Saturday 24th September
Somewhere in the Garvaldian Galaxy.
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| The Two New Interlopers Arrive. |
Saturday’s game found us back at the Garvaldian Spaceport for a two part special with two two player games being played simultaneously on a larger table than Thursday’s game with the Emperor O’Brien using his usual Ming the Merciless figures against the crew of the Sulaco commanded by El Presidente himself. I was up against the Sultan of Stonehaven Peter Nicholson who had previously stated that he hadn’t played the game before,Yeh and pigs will fly!
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| A Bazaar day at the Garvaldian Spaceport. |
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| The Neon Quarter. |
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| The Egyptian Quarter (Don’t Ask) |
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| Two locals having a chin wag. |
“Honest Tim I’ve never played the game before but I’ve equipped my squad with a grenade launcher which is not going to make your day!”Once again my Visitors weren’t going to have a profitable morning.
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| This figure always makes me think of oor Angus. |
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| The judge’s car and her bodyguards. |
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| Our Monkish OMD playing “Joan of Arc”. |
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| “Right Steven,Listen to me this time”. |
The bacon and egg rolls provided by the Duchess of Garvald before the game were excellent especially as the eggs were laid by her own chooks.Don’t think she has any pigs though to provide the bacon.It may come.
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| Maybe not! |
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| “That’s what happens when you hit the target!” |
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| Still carrying Newt around. |
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| Not much business for the local plod. |
The game once again kicked off with everyone running towards the nearest loot counters and I had changed my formation a bit to compensate for my errors of Thursday’s debacle.One thing I never have learned in my eons of existence is too try and stop making mistakes. I thought that was only with the women in my life but I’m led to believe that it covers a multitude of sins.Therefore my changed formation didn’t really make a hill o’ beans after Peter started going wild with the grenade launcher because if you hit,and he was doing a lot of hitting, the consequences are devastating.
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| Lydia doing her victory dance before downloading the data. |
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| One of many Ramen bars. |
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| Diana’s squad seemed to have been hit by a lot of dice. |
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| But she gets up narrowly avoiding another falling dice. |
On the other side of the table Ming the Merciless was doing his usual style of charging in and trying to finish the game quickly as after a while we found the two of them were waiting for us to catch up with them but I informed them that grenade launchers have a mind of their own especially when it comes to annihilating Visitors.My Visitors had successfully downloaded one of the data banks and their chosen runner was once again heading for the safety of the mothership.
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| Typical Sunday in Garvald after church. |
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| Once again my men have a bad habit of not making sure. |
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| Diana contemplating doing away with Loretta. |
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| Once again not making sure. |
Diana was itching to use her Psionic Fire on Peter’s bag o’ weasels but I was reliably informed by a cackling Sultan that two of my men were in between Diana and the target and would take extreme damage as well.”Curses,Foiled Again!”So I just shot him instead but with nowhere as much damage as the fire would have done.This was my first success in the two played games.Time for a new gang I think.
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| Ming’s Merciless take cover. |
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| Ming arrives. |
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| Angus working on his latest Osprey. |
I had moved my other squad commanded by Steven and was just in touching distance of another loot counter when the Sultan opened up with his grenade launcher and it was basically game over for my squad as after waylaying my squad the remainder of Peter’s gang basically ran in and executed them when they were writhing in the Garvaldian dust.Not quite cricket but I would have done the same to him.
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| “No Angus,You have a typo!” |
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| Waiting for the judge. |
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| The caravan arrives! |
My extras were having a better morning as my Lydia character was doing a “Donald “and skulking about avoiding drawing attention to herself in order to pick up some data which she did and proceeded to head for home unhindered,whistling as she went.Probably my only real success of the two days.Peter’s extras were winding their way towards the central loot counter and on meeting Diana and her crew tried to abscond with the loot counter but only succeeded in drawing fire from Diana’s crew.Peter’s Loretta figure was rushing to support when Diana used her Destroy Weapon power on her and lo and behold it worked leaving Loretta with just a knife and you don’t bring one of them to a gunfight.Peter’s original looter had been gunned down by one of my stalwart troopers so Loretta picked up the loot and was about to leg it when the trooper spotted her but he was so distracted by Loretta’s beauty that he didn’t see the Sultan’s leader climb up behind him taking him out and not for dinner.
