

Dave’s Irish.

      As I mentioned it was a set too between the Allied forces of Prussians and British and the bad guys of the French alliance. I was subordinate to El Presidente who as well as being overall commander took the British force under his wing whilst I in my usual Teutonic guise guided the Prussians to their usual storming success.Trouble is El Presidente didn’t follow in my footsteps.Mr Ray took charge of the French opposite me leaving Dave O’Brien in charge of the remainder including Irish mercenaries.The objectives were possession of both a river bridge over the Lippe and the nearby road junction.Comrade Bill was adjudicator and doyenne of the rules and we were reminded of this every time we got the rules wrong(which I did quite a lot).

El Pesidente’s British infantry.

Colin’s colourful Hussars about to trample over his light infantry.

My Jägers polishing their rifles.

Colin’s alter ego the Duke of Marlborough.

            The game commenced and the usual gameplay commenced and with my usual aplomb I decided to move my dragoons as far as I could towards Mr Ray’s Hussars hoping to clear them from the field but my dice rolling at its best had me straight into an engagement.Ah what the heck it was better than the last time I played Black Powder and ended up charging into an empty field.This confrontation went very well with Mr Ray’s Hussars heading for an early bath with the first dice rolls. One unit down a s******d to go.

Colin moves up but who’s that on his flank!

My Junge finally get moving.

Colin’s objective.

Crotch shot of Dave looking smug.

                  My infantry meanwhile were enjoying a late breakfast as they couldn’t be bothered moving.I couldn’t repeat my earlier low dice rolls and for a couple of turns they proved rather stubborn and refused to budge which  was great considering my dragoon’s had charged halfway up the battlefield without any support.    Meanwhile on the other side of the field El Preidente’s forces were having the same type of breakfast as mine as they seem to have two speeds -slow and full stop.This led straight into the hands of Mr O’Brien as he didn’t hang about in getting to grips with Colin’s slow moving army.

Looking for more sabre fodder.

“Get intae them!”

Wee bit oota sequence.

Taking the hits.

     I finally got the remainder of my wing moving with the Prussian grenadiers given the chance to redeem themselves by clearing out the village and my Cuirassiers given the objective of clearing away the French infantry and carrying the day to an early finish.Well that wasn’t going to happen for as soon as the cuirassiers came in to contact with the infantry they exchanged handbags and decided to retire.The norm for the day.My infantry were slowly making their way forward towards  their objective but as soon as they reached the outskirts of the village they were repulsed on the first attack sending the front unit into a slight retiral.

Colin about to get shafted.

Covering the flank.

 Meanwhile my previous victorious cavalry were regrouping ready for the onslaught from Mr Ray’s own cuirassiers.My plan was to use my hussars as sacrificial lambs in order to protect my central attack.This they did keeping the bad guys at bay until my better cavalry could win against the French infantry and concentrate on the marauding enemy cavalry.This was proving a bit of a sticking point as Mr Ray had finally deployed some artillery and this was proving to be a thorn in my cavalry’s side.Time to see if my jaegers could prove their worth.

Colin about to concede.

Definitely capitulating.

   The battle on the other side of the table was not going well for El Presidente as his garishly coloured Hussars had came of second best in a duel with Dave’s cuirassiers leaving his very slow moving infantry at the mercy of Dave’s said cavalry.This was to prove pivotal in the battle as Colin’s infantry and artillery seem to be disappearing with ease meaning this battle was going to be heading for a victory for the French and their allies as I couldn’t make any real head against the entrenched infantry as Mr Ray kept on rolling good dice rolls.He must have had Angus’s dodgy dice.My Hussars had eventually headed for the hills and before my better cavalry could wheel to deal with Mr Ray’s interlopers and my jägers had  dealt with the artillery the full time whistle had blown as the game was set to bog down and also some of us had early work starts the following day.

My hussars have done their bit.

End play.

                   It was a great day out and a great game played in the usual bitchy way but like any good rugby game everyone was all pals at the Palais at the end. I loved playing with all these very colourful units and I’m glad I didn’t have to paint them all.

           My thanks to Bill for putting on a excellent game and providing all the units although I don’t think he painted any of them.I am led to believe this weeks game will see me defending the honour of Sicily against the invading imperialistic American hordes.

                     See You All When I See You!

           This has been a Garvald Outside Broadcast Film Presentation.

Doctor Who versus the Daleks with a dash of Zombies & Kylie!

 Wednesday 13th October 

   

                       Tonight’s ripping yarn found us out on the outskirts of the galaxy investigating an abandoned (or so we thought)space hulk bringing together these famed adversaries Doctor Who and his entourage facing off against the might of the Daleks and what an encounter it was.

All colours of the Dalek rainbow.

The Doc and his gang.

Andrew’s girls who ended up twiddling their thumbs.

               The game was intended to be played by three of us but Andrew was informed by a damsel in distress that she needed to be picked up from a night out so he had to drop everything and pander to her every whim.I’m afraid that is the problem with wives.The game then took the form of a Doctor Who episode with the Doctor against Daleks so what more could one ask for.

