The Blood Bank

I’ve been blown off course again. <<sighs>>.

I’ve got myself all involved in 2mm ECW. 

It started with ordering a few figures to see what they were like, then discovering that with a bit of guidance from our Lee and a peek at a few websites I could actually paint them. 

Mmmm. 

Then there were some ace looking miniature buildings from Brigade that were so cheap I couldn’t not buy them, and having gone that far it seemed daft not to get a nice battle mat to put them on. Oh and I’d need some Army level ECW rules…Twilight of the Divine Right looked good…

I hope my son is not expecting much of an inheritance.

I digress. While all this down the rabbit hole nonesense has been going on I managed to squeeze in the first game of my VSF campaign - so I thought I’d document it here while the memory’s still fresh. 

I’ve been using Mr Lambshead’s dice less rules for this skirmish stuff, and jolly good they are too, however the Martians required some additional thought since they are being fielded by an AI.

Going north on the campaign map the first zone that No 1 Section have to traverse on their route to safety is an area containing marsh and bog. As it happened the area designated thus on the game board never had any units traverse it so that aspect played no part in the game.

No 1 section contains 12 men including Sergeant Hobbes and Corporal Figgis. Two character traits were randomly generated and one went to each NCO. Hobbes got “bruiser” which gives him an edge in close combat and Figgis got scout which makes him a bit harder to hit when in cover. 

The section are equipped with one shot Martini Henry rifles but in addition Sergeant Hobbes has two MKIII sticky bombs and Corporal Figgis has the hallelujah smoke pot.

When the chaps arrived on the board I rolled for a friendly encounter, a Martian opposing force and a side mission to complete.

The friendly encounter turned out to be the arrival of the previously estranged Lieutenant Asquith, the Martian force was a Tripod and a “pod” of the three soldiers, (The Martians are the third generation to have been budded since the original invasion and have been genetically modified to better withstand earth conditions). The side mission was an interesting one and gave rise to the post title. A group of 12 helpless civilians have been herded into a force field “pen” where they can be contained and kept fresh for later draining by their captors.

Though the main aim is to get some of No 1 section off the opposite board edge, the pre scripted mission had the following points assigned to it.

Free the captives. 1 point for each captive that escapes off board. -2 for each soldier lost. + 1 for each Martian soldier killed. +2 for each Martian skimmer destroyed. Plus 5 for each tripod destroyed.

End game total.

0-9 points = it’s not the winning it’s the taking part that counts.

10-15 points = minor win. You won. Big whoop.

16 points + = major win. Ooo la.

If the group ever accumulate 30 points during the course of their journey I’m going to let them skip a zone across the map.

The game kicked off with Martians in “guard mode”, one of three modes that they can move through as conditions change in the game. Randomly assigned a tile, a hex within the tile, and a facing it seemed like a lucky start for the boys in red since the enemy were standing guard with their backs to the approaching soldiers. Guard mode keeps the Martians relatively stationary but they do randomly turn clockwise or anti clockwise and scan the area through their front two hexes. (I’d decided early on to limit the Martians combat fire power advantage by having them see the world through infra red and limiting their visibility by restricting it to a cone like search arc).

My Martian soldiers operate in pods of three and these particular ones are armed with zippy zappy  ray guns that (if tv has taught us anything) will make cool pew pew noises but fail to hit anything nine times out of ten. 

While the Martian soldier pod is not visible to No 1 section the tripod towers above the battlefield and causes immediate alarm.

Individual humans, machines etc all generate a heat signature and the higher the cumulative heat signature in a hex the more likely the Martians are to spot and target it. Sergeant Hobbes should have ordered his men to scatter and go to ground but the sight that greeted him just off the road side obviously gave him pause. 

Enter Lt Asquith, stage left.

Ordering Figgis to take the section into cover Hobbes takes Private Williams with him to investigate a very strange sight. Contained between three tall buzzing towers are a group of terrified civilians who warn him that an invisible barrier between the strange contraptions seems to kill on contact. Hobbes orders Williams to fire at the nearest tower but just as the young soldier lifts his rifle they hear an upper class voice shout… “I say… You fellows… Over here!”

