A bridge too far - Game 4 of 4 & The law of unintended consequences

Soz to all whose blogs I’ve failed to comment on in the past two weeks, but that orange buffoon in Washington persuaded me it was time to go on another internet detox. Having finally girded my loins and summoned sufficient courage to come out from under the duvet, here’s another post.

The final game in my four game VBCW mini campaign beckons.

Situation fluff.

The BUF’s attempt to seize control of the vital Brompton industrial area has failed and Action Group Leader Hartwell and his merry band of blackshirts have fled the field.

“The Major,” Brompton Town’s military supremo, receives alarming news from a trusted fellow Rotarian in the Whatgoesup Aero Club that elements of the King’s Severn Valley army has left its barracks in Worcester and is heading east on the A21 towards them. 

Birmingham promises to send reinforcements to the town but the Major knows the only way he can delay the government force is to blow up the bridge across the  nearby river Stour. With no time to waste he creates an adhoc flying column and heads off with all the TNT the Public Works Department can provide.

Meanwhile, crossing the very same bridge on their way back to the safety of Worcester, the remains of Hartwell’s disheveled BUF Action Group are intercepted by a motorcycle outrider who brings exciting news. Lead elements of the 1st RTR are only an hour away, the spear point of a powerful force intent on crossing the Stour at the very bridge they’re currently standing on.

Hartwell reasons that if he can make a big show of “holding the bridge” for the regulars, he might offset some of the recently acquired damage to his military reputation. Hurriedly he orders his men to take defensive positions around the bridgehead.

The Brompton force has eight victory points from the previous games and the BUF have seven. The dice decided that for both sides this missions importance is high so there’s 5 points to be gained from the game and victory in the campaign itself to the side that wins this one.

The bridge over the river Stour. A bridge too far? I’ve resorted to my hexon tiles to create the none urban landscape needed for this scenario. The hex divisions will play no part in determining movement etc, just the general lie of the land.

I’m giving the 5 men in Normandy rules a run out here, because they were the original set I chose for the VBCW project and though I eventually sidelined them for the FFOL ones, I’m still keen to see how they work out.

The Forces.

The BUF have ten men a tank and an armored car from 1st RTR that’ll enter the board over the bridge on the BUF’s turn 6. The BUF infantry start in hiding at two of six locations, their position automatically revealed when the Brompton force comes within 6 inches of them. 

The Brompton force includes an armoured car 10 men and a lorry loaded with TNT. Either side will concede the mission if four or more men are lost.

The law of unintended consequences.

I had occasion to root around in the barn last week, (looking for an angle grinder as it happens), when I stumbled across a box within a box that hasn’t seen the light of day in about 6 or 7 years. A quick inspection revealed a 15mm Peter Pig pikeman with no head and a bundle of warning orders from when I was re enacting with Sir William Pennyman’s Regiment of Foote. Said pikeman, headless or not, is the last survivor of the great 15mm twin army chuck away, plucked from the ranks for a head swap that clearly never came to fruition. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that his colleagues were all mistakenly despatched to landfill, but have since consoled myself that without a head he couldn’t have heard me anyway. Phew. Also in the box were these…

Dear old “4 ground” - we hardly knew ye. Driven, somewhat ironically, into the ground this last 4 years…apparently. Must have stuffed them into my “never to be opened again” box a long time back. They look neat don’t they. Shame they’ll never be used, what with being ECW and 15mm.

Anyway where was I, oh yes, unintended consequences. Regular readers will recall that I purchased two Silkie hens last summer, one of which actually turned out to be a cockerel. As a bit of an experiment the wife and I took up a friends offer to use their incubator this spring and thanks to Eddie the cockerels unstinting and untiring efforts to fertilise everything vaguely chicken shaped (and even a few things that aren’t chicken shaped) we’ve ended up with these two.

