Lady Gertrudes’s Meteoric Hunt!

 Dateline 26th May 195???

    The Place-Somewhere in Outer Graustark!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bad guys having a peruse of our finest machinery.

            Good Evening Ladies and Gentlemen and welcome to this evening’s thrilling Garvald Film Studios Production with an exciting adventure of Lady Gertrude Agnes Winklepicker and her gallant members of the Tulips (The Unlady Like Internacional Pornographic Society)whose motto is “We do things men just dream off!”

Ace Kipper heading into town to see the sights.

Graustark’s main airport.

The Meteor in question.

         The said ladies were called in by British Intelligence when one of our erstwhile pilots,Ace Kipper decided to land in the occupied state of Graustark intending to look in the best RAF way for the best 5Star hotel around.To which his erstwhile captors laughed at whilst dragging him,handlebar moustache and all towards the nearest Gulag informing him of its lack of stars and beds.

Holiday Snapshots from Graustark.

            Graustark is a Baltic Germanic state and as you all know has cropped up many a time in the imagination of El Presidente but was usually confined to the era of World War One with a few Freikorps games thrown in for good measure.The country was mainly populated by the fair sex due to most of the male population heading of to war and finding itself on the wrong side of a Vickers machine gun.Not much has been stated about its comings and going’s after that but its fair to say that somewhere along the line it was knocked about a bit during the replay of the First World War and eventually ended up on the wrong side when full time was called.So it finds itself being governed obviously by some benign regime opposed to anything enforced on it by outside influence blah!blah!blah!blah!

Lady Gertrude arrives on her trusty steed complete with Jim the Mutt.

Count Lederhosen delegates.

And the Garrison gather.

              Lady Gertrude,ably assisted by Telegram Samantha, her trusted confidante and her followers were tasked to recover this wonder of modern technology,save the day for Good Old Blighty and save the bullet ridden reputation of our junior service.Tasked with defeating this rabble was the  cruel and sadistic Count Otto Von Lederhosen accompanied by his favourite Leutnantin Heidi Boompsadasi and the local corrupt official Werarmi Krampnuts who in this game was armed with a Sharpened Pen.

The Tulips flower in the meadow.

The truck hits a bump and the garrison ends up temporarily in the road.

Telegram Sam ventures forth..

        The stage was set for a game of epic proportions or something along these lines so it was straight in with Lady Gertrude charging on on her souped up Triumph, another bastion of British engineering complete with her trusty mutt Jim by her side.The smile was knocked off their faces with the sudden arrival of a blast which knocked not so lucky Jim oot the sidecar fleas and all!

“Follow me girls!”

Trying to stop the truck.

“Everybody Oot!”

        On  hearing off the arrival of the Imperialistic Tulips the local garrison swung into action and loaded onto the nearest form of transport which turned out to be a bright yellow truck,who needs camouflage in Graustark, and headed towards the airfield in order to protect their latest gains.The truck trundled on towards the airfield avoiding fire from the Tulip lackeys and their puny guns.They had jumped onto the lorry that quick that they had left behind the show’s two costars who had to leg it behind them promising retribution to their mindless minions.Meanwhile the count decided that he would prefer an evening of hunting the Tulip prey rather than taking charge of the objective believing his underlings would take care of business.

Jim the Mutt charges in.

Barbuda Babs goes down.

Telegram Sam seizes the initiative.

             Lady Gertrude after first getting her precious mutt back onto the motorcycle decided to dump the bike and head on foot towards the bridge whilst the dog decided with a mind of its own to head for the canal and indulge in a swim.So much for the expensive dog obedience classes.The rest of the Tulips were slowly making their way over the hedges and through the fields towards the airfield unaware that they were being stalked by the Count. The garrison commander decided that his squad would get off the truck and defend the bridge whilst he continued on to the plane and protect it with his life or something like that. The soldiers climbed out of the truck and started firing at any Tulip which reared its head which came in the form of Telegram Sam who had made her way towards the bridge hoping to provide a one woman show but instead took a bullet wound for her troubles.The two evil costars were ambling towards the bridge when they were pounced upon by Lady Gertrude who was hoping to throw the both of them into the canal but alas all she could manage was knock Heidi  down leaving Krampnuts the chance to take a swipe at the Lady using his Sharpened Pen which proved to be useless as well as inkless.

