Hill 107: Why Waste a Good Table!

Place-Some Germanic Port(Garvald Film Studios)

Time-Circa 1919(Real world Burns Night 2023).

Here come Ma boys!

Tonight’s escapade found us back again in 1919 this time about a few thousand miles west of last weeks encounter with an altercation on the Baltic coast between German Spartikists and Freikorps.El Presidente rightly decided to use the same set out table with the idea that if it’s not broken don’t fix it especially as we had three new contenders playing this week.

Freikorps Naval Power

A Quiet Day Down At The Docks.

El Presidente’s artillery reading how good they are.Bob Hope is in the background.

Tonight’s excursion into Freikorps had Comrade Gilchristi,Fireman Dave and Professor Adamson or as they are usually known Curly,Larry and Mo taking charge of the Spartikists and they were faced against us good guys who were hoping to make the land safe for bratwurst.

The Contested Islet.

And what a Japanese Saki still is doing in the Baltic we don’t know?

Fireman Dave brings on his Spartakisti Navy.

Once again we were using Set the East Ablaze rules which I sometimes feel drag their heels a bit but it’s not my dojo.The first few turns as always had the usual sight of everybody moving into shooting range very slowly.This week we were after objective markers instead of real estate so there wasn’t too much in and outing at least till near the end of the game.We also had two armoured cars on the playing field but as always acted a bit like chocolate fireguards.

My Junge heading for glory.

My Glorious Commander.

Waving the Bavarian Flag.

Donald’s first move was to move his cavalry forward in order to charge El Presidente’s infantry who were making their way up the side of a dockside warehouse which was a bit of forward thinking for Donald.El Presidente had left the table in order to attend to something,probably barking dogs,so I took over the reins of his infantry and I’m afraid I took 3 casualties but passed the morale test.Donald did utter “bother “or words to that effect but it looked like the infantry wouldn’t last long but I was to be proved wrong.El Presidente’s naval forces were moving forward and looked like they were going to get into a naval battle with Fireman Dave’s flotilla.That would be a first for myself witnessing a naval battle using these rules.After some deliberation we classed the ships as floating armoured cars.The focus of both fleets were on a little islet which lo and behold contained an objective marker.Comrade Bill was having his usual display of bad dice rolling hence the tardiness of his advance.

Donald’s cavalry at cross purposes.

Bill’s infantry crawl on to the table.

Complete with some Lithuanians.

Our gallant Freikorps units were moving steadily towards contact and since I had initial control of Andrew’s force I had them moving forward so that after dinner he would be in a great place to advance and destroy Bill’s very slow moving bunch of revolutionaries.Dinner was called for so we all trapzed around to the pub for some fine dining which being Burn’s night consisted of haggis and for the diehards haggis pizza.A few ales were also quaffed giving us sustenance for the second half.Once again we were joined by Andrew ready to move his forces into victorious battles with Bill’s lot.I’m sure Andrew was happy about the forward dispositions of his forces as they went on a great winning spree against Bill’s unfortunate Spartakisti.

El Presidente’s move forward.

Didn’t think you got sharks in the Baltic but who knows.

Andrew’s forces heading for glory.

Our Armoured Car hunting for Horse Flesh.

Donald’s cavalry seemed to have indulged in a stalemate between himself and El Presidente on the docks and his infantry were far behind him ,in fact they drifted into the sights of my field gun which I thought was as good a reason to pepper them and bring them to a halt.Which they did and faltered until their overall commander arrived in time to read the riot act and get them moving.Dave’s red marines were in the process of infesting the docks and taking over a moored freighter obviously in search of objective markers.He did diversify at one point by putting some Spartakisti Bavarians complete with a machine gun on a roof and began to pepper my field gun albeit with not too much damage.

The shark needs fed.

Bill’s infantry dithers.

Donald’s girls stagger across the field.

The Battle of the Islet!

Bill’s forsaken lads had ensconced themselves in various buildings obviously to lessen the damage they were taking but Andrew wasn’t taking his foot off the gas peddle as he cleared away the first building and that was without using his flamethrower.I decided to jump on the bandwagon and moved my not so good guys into the safety of a wooden building leaving my Freikorps squad to assault a building that was full of Lithuanian Spartakisti.I thought it was going to be a hard slog but Bill’s consistency continued as all he could troll were one’s and two’s meaning his Lithuanians had to vacate the premises with their tails between their legs.As for the armoured car he had charge off,it chugged to the edge of the river and proceeded to spend the rest of the game there.

Fireman Dave’s men about to board the freighter.

Donald’s charge to initial glory.

With these lads in the water it must be a swimming test.

“

Bing checks the packing cases.

The game was proving to be very slow moving and although I took over a building complete with objective marker I found the game bogged down a bit and this I’m afraid summed up the game.The game drew to a close with everybody except poor Bill with an objective marker but since Andrew had done away with a few more enemy squads he was designated as the winner and obviously it was all down to the skill I showed in his initial advances-or something along these lines.

The Bayern Reds!

The islet about to get new owners.

“And the animals came in two by two.”

“Hey Otto,do fancy some saki.””Jawohl,Juergen!”

It was a good game but I think it would have moved faster had we used Bolt Action rules and the random dice production the game has.All figs,scenery and scenario were provided by El Presidente and it was good to get to gab with Curly,Larry and Mo as we don’t get to see them all that often.