Taa daaaaa… May I present Daphne and Gladys (or Dave and Gary depending on how they develop).  Since Eddie the cockerel has been “boffing” both Brenda the Pekin and Elsie the Silkie the odds are that these two are going to be Pilkie’s, but we’ll see.

But Broom I hear you cry aren’t you going to cunningly segue way back to the headless pikeman and the unintended consequences header using your skill with DJT’s “the weave” . 

Why yes ;-) 

Yes I am.

A prime reason to go back on the internet was to look up a YouTuber who I recalled had Silkie Pekin cross chicks themselves and while browsing I began to realise I’ve been following loads of YouTube channels that I barely visit anymore. 

One I ummed and ahhhed about deleting was a figure painters site (with a delightful West Midlands accent) who’d been doing Empress Miniatures 28mm Indian Mutiny range and had inspired me to start that particular project last year. Wouldn’t hurt to see what he was up to these days would it?

Oh bugger.

Yeah,  beautiful 15mm ECW sculpts from a company I’d never heard of. In light of the headless pikeman and the potential terrain already in the bag was this the universe sending me a message…? 

The question is, am I finally over my 15mm ECW colleywobbles? « Gives the matter 3 seconds of deep thought » 

Erm. Yup.

Order placed yesterday for some test pieces. Could be the next project I reckon. 

A fine body of men.

Toodleooh for now mes amis.

Hors de combat (temporairement)

Bit of a filler post this week cos I’m out of commission thanks to first world problems. 

The end part of our house has some massive wooden shutters front and back which make it comfortably zombie apocalypse proof but which require a degree of maintenance to keep in tip top condition. 

The shutters of doom, 3m square (whatever that is in old money) and that’s just one set. 

Long story short I’ve been using an orbital sander intensively for days on end and now have hands like cows tits. All of my fingers on my right hand are numb, in a way that I’d welcome if it were my brain, and that has meant no typing or painting in my so called down time. Some folks have the gift of being ambidextrous but I’m firmly right handed and it’s that one that’s copped the worst of it. I’d say my left hand is useless but it’s not actually that good. Come to think of it, along with my left arm it’s done little but flap lazily in the wind for most of my life. Ruddy useless, though I suppose it does add a certain symmetry to my ((coughs)) Adonis like physique.

I digress. The last game of the Brompton Campaign is sort of set up…but picking up toy soldiers and moving them around is a bit like operating one of those coin op amusement arcade claw machines, only the crane bit’s made out of ham. For my models sake I’m going to leave it a couple of days until I’ve walked this off. 

I think I’ll just move my Indian mutiny collection with all their delicate bayonets what could possibly go wrong?

Anywhoo. Seeing as typing this is a ruddy nightmare, what with sausage fingers and auto correct, here’s a bit of a post I’d prepared previously to pad things out against a dry blogging month, culled it must be said from correspondence intended for my granddaughter who hopes to live out here one day.

Soz if it’s jarringly out of context for a wargaming hobby blog but needs must when the devil vomits on your eiderdown n’est ce pas?

French Lessons #101

Everything you learned at school or in language classes about speaking French is wrong, and I do mean EVERYTHING. Don’t forget that the main use of the French language is to root out foreigners and only after that to transmit information. Subtleties and nuances in its usage abound, dotted around like linguistic land mines to catch out even those who’ve done 2000 consecutive days on Duolingo. (Bitter…moi…Non!)

Talking is of course essential and should be done through the nose at all times. But what to say? And how do you say it? You’ve assembled all the words for “things” in your intended sentence, remembered what their sex is so you can join them together with correct gender joining words, conjugated a Byzantine series of verbs and then altered the whole sentence structure so that adjectives describing ONLY beauty, age, goodness and size go before the noun (“le chat blanc” - the cat white in English, for example, versus “une belle robe”, a beautiful dress)… and after that, assuming you’ve managed it in the usual two second thought to mouth window, you’re good to go. Great you’ve managed grammatical perfection. 

