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

 

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. 

Opération Womble - Game 2 of 5

Sorry for the 1970´s Britcentric blog post title but as I was designing this scenario I couldn’t get the theme tune out of my head… especially the “underground, overground” part, for reasons that will shortly become apparent. 

If any of my American cousins feel the need for further info on the Wombles they can always google Mike Batt and the Wombles theme song. I make no apologies, it was the 70’s. A lot of shit like that was going on back then and none of us knew any better.

Okay Sherlock - here’s a subtle clue.

So before we get down to the next game I probably need to document the state of play with those who were knocked “out of the fight” in the last one. In FFOL “out of the fight” doesn’t automatically mean dead, it can be anything from a nasty wound to someone feigning an injury, for instance, (god help me I automatically typed par exemple rather than the actual words for instance) - I’m deffo turning French. For those requiring closure (lol) the following chaps were affected.

Our Malcolm was peppered from stem to stern by a 9mm submachine gun, at close range, yet amazingly his recovery die roll yielded a “it’s not so bad” outcome?! I assume the bullets struck his hip flask, his family bible, his lucky rabbits foot and ricocheted off his St Christopher medallion? Alfred by comparison got “it’s the morgue for you” so while Malc has to skip a game Alf has very definitely “gone for a burton”. 

On team BUF we have:

Dennis, now enjoying aromatherapy and hot spa treatments in the Brompton Council House basement, Michael, who after taking two or more shots from a heavy revolver is classed as “it just winged me” (you lay down long enough mate, considering) and Raymondo who ended up the same. Both will be reporting for duty again in the next but one game, though I think all of these chaps should suffer from a shock marker at the outset.

Okay then, Operation Womble: Friday August 6th 1937

The attacker / defender roll off went in favour of the BUF again but the importance of the next mission to the higher command went from moderate to high for the BUF and moderate to low for the defending BLDV. In practical terms the BUF can now afford to have four of their force out of the fight before automatically conceding while the Brompton lads lose if only two of their number are so affected. The BUF will get four campaign points for a win (plus 1 per occupied building) and the BUF only two.

The mission fluff

With Action Group leader Hartwell continually on the phone to Worcester HQ (justifying the groups recent failure), it fell to his 2ic Sergeant Phillip Bradley to plan the next operation. 

All of Phil’s die rolls are done with a D12 rather than the usual D10 and one of his more unpleasant traits is that he gets extra mean in melee if his opponent is already wounded. Nasty piece of work all round I reckon. 

In his former role as Brompton’s assistant Clerk of the Works Mr Bradley had been frequently beset with the Industrial areas sewage problems. Now he plans to use his knowledge of the self same underground byways to get a squad into the factory area, literally under the noses of the defenders. His team would be at their most vulnerable when exiting the sewers so what he really needs is a diversion up top to draw attention. As luck would have it three Spanish volunteers from the International Fascist Brigade had shown up the day before with a tasty looking Hotchkiss HMG, and they, Phillip reasoned, would do just fine in that very role.  

Game set up

Added to the Parkside board are six (numbered and over large) sewer manholes. On turn three of the game Sergeant Bradley and his men will have travelled far enough underground to be suitably unsure of their exact location. Each turn after number three this team will make a single 1D6 roll to establish which manhole cover they can emerge from. I’ve no idea which number is where by the way. If the manhole is not in a good spot we’ll assume they’ve had a peek and decided to move on. The kicker is that on every turn they are underground they will automatically receive 1D6 shock markers between them - transitioning to wounds once (or if) they have three shock each. Why? Well they’ve only got a candle to light their way and God alone knows what they’ll be treading in, or on, down there. When they see the state of their uniforms there’ll be plenty of shock to go around I imagine.

One of the overlarge manholes - but which number is it?

Up top, the Spaniards and their Hotchkiss will set up on the areas outskirts and will fire off a couple of bursts to get the defenders attention. Defenders must attempt to drive the Spaniards off until the sewer lads are spotted, and if you remember from the preamble they can only afford to take two “out of action” results before conceding the game. Two of the defenders start the game on sentry duty and the rest are having a brew in the Farrington’s factory canteen when the action starts.