And hits him in the chuckles-painful!

Count Lederhosen picking off the Tulips.

Lady Gertrude unsuccessfully trying to put Heidi and Krampnuts into the canal.

         The remainder of the Tulips finally arrived at the crossroads just in time to be shot at by the Count. The nearest target unlucky for her was Barbuda Babs who went down like a sack of Tatties causin the rest of the gang to dive for cover.To add insult to injury Linton Lennie the ex super spy had inherited due to the use of the random cards Telegram Sam’s wound.Not going well for the Tulips.They returned fire but the Count just laughed their pathetic attempts off.Meanwile Jim the Mutt had arrived at the other side of the canal and charged towards the plane.What he was going to do when he got there I haven’t a clue.When he reached the plane he waited for any enemy attempt to purloin the secrets.Lo and behold the yellow truck arrived and the high and mighty troop commander climbed down.Jim was off and in true doggy style heading towards the unwary commander,tongue and snot swaying in the wind.The commander spotted the mutt at the last minute and pistol whipped the poor canine stunning it.Wait till the Graustark S.P.CA. hear about this.

Krampnuts crashes into the canal.

Telegram Sam turns on Heidi!

   On seeing the turmoil her favourite mutt was going through Lady Gertrude redoubled her efforts and captured Heidi but Heidi managed to escape and headed towards Telegram Sam who had finally made it to the bridge doing away with two guards in the process and getting down to business with the third one. The remainder of the Tulips were exchanging shots with the Count but not coming out of it very well as first Whittingham Winnie went down in a hail of bullets closely followed by Florence of Gifford who succumbed leaving Linton Lennie to cover the Lady and her actions.

Finally Jim sinks the fangs in.

Heidi goes down but I’m sure they’ll kiss and make up.

        Meanwhile Jim the Mutt had recovered from his pistol whipping and was intent on some revenge by sinking his teeth into the squad commander .Whilst this duel was taking place another was happening on the bridge as Telegram Sam was having a bit girl on girl with Heidi.This gave an opportunity for Lady Gertrude to sprint towards the plane whilst everybody else was running interference.Count Lederhosen had finally realised Gertrude’s plan and forsaking  all other easy targets headed towards his main adversary.This gave Linton Len the opportunity to dispose of Krampnuts and with one shot sent Krampnuts spinning into the canal never to be seen again.Well at least till next weeks episode.

Finally the nail drops in Lederhosen’s coffin.

        The last chapter of the episode arrived and with it came a double sided victory for the Tulips with Jim finally sinking his fangs into the commander’s neck and Telegram Sam finally connecting with Heidi compliments of a roundhouse kick.Lady Gertrude had finally made it to the Meteor and was last seen clambering on it’s wing.Count Lederhosen with a final fusillade of missed gun shots,fell to his knees cursing Lady Gertrude and bemoaning his future from his superiors.

Does she or doesn’t she-Tune in whenever,

              Did Lady Gertrude escape with the Meteor,will Jim stop munching on the commander and will Telegram Sam make up with Heidi and walk hand in hand into the sunset.Who knows?Who cares?

              A great game played in the usual non serious and non sense all way which is how I love my games.Silly stories with plenty of toys!

             See You All When I See You.

                This has been a Garvald Film Studios Production.

Krieg der Welten-Garvaldian Style

 Wednesday 11th May.

A busy Unter den Linden.

The Aliens gather in the Tiergarten.

Martian Minions.

            Out to Garvald in what seems an age hoping for a game with a difference to blow the cobwebs off what seems an age of Wednesday working. I was confronted by the Brandenburg Gate in all its glory as it had been used for a Freikorps game the previous week.There were no shell holes or ruined buildings so I thought hmmm a Spy game-nope-an alien invasion of Berlin circa 1890.

El Presidente’s Specials.

The Clockwork boys complete with Wind-Up guy.

Hidden Death-Ray 

Ach well,that’ll do just as well.

The local police digging in.

Here they come.

Complete with Martian sail- boat.