Sadly, despite this mini triumph no one will understand you because you will have pronounced ONE of the words incorrectly and no one uses grammatically perfect french anyway… other than foreigners. Job done. You’ve been busted you filthy barbarian. 

(French people don’t say “oui” (wee) they say “oui” (way). Nous (we) is only written, in spoken French they say “on” and they never say the “ne” bit in “je ne sais pas” (I don’t know). Anything pronounced slightly off (even if the meaning is obvious) becomes entirely incomprehensible and must be immediately dismissed from the average mind Français.

Level two of language being used for rooting out étranger is the use of “Verlan”, the French version of Cockney rhyming slang.  How it should be used and when it is socially acceptable to use it is still a closed book to me but essentially it is taking a standard word like “fou” (crazy) and switching the letters around so it’s pronounced “ouf” (oof). I think it’s meant to imply that you possess subtle inner city wit or some such, but don’t quote me on that. It used to be pretty niche, but it’s even on tv now.

Last in this cautionary tale of vernacular mayhem are the words borrowed from elsewhere that don’t mean anything much but are just thrown into a sentence at random to indicate you are generally “hip”. Witness the new word… “wesh” which may or may not mean anything (it hasn’t yet made it to La Creuse where we live) and can be interposed between any words in a sentence with no apparent problem. I’m told it comes from North Africa if that’s any help.

French Lessons #102

Table manners. Essential knowledge. Never leave your baguette upside down on the table, it’s bad luck (it’s the one left out by the baker for the towns hangman, apparently). Never slice your baguette with a knife (what are you some kind of animal?) it should be torn into chunks, with your hands. I’m told it was because back in the day cutlery was considered insanitary, but to be fair, I’ve never seen a Frenchman actually wash his hands…

Cheese. There are officially 246 different varieties of cheese in France and apart from the blue and the Comte they all taste the ruddy same. If you are tired of life you might like to make this observation at a dinner party. On the other hand if you wish to curry favour, mutter that it has subtle notes of hawthorn or camomile. Never EVER take more of some you’ve taken a liking to. Another piece of cheese would be “seconds” and “seconds” implies the host did not feed you well enough in the main course (either that or you’re a glutton and should be socially shunned). Don’t forget to look askance at the host if the cheese board has an even number of cheese selections on it. For reference 5 varieties is considered the perfect number, anything more is just vulgar and showing off.

Cutting cheese (not a euphemism) is a science and again an opportunity to sort the social wheat from the chaff. Pie shaped cheeses should be cut into wedges (#obvs), log shaped ones should be cut into cylinders and triangular slabs of Bree are a bloody etiquette nightmare. Basically it seems you have to keep cutting pieces off at an angle till you are mid-way then you can cut perpendicular to the rind so that everyone gets a bit of the rind.  This way no one is left with just a firm piece of rind at the end. There you go. Crystal. Oh yeah, never claim to have had a nice cheese from Brittany. There is no such thing. They’re only good at salted butter up there.

Cheese do’s and dont’s.

Don’t say: “I reckon you can’t beat a nice bit of cheddar.”

Do say: “Have you tried the Ol Sciur with its fragrant blend of raw goat milk cheese, hibiscus, berries and rose petals?” (It is of course Italian, but you’ll be demonstrating your sophisticated European cheese palate to an approving audience).

There you go a wall of text, totally out of context with the blogs raison d’être. Blogging suicide according to those in the know. I must have a death wish.  

Righto I’ll be off now, but be warned, if you’re naughty I’ll know, and I’ll post another few snippets of this crap. lol.  

Heck, who knows, it may even prove useful should you ever find yourself on La Continente.

Leave us a comment if you can be arsed.

À la prochaine mes amis.

Yvonne Ryan’s Express - The batrep

Okay cards on the table, I’m sort of phoning this one in. I played the game a week go and the details are already starting to fade. For someone that’s ostensibly retired I’ve been having a ruddy busy time of it this last few days, so apple bogies in advance. 