Ruddy forrins - coming over ere and shooting our commies. And for less money. The ruddy cheek of ‘em! 

The odds may see a little stacked in the BUF’s favour but the penalty for being underground may even things out a bit. Shock and wounds degrade each figures movement and firing capabilities. I guess we’ll see eh? 

A new arrival

Ernie is a Vickers Mk III, which apart from lots of multi turreted goodness also sports a 47mm gun - which was pretty hefty for the mid 30’s. They don’t seem to have produced an HE round for the gun so that’ll be of limited use in an infantry heavy urban environment. 

Egg news

Nothing to do with wargaming but I thought I’d share some Spring / Egg news. Might be a bit premature but Spring (Printemps) seems to be on its way - buds are appearing all over the shop and both Brenda and Makepeace have started to lay again…woohoo!

Brenda is a little Pékin, and Makepeace is a full on plus size Faverolle. I wonder which one laid which egg?

Good job I didn’t want an omelette for tea. 

Here’s the tiddly one in a standard sized eggcup. 

Next batrep might be a week away. 

Toodleooh mes amis.

Operation Fish ‘n’ chips. The batrep

So then, to the game. After two turns of the ten it took to complete I’d stopped taking notes and at least on one occasion forgot to take any pictures. This doesn’t help when reconstructing a narrative but it does point to the fact that I’d become quite involved in actually playing it rather than wondering how to present it to an audience.

I’ll do my best to explain what was going on with the photos I have to hand, in my usual Broom Battle Picture Library (pat pending) format.

Unfortunately the password had been changed to “the cats pyjamas” and feeling he’d been rumbled Eric Hartwell in the driving seat pulled a pistol on the guard. With a cry of “blackheads” (the derogatory appellation applied to the BUF because of their black Brodie helmets) the sentry ran into the woods bordering the road. Conveniently out of sight in the picture, the second guard Jim Barclay fires his shotgun into the trucks engine, wrecking it, before jumping over the fence and out of sight. The shocked BUF boys immediately debus, but by the time I took the photo they’d all recovered their dander apart from Hartwell. By the way - Anyone know what the collective noun would be for a bunch of fascists? A Musk, perhaps?

Hearing the commotion, Malcolm Laidlaw the BLDV section leader runs to the phone box to alert the town council while way back in the distance the boys not currently on stag drop their copies of yesterdays Brompton Bugle or Picture Post and grab the Lewis gun.

Faster than a thousand greased gazelles (a unit of motion used by my former TA corporal) the BUF lads sprint into action. The lmg team run into the woods chasing the fleeing sentry,  hoping to set up on a covered flank. Action group leader Eric legs it after Dennis Clark a very gung ho Smethwick lad carrying his groups standard. (Eric rushed to be alongside Dennis not because of any inherent heroism but because Eric has the trait “bodyguard” - which means the first hit inflicted on him would automatically pass to an adjacent friendly character - if there was one). Better to be safe than sorry eh.

BUF corporal Ray Hughes is armed with a Bergman smg and a grenade. He fans out to the left of the road, blissfully unaware that on the other side of the fence he’s hiding behind are several hundred gallons of petrol. Careful with that grenade Ray!

The Brompton boys begin to close in from all directions as the BUF advance cautiously.

The Brompton lmg team take up position covering the water tower across the road.

And then it all kicked off. Jim Barclay stepped out from cover (top right) and let fly with his shotgun, and missed. Fortunately Malcolm Laidlaw the Brompton leader was now on the scene and fired his trusty Webley revolver. (Feel free to cry blam blam or some such at this point. I know I did). Ray’s side kick collapsed under the fusillade and in a panic Ray returned fire with the Bergman, his shots going everywhere until the clip was empty. Bugger. As a side note I’ve been using AI generated and laminated flats to signify a figure is prone, rather than tipping the models over and potentially scratching the paint. Black uniforms for the BUF and Khaki for the Brompton boys. The grenade counter is just there because the character was carrying it so it’s a reminder that it’s available to be picked up.

