Flaming H**L

Time- Wednesday 2nd July

Place-Iwo Jima(so I’m led to believe)

My Lads Sunbathing.

Turned up at Schloss Garvald hoping for a nice leisurely silly game only to be confronted by a table set up for the Marines to invade not the proper Royal Marines but the bunch from across the pond.Hoping for an easy evening I was informed that there would be no support from either aircraft or naval gunfire.It was going to be a long evening or not as it turned out to be.

The Tori gate objective.

The Jungle and The Deadly Cliffs.

Here We Go.

          Herr O’Brien had played the game the previous week so knew the skinny about the game as he proved to lethal effect.After the beach merged into the local jungle we also had to contend with bunkers situated on top of very precarious cliffs.

Olympic Style Sprinting.

“I Am The One And Only “

Our Only Successful Squad.

         Oor Andrew and myself took charge of the Marines with myself leading the marines gung ho style up the beach whilst Andrew was the man in charge of the armour.I moved all the infantry up the left side of the beach hoping to get into cover quickly with Andrew moving the armour up the other side which in reflection was not the best idea as it split our forces up.I had worked on the principle that that Herr O’Brien would be a sneaky chappie and have numerous calamities waiting for us in the jungle and lo and behold he did.As soon as one of our tanks moved into the jungle it was attacked by a squad of Japanese infantry which were probably akin to berserkers and proceeded to clamber all over it hoping to do away with it swiftly.

Lurking In The Jungle.

Looking For A Lucky Shot.

Looking For Cover.

     Meanwhile on the other side the only piece of armour in the Japanese inventory appeared in the form of a Ho-Ni tank which was basically self propelled artillery armed with a gun and nothing else not even a machine gun which did help to provide it’s demise as although it was initially successful in doing away with one of our Shermans it’s own defensive frailties resulted in it being fried by our flamethrower team .Revenge!

Revenge Time.

First To Fall.

Banging on The Side.

        Meanwhile on the other side the continuing attacks from the Japanese infantry proved fruitful in doing away with another Sherman.In the middle of the beach one of our infantry squads was being pinned down and whittled away by every Japanese support weapon that could be brought to bear including a direct hit from a mortar which sounded the squads death knell.Hopefully our other squads would prove more successful-nope!Watch this space!

Finally Opened Up.

Fried Ho-Ni.

         The first of our remaining squads finally reached the edge of the jungle only to be confronted by another hidden Japanese infantry squad so after a few skirmishing shots which gave the Japanese squads a couple of casualties I charged in hoping numerical superiority would count-nope!My squad was wiped out. 

Another Kamikaze Squad.

       Our third squad also met the same fate so once again it was down to my flamethrower team to exact revenge,which they did but it still left us with one tank and a few support squads left so full time was called rather quickly.

Cleaning Up.

“No I’m Not Smiling-Much!”

         Another great game which shows that charging in rugby style doesn’t always work.All figs,scenery and scenario provided by El Presidente as well as an excellent repast due to the local hostelry having the cheek to take summer holidays.

      Samurai I believe next week with Comrade Gilchristi and Cheif Skulker wanting to check rules and playtest.Sounds like an occasion for bickering.

     See You When I See You.

     This has been a Garvald Film Studio Production.