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| Making sure the Sultan’s grenadier goes down. |
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| “Booyah!” |
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| Satellite view of the fisticuffs. |
This was basically the end of the first game as most of my Visitors had been shredded into diced lizard so I was happy when lunch was called,hopefully not lizard meat.Lunch was served and came in the form of a very nice chicken lasagne and followed by rhubarb crumble-all home made.
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| Ming thinks “Shall I take the money or open the box?”. |
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| What’s a town square without an ancient portal. |
The afternoon session kicked off with both parts of the table being in use therefore you could go for all loot counters and attack anyone who is in range.Time for some revenge.The participants had all changed places so I found my main sparring partner would be Dave’s Emperor Ming and his retinue but that didn’t mean I was not going to inflict some revenge on the Sultan. The one thing that I have found sparring with Dave is hit him before he hits you as he can be a tad relentless. I headed for the first data base in order to get some points on the board before concentrating on Emperor Ming.Once the data was in safe hands I concentrated the majority of the Visitors against Ming’s inevitable tidal wave.Diana meanwhile was taking care of another of the data bases when her party came under fire from Peter’s grenadier who for once was firing well off the mark..Diana stood back whilst her two lackey troopers fired blaster shots at the grenadier which although wounded him didn’t quite find the killing shot.
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| One of the Sulaco’s crew about to be given a schoolgirl education. |
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| The judge is aff! |
The afternoon session came with a few random events and the one applicable to myself was the defence of the caravan which was making its way by land to the Spaceport.Another random event that cropped up was the local schoolgirl gang gang taking offence against Colin’s interlopers and proceeded to hunt them big swords and all.As well as being picked on from that quarter,El Presidente had to protect a female judge who had just had a bounty placed on her head and I don’t mean a coconut one. If my memory serves me correctly she previously in another game also had a price on her head and just escaped the deadly clutches of an alien.She must have p’d off a few people.
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| First Steven goes down (Yet again). |
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| Then Diana goes down. |
The Emperor Ming had sent some of his lackeys through some buildings on the hunt for more booty.They finally found one on the top of a building but just as they were rejoicing my Lydia character stepped out from the side of a building and zapped one of the female lackeys killing her outright with a critical shot-Booyah! The trouble is Lydia then attracted a s**tload of laser fire her way and proceeded to evaporate under all the red heat.Steven and his group headed quickly to her aid but found themselves once again coming under some deadly fire.He is not a very lucky chappie.He had delegated a couple of troopers to climb the building and try and steal some loot.They managed to down one of Ming’s accomplices but Ming seeking revenge took out one of the troopers and legged it with the loot counter.My other trooper began to take fire from one of Ming’s troopers who was standing by a Ramen bar and it seemed as though my guy was firing noodles back at him because he was useless.Mind you Mr O’Brien was very adept at rolling nineteens on his twenty sided dice.
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| Quiet town square. |
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| Diana thinks it’s time to leg it on the arrival of the female Arab hit squad. |
More random appearances came in the form of some monks who looked along the lines of a monastic OMD but who were actually unarmed .Maybe their rosary beads had lethal blades in them?On the other side of the table El Presidente and the Sultan were having a slugfest with the added bonus of protecting judges ,avoiding sword armed schoolgirls and Monkish hell.Probably about the same as facing Dave.The person in question proceeded to hit my squad with fire from his grenadier which actually didn’t look like a grenade launcher but I was informed that he was.Bang went Steven’s squad as Ming’s grenadier must have been taking tips from the Sultan’s grenadier.My last hurrah was to move Diana and her two troopers in to help Steven as the last random event was the appearance of some very p’d off Arab female assassins intending to reap revenge on the nearest band of interlopers which just happened to be Diana and her entourage.A few shots were exchanged with Diana actually downed but she picked herself up patched up her artificial skin and fired back.
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| Toilet paper-The most precious substance in the galaxy. |
Alas the full time whistle was blown as babysitting duties had to be fulfilled so a quick calculation was made and Emperor Ming was found to be the victor on account of his possession of a few more toilet rolls than anyone else.Seemingly toilet rolls are a scarcity in the universe.
A great game once again played in the worst possible taste but with plenty toys on display.Many thanks to El Presidente for putting on the game,Peter for coming a long way for a throw of a few dice,Dave for just being Dave and of course to the Black Sheep Duchess of Garvald for putting on an excellent repast.
See You All When I See You
This has been a Garvald Film Studios Production.