Anywhoo

A better title for this playthrough should probably have been, “sometimes you can’t catch a break,” because the dice gods pretty much abandoned one side from the start. 

The target. Two BUF lads attempt to get the locomotive up to steam while the Spanish volunteer Hotchkis team guard the main approach.

To make matters worse for the attackers in the scenario the BUF had occupied both the engine shed and an adjacent factory in the previous mission and were ready and waiting.

The BLDV plan was simple, Solomon’s Rotary Club Rifles would keep the factory defenders busy…

While The Major, the Lewis gun and a flame thrower team headed off around the flank to clear the engine shed.

Up on the carpet factory third floor a Rotary Club sniper kicks things off.

Solomon’s lads leg it towards the lea of their target building. A smoke grenade was thrown which went off course but ended up providing more cover than it would have in its original target point. Fun fact. A smoke grenade of this period would burn for two minutes and produce up to 250sqm of coverage. My smoke grows by one template for three turns then disappears again one by one.

The BUF needed to roll two sixes in order to get the loco up to steam and rolling. This one was close…but no cigar. 

I don’t allow grenades to be lobbed through windows from a distance, I insist the thrower is in contact with the building. I’d forgotten what a well placed grenade can do in a confined space. The BUF lads are stunned and flee to the far corners of the factory.

The BLDV sniper gets his eye in and wounds a BUF guy in the engine shed. There he is look, up in the top window. Coooeee.

Not wishing to be caught by more grenades the BUF withdraw from the factory, but hope is at hand as they roll the first six indicating the loco is finally at full steam. Now, which lever to pull to get it moving? Can they roll another six?

The stunned BUF stragglers from the factory don’t get far. The Rotary Club rifle chaps are on them in a trice. It’s literally backs against the wall.  Bodies begin to fall.

Lady Luck is a fickle bitch. The Brompton boys secured a random event which resulted in the arrival of Unlucky For Some. 

The armored car was great but the icing on the Brompton cake was the arrival of the flame thrower team on the blind side of the engine shed…with predictable results. 

Surely things couldn’t get worse for the forces of corporate fascism? Actually…erm…yes they could. Where one faction has armour and the other does not I’ve added “tank shock” to the FFOL rules. Infantry with 6 inches of the armour suffer one level of shock, making their fire less accurate and their movement more cautious. Gomez and co decide to up sticks.

Sensing the way the wind was blowing and anxious to preserve some of his force for the next battle, Action Group leader Hartwell orders a quick retreat. The lads on the train failed to roll another six to snatch a last minute win and that was it…game over.

The final activation belonged to the Brompton lads, but out of perverse curiosity I wondered what the BUF might have rolled if they’d had another chance…and yes naturally it was a six! Doh.

I was pretty sure the BUF would win this one. I began to suspect that the scenario was too weighted in their favour. They held strong defensive positions and only had to roll two sixes during the course of the game to win outright. 

So, Hartwell has now lost his positions in the factory area and will be forced to fall back on the government defences at the Stour river bridge and the last mission of the campaign.

Cheers for wading through this lot, unless of course you just skipped to the end because batreps are boring, in which case boo - you suck. lol. 

Toodleooh mes amis. 

Yvonne Ryan’s Express - Game 3 of 4

 

As you can see I’m still having fun with AI.

Starring Frank Sinatra as Morris Bagshott, Trevor Howard as Lance Somersby and the gorgeous Raffaella Carrà in an unlikely casting as Barry Crouch the Marxist ironmonger. Shot on location in Droitwich. 

So here we are with mission three of my five mission AVBCW campaign. The scores on the doors so far are the Brompton Local Defence Volunteers 3 and the BUF Government forces 7. 

This next mission sees the Brompton lads on the attack with a mission importance rated as high (meaning they have to lose 4 or more men before conceding the game, while the BUF lads have a moderate mission importance requiring 3 casualties for the loss.

