At Last But Not Least!

      Saturday 9th November.

The Three Stooges and their glamorous assistant-she definitely takes her beauty and attitude from her mother.

          The final gameshow for this year found us in a rather frosty Kirriemuir ready to display our last game of a very long game year.Our game this year was another venture into the sunny Caribbean sea and a return to the Bay Of Pigs.The good thing about this game was that we had a couple of dummy runs before the finished article was revealed and what a revelation.

The C.I.A purloined tanks rumble ashore.

                             

Bill Miller's planes just flying round and round.

Karen being regaled by Orkney stories from Donald.

Apart from myself the Gothenburg Gamers were represented by Bill Gilchrist and Donald Adamson as well as my younger daughter Karen who had come along to the Skelp show in October as other representation was not guaranteed due to birthdays and what have you.Bill and Donald were very able assistants as both of them can blether for England,Wales and Ireland as well as Scotland. They kept the onlookers well informed about the game and also informed of the actual encounter.

Reinforcements arrive.

From both sides.

I think Donald should go back to accounting as he's not going to make a living in a casino.

                                The game was set up and the coffee was consumed setting us up for the start of the game and hopefully we would see if Donald could get the invaders any further off the beach than the previous incumbents of the wicked C.I.A backed invaders.He started okay but like the rest got bogged down on the beach.I can't imagine him as a German general in the early days of WW2,if so he probably have reached Paris in about 1942.Bolt Action rules were used which are easy playable even for Donald but as soon as he got his tanks onto the beach,he just kept taking pot shots at the local shacks.

Back to skulking!

More tanks lost to gunfire than in the real encounter.

                                 Bill was doing the P.R work and conversing with the show arrivals.We played a couple of rounds before pausing in order for us to peruse the other games.I found that the show was rather quiet from a trader point of view and found out that the Crisis gameshow was on the same day in Antwerp,Ah! Ces't La Vie as I'm sure they were saying in Belgium.There were an awful lot of good games on show with WW2 games to the fore with Peter Nicholson's Iron Brigade Pacific Island

struggle.Actually SPIT wargamers were also putting on a WW2 Pacific game next table.The Glasgow club were showing their Stalingrad game on in one of the alcoves and vast it was. Leuchars reshowed their last Samurai game complete with Tom Cruise figure but alas no headless Billy Connolly figure.The participation games were led by the Falkirk club's Attack on Pebble Island game which won first prize repeating their Skelp feat.There were other participation games on the go with a nice Dark Ages ship to ship fight courtesy of the East Neuk Irregulars.

Peter Nicolson's Pacific game.

Part 2.

And right next door another Pacific game.

Part 2

Last Samurai

Assault on Pebble Island.

WW2 Stalingrad.

Or present day Glasgow.

                                                    Our game continued with the arrival of Cuban armour to quell Donald's victory hopes but they must have went to the same shooting school as Donald's tankers as they kept missing the barn door.Even worse we couldn't get any air support on as everybody kept on rolling low numbers  with the result there were no nicely painted planes arriving and even when the could roll for plane arrival they couldn't be bother turning up.probably enjoying some Mojitos in some Havana bar.

Percolating T34

Donald brings in a ringer.

Watersports provided.

                                  The game continued after lunch with a few burning tanks on the beach and a stalled invasion-again!Donald even employed the use of a young volunteer but even he couldn't get the invaders moving.The game petered out just in time for the announcement of the winning games and models.I didn't think we stood a chance and I had to be prompted when it was announced that we had the best demonstration game which amazed me with all the great games around.For once I was lost for words so I headed up to the stage to collect my ill-gotten gains which came in the form f a cup which alas I had to give back at the end of the day which Lady Watson decided was a good idea as she had nowhere to put it.

The Trophy!

Peter has obviously been here before.

                                                 My thanks go to all the Gothenburg Gamers for helping us to win this trophy which seemed miles away when I was sitting in my T25 campervan in a rainy Cornwall June painting figures wishing I was in the pub.My partners in crime on the day done a great job dealing with all the questions which suited both of them down to a tee and if my daughter was asked she just made it up-takes off her daddy!I have to thank Bill Miller for the planes which he built and tarted up to make them eyecandy and also El Presidente for life Colin Jack for delegating me the games and p*****g of to the Land of the Rising Sun.Ach well it is his birthday-I'll give him that one.

                                                     I suppose like any person with a catering background you have to think "Well that's lunch over with it's now time to think about dinner!"and think of next year's offerings and spys and submarines stuck on rocks are coming to mind.Speak to you soon as we first have a pirate extravaganza to plan and then another Xmas assault on the North Pole.

                                                     Ho!Ho!Ho!

                                                                   See You When I See You!

                            More Pics on Bill Gilchrist's blog.http://blenheimtoberlin.blogspot.com/
                               
                                

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!’