Hartwell and the standard carrying chap make it to the water tower as the opposition close in from all directions. Alf Bingham gets in a sneaky shot at the BUF leader which so shocks the man that he apparently waves to his assailant in response. 

Meanwhile back by the fuel drums and now with an empty gun Ray struggles to reload, watching helplessly as shotgun toting Jim Barclay advances for the coup de grace. 

The BUF lmg team set up on the fringe of the woodland but the weapon jams almost immediately and they come under a withering fire which causes shock and wounds, rendering them ineffective for almost the balance of the game.

Plucking up courage Alf Bingham rushes Hartwell who’d ducked back out of sight. No Alf. No! Close combat in FFOL is pretty brutal. Apparently Hartwell’s raised hand is not just a salute but a fearsome karate chop. Alf goes down wounded and to add insult to injury Dennis comes round the corner and bashes his head in with the group standard. Ouch. Don’t think he’ll be walking that one off.

Back at the ranch, sorry back by the fuel drums, Jim is having problems with his shotgun so Malcolm and his webley move in to finish off the BUF corporal. 

Unfortunately Malcolm’s timing was pretty poor because the corporal had just managed to reload his Bergman. The card activation was in his favour and he let rip  (I’ll pause the narrative for a second so you can make a machine gun noise too if you’d like. I settled on brrrappp, brrrrappp if it’s any help). Anywhoo I don’t suppose the sound mattered much to poor old Malcolm who went down like wet raincoat falling from a coat peg. 

Ray didn’t get to enjoy his moment of triumph for long though because Jim’s shotgun scored the equaliser. If memory serves, which with me it usually doesn’t, we’re now at two out of the fight figures a piece. A phrase like “there’s still everything to play for” springs to mind, but I won’t use it since seems wrong in the context of a life and death struggle. I should probably explain that I’m taking this contest so seriously that one in three of the losing side will be beaten into an unrecognisable lump of lead with a hammer, during the post game wash up.*

The BUF lmg team continue to take hits but finally get the gun working again despite their growing number of wounds. Could they finally get the last required “out of the fight” result? Erm… as it happens…nope. Eric Hartwell and the bloke with the standard climb through the water tower window to find cover inside. If another Brompton man bites the dust then the BUF will have won…with the addition of an extra point for occupying a building. Good thinking Eric. You might have sold the lowest number of ladders at the Droitwich ‘35 ladder expo but clearly you’re a tactical genius. Flushed with success Eric chucked his one and only smoke grenade out of the window and ordered Dennis and his banner to stay put. His mission now was to rally the remaining troops and get that last “out of the fight” result. Under cover of the smoke he ran from the building ignorant of the fact that the smoke had also prevented his lmg team from securing a potential kill shot…and the game.

With the smoke still spreading the BUF troops retire to regroup on the board edge. Maybe they can still get that last “out of the fight” result and win the game from a less exposed position. 

Stepping over Alf’s body the Brompton men cover the water towers door and windows. Unwilling to risk another close combat (which with a bad result could’ve handed the win to the BUF, even at this late stage) they shouted for the enemy inside to surrender. The rules don’t cover this (we’re free styling here), so I rolled a dice. Denis came out with his hands up. Though not injured (yet) Denis is effectively “out of the fight” so I called the game in Brompton’s favour as per the scénario victory conditions.

“Right chum, you’re coming with us.”
I’d like to report that Dennis was treated fairly in accordance with the laws of war etc. But I can’t. I suspect that his standard might have been shoved where the sun don’t shine. 

So there we have it. The BUF limp off board to lick their wounds and the Brompton boys get 3 points for the win. The towns medico will now be employed to determine the outcome for those who fell in the battle…oh okay not really I’ll just roll a dice, like the Gods seem do with us.

I had a hoot playing this - the outcome being a damn sight closer than it might appear from the narrative.

Hope the wall of text and endless stream of photos wasn’t too onerous and if you’ve made it this far, cheers. You could leave a nice comment below if you’d like, but to be honest a fiver in the post would be more welcome.

Toodleooh

*only joking of course but the lads didn’t know that. I think they fought harder as a result.