Germany1-Greece/British Commonwealth1

Sunday 7th May.

"Flobadop!Flobadabbadop!Weed!"

                   

Some energy for the day's play.

  The second round of our Round Robin Aegean Island game was played today at the East Fortune WW2 re-enactment day and resulted in a victory for the allies.The deciding game will be played at Caronnade Wargames show next Saturday at Falkirk.

Welcome to our holiday Island

Some of my books on Crete

                            After last weeks lucky victory for the Axis forces the tables were turned today by the glorious Allied leader who goes by the name of Colin Jack(sometimes known by the great Teutonic name of Sakura).

These Vin yards are brill

                                   I'd done some tarting up of the base boards since its first outing the previous week at the Goth and I must admit they were looking very nice.Dave O'Brian had given me some extra scenery in the form of vine fields,harbour roads and dockside bits and bobs to tart it up even more.

Talking about putting in your thumb and pulling out a plum!

                         The WW2 experience day was busy even allowing for the very cold day which even for Scotland in May was pretty cold.This was probably the reason why we had plenty of visitors into the hangar where we were situated.The one problem we had that we have all the time at these non wargames shows is from the sticky fingers of children interacting with our figures and seemingly it is a no no to run a piece of wood over these said fingers.Ah well maybe another day.

It's amazing how sweets come in handy

                        Colin Jack and Bill Miller had come to help me run the game and indulge in some chit chat with interested onlookers whilst throwing some dice and shuffling some lead.

"Is it not time to go home yet?"

                           The scenario was the same as last week -An Axis attack on a Greek Island defended by British Commonwealth and Greek forces who this week stuck to their task and sent the Boche home to think again.

My boys checking if the grapes are ready

                               The game started in the same manner as the previous week with the German paratroops attacking the northern island with combined German and Italian forces attacking the south island.

One of my canisters so near yet so far

                                  The airborne attack didn't go as well as the previous week as the island this time was surrounded by water(a proper island)meaning a lot of men and equipment ended up in the drink and being lost for the rest of the game and the remaining forces being scattered all over the island including landing in front of some p'd of Greeks.Also the vine yards added to German losses and not from drinking the local wine which if it is anything like Cretan wine would be able to double as paint stripper.

Some little darling about to lose his fingers

                               Meanwhile in the south the Germans all landed safely and headed up the beach not forgetting to take their towels with them.Bill had learned from his lack of movement the previous week and had landed with all guns blazing and had decreed that he would beat the paras to the object of securing the harbour but Colin had other ideas intending to not give ground to the evil invaders.

Pouthena

                      Meanwhile in the north the paras were not having a good day as first the medium machine gun dropped into the Aegean Sea followed closely by the medium mortar meaning there was not a lot of support for the PBI(poor bloody infantry) but this didn't stop them engaging the locals in the form of the local Greek army units.

Germans abound

                           Bill's German units in the south had made their way ashore and their transport bade them a fond farewell in order to fetch some Italians just to prove that thy weren't that bad.Lunch arrived courtesy of the organisers and the game was duly forgotten with the arrival of the food.

They're not touching my hair

"Sisters,Sisters,There were never such devoted sisters!"

                         We took a break and I headed out to see what was on offer and found it in the form of a display by the WW1 re-enacters putting on a display of how trench warfare was fought-not quite but it was entertaining.I walked around the exhibits and took a few photos before returning to the important stuff of taking over the Greek island of Pouthena albeit with reduced forces.

Looks Easy -NOT!

                  The start of the afternoon's play started with the usual cry "Bring on the air support"which we did and once again as in a lot of previous games ended up wit" Our Plane!"attacking our forces making our naval landing party disappear into thin air and causing an awful lot of problems to their neighbouring units.I had now begin to think that this round robin was going to go to the last game.

At last-headway!

And after a fortnight the Italians finally arrive

Kaboom!

The vinyards of Pouthena

Avanti!

For a ship without a crew it done well as it sunk a tank!

                     As always the last hour of a game was pandemonium as the German's headed for their objectives with Italian support albeit very lack lustre.Bill's Mountain troops sparred with the local Andartes and his armour began to whitle away any infantry units in its way but even though they were making some headway they were still being reduced in numbers by the stoic defence of the allied forces with the Greeks reducing the German paras to piecemeal.