Williams fires…and misses. 

Pushing the private to one side Hobbes takes a steady aim at the black metallic column and takes a shot himself. The heavy lead .577 bullet punches a sparking hole in the alien column and whatever it was projecting immediately stops. (The Martian’s would no doubt be infuriated to learn that in decades to come humans would use the shape of these force field towers as the design for a cap on a fast setting glue).

“I say you fellows…”

At the Sergeants urging a few of the civilians nerve themselves to run across the line in the grass where the barrier had been and out on to the road. Lt Asquith arrives and immediately takes command of the situation. Corporal Figgis loses no time in getting into cover behind a large stone wall and though a couple of the men follow him, the rest stand transfixed at the sight of the tripod.

Asquith takes command. 

It was only a matter of time before the soldiers luck ran out of course, and even as the panicking civilians ran into the road the tripod turns and spots the commotion.

(The tripod spots numerous heat signatures within its scanning arc, but it will always seek to target the hex containing the highest total. It has a range of 5 hexes. Each human figure in a hex generates 2 points of heat but any hard cover reduces the total by 1. Its potential targets, ie those with an unmodified heat signature are an old guy in the road  and a soldier on the road hex behind him. Both are within the tripods search arc and weapon range, but the old man is closest and thus has to be the target. Having seen him the Martian attempts to lock his weapon on to him. The tripod needs to draw a playing card of equal or less value than the 2 to lock on to him and fire…so the old guys pretty safe. Regardless of the outcome the Tripod places a waypoint marker on the target hex and all the Martians flip from Guard mode into Patrol mode - since they share a psychic link. In patrol mode the Martians will advance towards the way point searching for fresh targets as they go).

Unluckily for the old guy the Tripod draws an ace from the card deck, locks on, fires, and leaves a flaming scorch mark across the road. Luckily for the old guy he was so busy shouting to the others to run that his dentures fell out just as the Martian weapon fired. Stooping to retrieve them he remains uninjured but quite indignant that his hat is now on fire. (Okay artistic license… the Martian missed). Stirred by the tripods sighting, the Martian soldier pod ready their ray guns and lope out onto the road. 

Eee…that’s me best ’at that is…

“Cor blimey it’s got ’is titfer”*

Outraged that an Englishman’s hat should be so rudely handled, Lieutenant Asquith takes one of Sergeant Hobbes two sticky bombs and races around the hedge line to seek redress.

As the enormous silver colossus steps out onto the road Asquith emerges from the bushes and slaps the sticky bomb firmly onto its leg, pulling the chord to detonate the charge as he does so. He has 8 seconds to make good his escape but Asquith “is of the right sort” so he calmly draws his revolver and lets rip at the towering machines underside instead. For the first four seconds the sticky bomb fizzes a bit, for the second four seconds it produces a little wisp of smoke. Then it falls off and goes “pop”.

“Take that you swine…oh bugger!”

Fortunately for Asquith help is at hand. Hobbes quickly unwraps the brown paper on his own sticky bomb and with the right arm of a cricketing dervish he tosses the device over the hedge where it too fastens to a passing metal tripod leg… Eight seconds later it goes off with a very loud bang! 

The tripod sways alarmingly but somehow remains upright. Perhaps realising that further movement is impossible the shaken alien pilot opens a hatch and bails out just in front of the heroic Lieutenant. Asquith only has one round left in his Webley but before the writhing purple monstrosity can get up on its tentacles he thrusts the barrel between its cold lidless eyes and pulls the trigger.

Blam!

Huzzah! 

Now that the Martians have been fired at they move from Patrol mode to Combat mode, which makes more use of cover and depending on the playing card drawn allows a little more movement. There is one outlier which is the draw of a King - the order to close with the enemy and enter into melee. Naturally the Martian soldiers draw this card. 

Lolloping down the road they fire at the old man with their ray guns. Pew pew they went (see I told you they’d make that noise) and though they left some scorch marks on his best Sunday jacket the old fella remains indignant but unharmed.