The fluff

Yvonne Ryan is an IRA agent based in Birmingham with a warehouse full of weapons and ammunition that she’s willing to pass on to the Brompton defenders - if they can find a secure way of collecting them. Brompton’s council appointed militia commander, known only as “The Major” is aware that the rail line from Brompton to Birmingham is still open and that a locomotive is currently sitting outside of the Parkside industrial areas engine shed which could be used to secure the IRA shipment. 

Solomon Bernstein, owner of Bernstein’s jewellers (two down from the Gaumont cinema on the high street) and latterly one of several defence league squad leaders, has been tasked with securing said engine - which is easier said than done considering the BUF control the engine shed it sits outside of. To make matters worse Solomon’s sentry’s are reporting that the BUF seem to have designs of their own for the loco and are attempting to raise steam on it.

Special rules

On each BUF turn that they have a man on the engine they’ll roll 1D6. An eventual score of two 6’s indicates the engine is ready to roll and can be removed from the board for an automatic BUF win. They start with a full squad in the engine shed and a full squad in the factory building opposite the phone box.

Solomon has an 8 man squad of Rotary Club Fencibles plus a die decided reinforcement of either a flame thrower team, a Lewis gun team or the towns only armored car (unlucky for some).

Can Solomon secure the locomotive and collect Yvonne Ryan’s ammo before the BUF steal the loco from under his nose?

I guess we’ll find out shortly.

Before I sling my hook here’s a quick “reasons to be cheerful” picture, in case you’re in need of it. 

The long dark is nearly over. Huzzah. 

Toodleooh from la belle France.

Operation Womble. The batrep.

One of the things I’ll say about FFOL is that a fair amount of narrative happens in every game turn and when you try to capture it all with photos it’s one hell of a long post…so apologies in advance.

Operation Womble  6th August 1937

While Sgt Bradley and his squad descended the slime coated ladder into the sewers, the Spanish volunteers set up their Hotchkiss machine gun…

And courtesy of ChatGPT’s graphics option…they opened fire to draw the defenders out. I felt compelled to shout “DAKKA DAKKA” at this point. Fortunately nobody was about.

Once in the sewers Bradley’s team began to accumulate 1D6 worth of shock per turn, the first roll producing enough for all of them to suffer from it. Shock reduces movement and fire accuracy incrementally and can be hard to shake off unless the men are allowed to rest (ie do nothing). 

To cap things off the BUF lads were to suffer from a run of really poor activation cards - none of which gave bonus buffs to performance.

Hearing the commotion from the Hotchkiss the BLDV troops in the canteen grabbed the Lewis gun and raced towards the sound of gunfire…

Which was both understandable and also ruddy stupid. The BUF Hotchkiss team let rip as soon as they came into view. Alf Tuttle the Lewis gun loader was hit and went down while Henry Boothe manning the gun behind him, froze in shock.

Fortunately for the Brompton Lewis boys, Frank Upton the squad medic had followed them from the canteen. Seeing it was only a scratch Frank dragged the blubbering Tuttle to his feet…just in time for the BUF to fire at them again. The D10 roll of ten shown here put shock on Tuttle and caused a one time (per side) random event.

A single random shell from the fighting way off board to the south (apologies for it not being painted yet) hits the Birmingham Road but causes no casualties…

…because Sid Cooper and Michael O’Rorke had already abandoned the guard post adjacent to where the explosion occurred in order to catch the Hotchkiss team in the flank.

Michael “Pedro” O’Rorke had not long returned from Spain where he’d been fighting the self same fascists in their own country. 

Now there’s never a good time to run out of ammo, but sometimes you can remedy the situation…

…and sometimes you can’t. Emptying his own magazine Sid puts the mg gunner out of the fight and the loader down with a nasty wound.