"Are you talking to me?"

                               

"Gad-It was warmer in the trenches"

Tommies at work

I think he has had to many bratwurst

Germany military police badge

Tattie mashers!

Und die Amerikaner

  The stage was being set for a grand finale next week at the Falkirk wargames show.
                                We had a great time at East Fortune even with the sticky fingered children and hopefully we'll get invited back next year.

                       

Big Trouble in Little Garvald

Wed 3rd May

The evil Sakura(Sounds better than Cherry Blossom)

                         Not wishing to waste Colin's scenery which had been set up for a previous game I nipped up for a game of "Fistful of Kung Fu"which just meant swapping Venice for some backwater port in the far east festooned with humongous amounts of bad guys.

Downtown Wherever

ready to Shanghai some unsuspecting bystander

                            Tonight's plot involved the evil Yakuza gang commanded the local Oyabun Sakura kidnapping my hero Tequila Sunset's girlfriend and taking her to his hideout

"Can you tell me is there a Rick's Bar franchise here?"

                                The game started with two goons kidnapping Tequila's girlfriend who had just arrived back at the local subway having spent all her yen at the nearby Primearnie.Her shopping bags were dropped as she was dragged away kicking and screaming towards the bad guys' lair.

The unsuspecting waif

The well armed waif.

They didn't even pick her shopping bags up.

                      As a way of support Sakura and a car full of his sidekicks headed toward the kidnappers to provide backup whilst their bruiser Dayjob sauntered in his own indomitable way through the streets towards his boss.

The bad guys on the move

Mee Maw Mee Maw

                        Meanwhile Tequila and his sidekick had commandeered a police car and with two constables cowering in the back sped towards the kidnappers leaving a trail of civilians and  SWAT team members trailing in their wake.

Boys in Blue.

                              First blood went to the bad guys as after my bruiser had left the now stationary car he was mercilessly gunned down by Sakura's well placed shot and was left writhing in the dust,out of the game.

Keeping a safe distance.

Bruiser down.

                    After Tequila witnessed this execution he slowly made his way toward's the bad guy's Chevy Camaro stopping off for a shot which luckily struck the Camaro's fuel tank causing it to explode and eliminating three bad guys from any more part in the game.

Tequila Sunset gets out car

Realises the bad guys can shoot and heads for cover.

What a beut!Chevy Camaro

                     

Should've bought a diesel one.T

   Sakura merely dusted himself down,laughed and headed towards Tequila.Tequila was hoping for some support from the two policemen in the back of the car due to some bad dice rolls were quite content to avoid the shooting match that was taking place around Sakura's burning vehicle.No sooner had one of them appeared out of the car he was shot down in his prime making the other one stay put.

Tequila's support arrives.

                           Meanwhile the two kidnappers were dragging the girl nearer to their goal when tequila took a shot leaving only one kidnapper remaining to deal with even more kicking and screaming girl.

One of my SWAT guys puffing away.

                       One of my SWAT team finally made it over the bridge only to incapacitated by the deadly aim of Sakura but this gave me an opportunity to close with Sakura with Tequila

setting us up for a nice manno a manno martial art fight to determine the outcome of the scrap.
                      The two combatants got down and dirty with no quarter given and after a few setbacks Tequila started to get the advantage and finally came out on top as the Oyabun headed back towards his lair to lick his wounds.

Start of the big battle

Up close and personal.

Tequila being thrown over the car

                              To add insult to injury the hostage captor came into line of sight of my shotgun armed SWAT lad and was promptly dispatched leaving the hostage time to kick him when he was down and finally use the knife she kept behind her back to inflict even more injury.Dayjob finally made it into the scrap just as the final whistle blew.

"Take the goddam shot!"

Bingo!Game over!

                 A very good game using Osprey rules that we haven't used for about three years and our rustiness showed.I'm looking forward to another game very soon.

                  Figs and scenery provided by Colin Jack with my gang and police car coming from my own collection.The police BMW was actually bought on the Victoria Peak in Hong Kong showing how far I have to go to get decent models.Colin also provided a nice repast using one of his mother's stand by recipes.
                        See you when I see you with pictures from the upcoming WW2 experience day at East Fortune.