Onward to Garvald

Sat 19th October

The cold north.

Planet Alexandria.

Pandora's Box.

 For Colin Jack’s 60 +10th birthday the Gothenburg Gamers headed out to Garvald for a very serious game of sci fi shooting and looting.We were joined by Peter Nicholson who had come from the barren land of Stonehaven to help us celebrate Colin’s birthday as well as helping us consume the edible goodies that were on offer.

Bill Gilkristi's Neo Sovs.

The Random appearing portal.

Visit from Colin's kin'

"This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius!"

            When we arrived we were greeted by the aroma of coffee and bacon rolls in order to give us sustenance to see us through the morning of gaming and squabbling which didn’t take long in coming.

The Mekon leads.

My visitors complete with two Dianas.

Blake 7 +.

             

The Visitors advance.

 The game was played in the Garvald village hall and the round tables had been set up to represent eight planets in some far flung planetary system.The planets ranged from desert wildernesses,urban and industrial abodes through to jungle festooned backwaters.All the planets had been bedecked with plenty of scatter material to make them well worth fighting for.

Dave O'B's dinky ship complete with sounds which he kept on reminding us.

Another Colin find!

       

Dave P's Thunderhawk gunship.

Ready for the off.

 The game play was based on the Onward to Venus board game which involves building up your forces to attack planets and divest them of their resources.My force was based on the visitors from the tv series V and were up against everything from Ming the Merciless (or in Dave O’ Brien’s case-Ming the Meek),various alien factions including The Mekon.the crew of the Liberator ,Canadian Mounties,the Blake Seven Federation ,Bill’s usual Soviets and finally Colin’s usual female faction.All the planets had random resources so as usual when the whistle went we all headed for potential targets with myself heading for the waterbound planet of Aquarius to see what plunder I could find.I actually won over the inhabitants but only to the cost of 50% of my gains.Well it was slightly better than having to fight them-just!Only one action could be done per turn so that was it for me.Everybody else headed for their nearest planet.

Sweet sugary energy givers.

Planet Nostromo.

Alien Zombies came,conquered and nobody bothered them for the rest of the game-I wonder why?

First skirmish of the day on Malacandra.

Open Pandora's box and you get a can of Hobgoblin.

        This was going to be the norm for the rest of the day as everybody headed for the treasure troves found on all the planets.Playing cards had been distributed on all of the planets informing us of their value and what resources they were.Clubs however meant a random event and these came in all shapes and sizes from alien invasions,alien eggs,extra movement and many more eventful delights.

Feeding time at the OAP's day out.

"Where's the fire extinguishers ?"

              The morning took the form of two rounds of different phases and led to some skirmishes but only on one occasion was the threat of jackets coming off. I ended the morning without any resources due to being picked on from all sides but At least I had captured a wild beast.

And he's not letting go of that can!

Colin's suited and booted aliens-female of course.

Shug's still brilliant volcano.

                    Lunch arrived in that good old form of after rugby fare,pie and beans washed down by a can of Hobgoblin.At least something came good of the morning.We all sat down as though we were at school dinners and guzzled the fare on offer ably served up by our favourite shepherdess Liz and her comml chef who came in the form of Colin’s eldest granddaughter Katy.

"And the cybermen came two by two!"

Dave O B and Peter go head to head for the frozen north-Be my guest!

Katy about to do the dirty.

Tower of Babel.

               After lunch we set about conquering the rest of the system in order to claim all the resources as we still hadn’t been told the victory conditions.This stitch up was to come at the end.We all flew about from table to table trying to get first dibs on the resources and hopefully giving it a high defence facor in order to put off potential suitors.Our biggest laugh was the site of Dave O Brien landing complete with his ship making weird noises on planet Caliban hoping to build on his score only to find that it had been infested by a zombie invasion and a clutch of alien eggs ready for hatching.Dave in his own usual way just uttered ‘bugger’ and headed for pastures new..

"Come and get us?"

Flash Gordon's mob.

               The rest of the afternoon set the same pace as the morning and we all knuckled down to gaining the most resources without losing any in the process.
                    The end of a great day arrived to soon as always and the scores were all divvied up and lo and behold our great Presidente was declared the winner by the scoring system that he had devised and nobody else had seen.Well since it was his birthday we’ll give him that one.

This was actually conspicuous by its absence.

              The great day came to an end with a slap up meal in the local hostelry mainly the Garvald Inn where we were joined by some of our wives to help celebrate Colin’s significant birthday.

Deep in thought.

Bill's contempt at the last minute revealed victory conditions.