All the following pics are of the great Spacecraft that Oor Shug built from a filing cabinet.

             The setting was provided by a spacecraft that had been built but Hugh Wilson for a show game many years ago and has stood the test of time and still continues to amaze people when it makes a reappearance.It was playing a part of a space hulk which was slowly moving through space in the Stargrave universe which was about to be visited by The Doctor and his entourage who in turn were about to be hindered by his arch enemy the Daleks.

The Doc appears.

So does the enemy.

            The game as usual kicked off with everybody heading for the loot caches but this time with previous game experience we now were able to direct the proper characters to the proper caches.My plan for the rest of the Daleks was plain and simple-Exterminate!Exterminate!Exterminate!

A wee bit more than one dalek.

The Doc’s gang finally appears.

No time for niceties.

            My Blue leader charged straight up front with some of his retinue in tow seeking out the Doctor and his lackeys in order to fry them with the white and black Daleks holding back to plunder the ship’s riches.El Presidente’s gang moved straight to the first cache with River Song proving initially lucky by opening it straight away.This was in turn picked up by Foxy who started to head for safety with it.First blood to the Doctor.     

The first zombie appears.

“Oh a dalek on its side!”

          My first attempt at a cache was entrusted to the white Dalek who was classed as a code breaker but his first attempt wasn’t to prove fruitful as my dice rolls were coming up a lot short and meant the dalek and the runner dalek were left twiddling their claws till their next turn which p’d off the yellow dalek who being second in

Not for long though.

charge had to hang around with them in order to give them the benefit of the leadership bonus.

The daleks try to storm the hangar.

Hooray for 7.62 mm Full Metal Jacket.

And the Doc goes down-Send for Mr Capaldi.

“Especially For You!”

            Meanwhile galactical disaster was about to hit the Doctor as himself and Jenny decided to venture out of the safety of their own initial hanger and head for the next Dalek infested one leaving River Song and the rest to deal with other caches and the ever increasing threat from the now not so dormant zombies.Meanwhile the Kylie lookalike who went by the name of Astrid picked up some loot in the nearby greenhouse room and was last seen heading for the door singing “I should be so lucky-lucky,lucky,lucky!”

Take cover!

Jenny fights them off.

“

             

 The Doc and Jenny arrived into the room thinking their luck was in as the Blue leader dalek was on his back for some reason but this was all to change as the dalek proceeded to get back on his feet or something along these lines and start taking potshots at the galactic couple.Jenny dived out of the way leaving the Doc to take everything fired at them.The Doc was out of the game and lying around hoping to be regenerated into Peter Capaldi.This fired Jenny up and she started to take the incumbetent daleks out one by one avoiding death rays in the process.

Revenge for the Doc.

Follow me!

Kylie and the Zombie.

      Meanwhile in another room the white dalek had finally cracked the data code and had delegated a red dalek to head for the nearest exit.One down lots to go.Whilst the Blue dalek and his entourage were trying to do away with the acrobatic Jenny another red dalek had nipped in and lo and behold he had deciphered another data base and was following in the footsteps of the first red dalek and was legging it or however daleks make their escape.This gave the opportunity for daleks to head for Colin’s entry hangar and deal more death and destruction to the Doctor’s cause.

“Take that you sack of puss!”

Oh crap!in dalek speak.

Fighting on all sides.

                      What followed was a grim fight to the death with most of the Doc’s crew trying to stop the Daleks getting a foothold into their hangar. The first dalek to emerge into the hangar was the black dalek shouting “EXTERMINATE”and firing everywhere but he met his demise from bullets from a SLR.Well they were always called elephant guns.Whilst most of the crew were holding off the daleks,River was dealing with the zombies who were appearing behind them.This was the one good thing about failing the initiative dice roll on numerous occasions as it gave me the right to place the random arriving zombies and yes they all appeared behind Colin’s space warriors.River was holding them back but eventually weight of numbers was going to drag her down.Meanwhile her minions had just done away with another dalek.

And the wreckage piles up.

Trying to stay hidden.

Yeh for the zombie.

              Jenny meanwhile in the other hangar was going hell for leather fighting of the other daleks.She eventually got revenge for the Doctor’s’ demise as she went hand to hand with the Blue leader Dalek and lo and behold she done away with him.In the next the Yellow and White daleks having done all their data pillaging were thinking that maybe they should go and exterminate some humans so off they rolled only for  El Presidents placed zombie to appear right behind the White dalek and indulge him in hand to hand or hand to sucker type thing.Once again it was to prove that daleks are not really hand to hand machines and it went down in a pile of diseased poo.

Counting the loot.

                         The game was heading for full time and this was preceded by one of Colin’s other assistants heading for the hills with another cache but also by the demise of River Song who had a zombie bite too much.A very narrow victory for El Presidente’s crew albeit with the demise of his captain and his mate.

Enjoying the ambiance.

         A great game played in the usual nonsensical way and alas for Andrew as he missed out on a great evening’s repartee.

           Many thanks to Colin and also the late great Shug for giving us the toys to wile away a dark evening.See You All When I See You!

               This has been a Garvald Film Studios Production!