Das Deutsche Sail-schiff.

     The table had been set out and it was infested by figures and machines which were eye openers.All of you who know El Presidente will know that this is the norm.We were joined by Commisar Bill Gilchristi who this evening took charge of the gallant earthling defenders albeit with a Teutonic flavour.As I previously stated our forces were kitted out with some exotic weaponry and methods of transport which would prove both practical and down right silly.We played this game years ago in the hacienda of the late Shug Wilson where even Black Angus Konstam came along to defend the German empire.

The German fly-boys assessing the situation.

A mere setback.

Dinky little penny farthings with attached Uhlans.

The Berlin Specials.

                I took charge of the Aliens and my plan was just to charge into Berlin lock,stock and walker and capture Berlin for the Martian Empire.We were using Bolt Action rules as we did the last time .We played with a few tweeks for ship to ship fighting for as well as fighting machines the Martian’s had their mindless slaves supporting them ah la John Carter and also a few crawling beasts which I named Squiddly Diddlys for want of a better term.

Finally!

A wee bit ship to ship.

               I thought on the alien principle that their minds wouldn’t be on the same wavelength as us puny humans so as I said I just headed straight for Unter den Linden hoping for a quick victory celebrated with Kaffee und Kuchen only to find that El Presidente had placed a death ray slap bang in the middle of the gate ready to bar the way,which it did by destroying the first of my Quadrapile  walkers leaving the Martians to drag away the entombed corpses.Revenge wasn’t long in coming as the first of my tripods metted out some death ray payback and the Thunderchild wasn’t even around.

Another Death-Ray.

Unused Panzer.

         My Martian sailing ship’s plan was to hover in the Strasse and deposit the landing party and watch them dispatch any opposition.Standing in my way like the Thunderchild was the S.M.S Lorelei ready to block my actions.We spent a couple of turns sparring with each other using some gunplay in order for me to close and send my landing party across to capture the Lorelei.Seemingly my ship was equipped with a one off rocket engine so I used this to come into grappling range of the Lorelei. I succeeded in grappling but that was as far as my success went as El Presidente stated that both crews had the same fighting skills and therefore it was just going to be down to luck which alas went Bill’s way-bummer!

The politzei are holding on.

My intruder bites the dust.

         My Mindless Martian infantry were dropping like Martian flies as firstly The local police were embedded behind sandbags and doing away with one of my squads and on the other side of the gate a tricycle armed with a machine gun backed up by another one armed with a big gun were doing away with my other squad of Martian minions.Once again revenge was shown by my death ray  courtesy of the tripods as the other Quadripod was being hindered by the Berlin’s finest. I started bringing up the support weapons to deal with the numerous gate guards who were supplemented by a squad of clockwork fliers who proceeded to leap over the gate in support of the police.One of Bill’s other death rays now came into the fight but apart from doing away with some of the gun crew didn’t amount to much apart from drawing attention from the Martian rockets which succeeded in decimating the death ray crew.

My so called reinforcements.

         Bill now brought forward his jet packed equipped rocket troops which did look a bit out of place with their Stalheim helmets and MP38 but what the hell,they looked good.My remaining tripod finally made its way through the Brandenburg Gate which was good as its partner in crime was legging it the other way courtesy of the German unit equipped with various experimental weapons which didn’t really look as though they would get passed the experimental stage.As for the squiddly diddlys,by the time they slithered their way forward they just became fodder for the Prussian weaponry.

A non-playingchappie.

             Bill’s defenders were being whittled down but so were my attackers for although my tripod finally made it into the Unter den Linden annihilating the clockwork fliers along the way they still came to a sticky end courtesy  of the rocket troops.El Presidente gave me some reinforcements in the shape of a crawling machine and some humanoid fanatics but the clock was still ticking rather fast and the final whistle was quickly approaching but I just thought of it as a respite for the defenders as I’m sure with a few more fighting machines Berlin would have been decimated as Mauser bullets were useless against them.    

A great game.

         Thanks to El-Presidente for putting the game on.All figs(& silly figs) provided by himself as well as all the scenery.Any questions can be addressed to him on LAV under the pseudonym of Sakura.

       See you all soon.