           The majority of the scenery,figs and off course scenario were provided by Colin from his vast collection.He has spent the past few months putting this collection together and the scope of figures.vehicles and scenery is just amazing as I'm sure you can see.Dave Patterson also provided a wheen of sci-fi scenery to help make the tables look even more presentable.My contribution came apart from my presence in the form of visitors from TV series V complete with two Diana’s.One dressed in red overalls and one attired in white.No doubt they will be used again.

Bill still questioning the victory conditions well into the evening.

Looking forward to some excellent vittles.

Peter seems astonished at Andrew's storytelling.

"So you want to be a rockstar Ray?"

              See You All When I See You where I believe a Spanish Civil War game is in the offing.Until then ‘Adios Amigos!’

         
           

Hungarian Bridge Too Far.

Wednesday 25th September

                                               This month's gaming came to its conclusion with a return to the WW2 struggle between Hungarians and Soviets circa 1944.This is another of Colin's fav periods and on arrival at the Garvald Film Studios we were introduced to a games table with for once didn't have much scenery meaning cover was going to be at a premium and this was going tobe crucial to this evening's game.

Not a lotta cover!

The Gallant Hungarians

The evil Soviets.

                                  As I said Colin had set up a game between Hungarians and the evil Soviet invaders and involved the struggle for another bridge.At first there was only myself and Bill Gilchrist to fight over the bridge as Dave O'Brien was on babysitting duties and Andrew working.The scenario that Colin had devised involved Soviets(Bill of course)holding the bridge and myself having to evict him from the premises.Entrance points for the Soviets were planned before the game by Bill and lo and behold they turned up without any hindrance behind my much maligned Hungarians.

"This is the plan(in Hungarian).

The only obstacle to success.

My Turan tank.

                                   

"Onward to victory(in Hungarian)

 My plan was to race to the bridge before Bill could react and stake my claim for the arrival point of my reinforcements but fate and the good(lucky)dice rolls of the Soviets shot that idea down in flames.Bill's emplaced gun opened fire on my infantry squad making them duck and move very slowly towards their objective.After this Comrade O'Brien arrived and took charge of the menacing Soviet tanks which appeared piecemeal right behind my Tiger tank and my Hungarian Turan tank and lo and behold after a few turns turned both my tanks into scrap metal.It was going to be a long night -again!

"What The?"

Even with dragging these dice behind them they still caused damage abound.

                                            Pizza and beer time arrived with the Hungarians hanging on for dear life and hoping for some respite with Andrew's reinforcements and hopefully good dice rolls-HAH!The pizzas and the ale were quaffed and we trooped back to the Garvald Film Studios and the culmination of our game.Since I hadn't achieved my turn three objective of ownership of the bridge,Bill was given  the choice of  access points for my reinforcements and lo and behold they appeared on the other side of the table.

This weeks half-time entertainment!

And it's f'ng noisy!

                          Andrew was in charge of the reinforcements but as usual his dice rolling wasn't very good,in fact "barn door"rung a bell.The reinforcements came on as far away from the action as you can imagine but not as far away from the range of the Soviet tank guns as one would have liked so as soon as our Hungarian crewed Panzer 1V arrived on the scene it drew fire from all parts of the field and being no real cover it was just a matter of time before it turned into scrapmetal.

Boom,Boom,Boom!

                                 

The pizza infused reinforcements.

 The only positive aspect of the evening for the Hungarians was when Bill decided to rush our HQ unit which was ensconced in about the only decent wood on the board with his Soviet female section and for once Bill's dice were found wanting ending the hopes and dreams of the ladies.Revenge was sweet as every machine gun on the Soviet tanks was turned on the wood and the demise of the HQ squad was inevitable.

Directing the play.

And dealing with the girls.

Hoping not to draw fire.

                                                Our last piece of armour arrived on the board in the shape of a autocannon armed Nimrod tank which was basically an anti aircraft tank therefore it was only going to scratch the paint of the Soviet tanks and therefore was kept in as much cover as we could find.It did do away with the Soviet machine gun but alas that was its only success but at least it survived the evening.

Dave about to take a pot shot at my tank.

Bummer.

                                There was nothing left of my forces on my side of the river and Andrew's beleaguered  forces were drawing the amorous attentions  of the Soviet gunfire so we decided it was time for a tactical withdrawal and therefore the field of battle was left into the care of the Soviets.
 Another great game which would have been better if all the Soviet tanks hadn't arrived at once shooting the Hungarian plans down in flames-literally!

Bill gloats.

To the glorious Soviet motherland-or something like that.

                                                                Many thanks for Colin for putting on the game and supplying all the  figures,scenery(what there was of it)and scenario.
                                       See You All When I See You as I won't be gaming next week due to the worky thing.Well I have to pay for all that unpainted lead somehow.