Perhaps out of breath from his sprint up the road, O’Rorke engages in a very weak attempt at melee with the remaining Hotchkiss team member. The combat goes on for two turns, in which there is much waving of handbags. Both protagonists are more in danger of catching a cold from the flapping of limp wrists than  falling beneath a welter of furious blows. 

No need for Queensbury rules with this pair. They spent two turns seemingly waving handkerchiefs at each other. 

Meanwhile back in the sewers, we’d reached turn four, and the BUF lads rolled to discover which of the over large storm drains they were now under. In a sudden change of luck they came up in one of the best spots under manhole number 3, though four turns wading through Brompton’s effluent had left them more like brown shirts than black shirts, lol. 

It was a good spot because it was central to the majority of the buildings and the bulk of the defenders were now gathered in the carpet factory out of the way. 

Sergeant “wild bill” Haskins gives the lmg team who’ve “still got the wind up” a ruddy good talking to. 

And then my kidneys, no doubt driven mad by the excitement decided to kill me. 

Again.

The annoying thing is I spent several hundred euros the year before last, gravelling the drive, unaware that I had enough rocks in my kiddly diddly’s to have done the job for nowt. ((Sigh)).

Upon my somewhat shaky return from hospital 48hrs later…

The BUF’s Sergeant Bradley was first out of the manhole but hadn’t gone more than a dozen paces when a shot from Bob Catchpole sent him flying across the gravel. 

Very much the worse for wear some of the other BUF boys began emerging into the daylight in their leaders wake, splitting up and staggering towards cover.

Only the lad on the left had managed to shake off his shock, the others had three apiece reducing their movement to a 2 inch crawl towards safety.

Back down on the Birmingham Road Corporal Gonzalez puts the still ineffectual O’Rorke “out of the fight”. This was bad news because the BLDV force have been told that they can’t risk too many casualties in this action. If they lose two of their number they must withdraw and concede.

Enjoy your moment of triumph fella cos here comes Sid - and he’s loaded for bear!

“Gotcha now yer bugger! Err,” click, click, click… “ooh ‘eck hold on a mo mate it’s ruddy jammed!”

Proving that its hard to run with a 3ft length of IZAL stuck to your shoe this poor chap (top) ends up with five shock markers (some from coming under fire) that reduces him to a blubbering immovable wreck. 

Bob Catchpole, ignoring any advice to avoid an adverse melee result that might concede the game wades in with his size 10 hobnails as the other BUF troops scatter into the surrounding buildings. 

On his next turn Bob hoofs the bloke in the nads a second time…unsurprisingly wounding him still further. 

Gonzalez - who’d been unwilling to “wait a mo” as requested had little option other than to run at Sid and engage in melee while he had the chance. Sid rolled as badly as he could and was immediately put out of the fight. With two lads now down the Brompton boys were forced to:concede and the game ended.

That Gonzalez chappie is one mean sone of a gun. Fortunately he left O’Rorke and Sid by the road side and hot footed it off to join his mates - so we’ll see if they get to recover before the campaign is over. 

The BUF ended up in control to the railway sheds and the factory opposite the phone box, while the Brompton lads regrouped in the carpet factory.  Brompton had three points for the first campaign game win but get nothing out of this one. The BUF now have seven points five for this high priority win and two for the two buildings they occupy. Each side is able to spend three points from their campaign total next time to bring a vehicle onto the table - if they deem this a prudent use of precious points. 

The next game will kick off from these positions - but I suspect that’ll be in early March.

To the victor, the spoils. 

In other gaming news I was circling the Perry’s AWI section recently like a seagull spotting a five year old with a big bag of fish ‘n’ chips when I somehow stumbled across this instead at Gripping Beast…

 

I suspect this might be the answer to my moribund 100YW project so the AWI in 28mm (hat tip to Keith for the inspiration) will probably be on the back burner for a little bit longer.

Right I’m offski…Toodleooh mes amis.