Their closest potential adversary is Lieutenant Asquith who  is busy searching his pockets for any stray rounds to put in his pistol when they arrive. The first Martian drops its ray gun and lashes at the young officer with its stinging tentacle. Yeah they have those now. Asquith sees the attack coming, ducks under it, and skewers the foul purple beast on the end of his sword.

Now by rights that should call for another huzzah, but unfortunately the other two Martians in the pod are onto him in a trice. 

Trice. 

I like that word. 

Anywhoo, stinging tentacles lash and poor Asquith goes the way that family tradition demands when fighting against the odds. 

Alas poor Asquith.

Pvt Williams who’d not had the pluck to go and help the Lieutenant when he needed him (not enough action points that turn) now races onto the scene, presumably wracked with guilt and determined to take one with him, which in fairness he does. After Williams’ attack there is but one Martian trooper left. 

Noticing the two dead British soldiers at the creatures feet (oh okay then - tentacles) Private Davies who had moved unobserved into range decides not to take any chances. The aliens prowess at close combat proves useless against a slug of high velocity lead, and it too joins the heap of bodies.

Oh all right then…huzzah!

With nothing left to bar their route off board the soldiers of No 1 section gather together the refugees and lead them away from the carnage. Totalling up the points earned I could see this was a major victory, and a very different outcome to the two test games I’d played in which nearly everyone got fried by this point in proceedings.

Game notes:

The Martians had been unlucky in their initial facings, their limited force size and their weapon attack card draws. Compelled by the AI card draws to do things I wouldn’t have made them do, like enter close combat, made for an interesting game but using tactics that did not play to their strengths eventually doomed them to destruction.

TTFN

*For the benefit of our transatlantic cousins it’s Cockney rhyming slang. Titfer tat = hat. 

I’m sure that’s probably still as clear as mud.

Protect and Survive

On Monday the 3rd August 1885 a series of dust clouds blossomed across the Sinus Meridiani region of Mars. Astronomers in Chile were the first to spot them. The story broke in the Santiago papers two days later. They noted that the same phenomena observed five years earlier had presaged the arrival of mankind’s greatest foe, an evil race bent on the destruction of civilisation and the enslavement of all humanity.

News of the sighting spread around the globe like wildfire. In Berlin the British invasion plans were put on hold while in London an emergency meeting of the cabinet was called at which Prime Minister Gladstone reluctantly enacted the governments secret Monarch protocol. Within 24 hrs the home fleet had put to sea and hastily assembled army units began to fill the capitals as yet untried defences.

Well some of them did…

Corporal Figgis and Privates 239 Jones and 242 Jones were not in that much of a hurry to go anywhere as it happened, because B Company 1st Battalion South Wales Borderers had been tasked with the distribution of HM Governments new “Protect and Survive” pamphlet from a railhead at Moleshill. 

With the Lieutenant taking up residence in a plate layers hut the men of No1 section had escaped the evenings drizzle in the mouth of a twin tracked tunnel. Hidden from their sleeping Sergeant by a little nook of crated government advice, Corporal Figgis and two of his regular oppo’s had been playing cards, spending their rest period gambling away pay they had yet to earn. 

Figgis slapped down an eight of hearts and took a pull on his canteen while 242 Jones furrowed his brow at the contents of his hand. 

By the light of a guttering candle 239 Jones, who’d already worked out what he was going to play next, read slowly from a pamphlet teased from a crack in the crates behind him.

More of my made up pamphlet nonsense. 

“Ere, listen, this is a good’un,” he said. “When you ’ear the air attack warning, you and your family must see that the ’elp immediately gets the best china to a designated place of safety.”

“Makes sense,” agreed Figgis sagely, though in truth he’d been no closer to fine bone china than he had the Queen. 

Bereft of decent cards and about to lose a lot of imaginary money, 242 Jones suddenly stood up and sent their improvised table flying. 

“Bloody hell Len”, Figgis swore. 

Then he saw it too…

A flaming green comet arced slowly overhead, hitting the ground beyond the hills with a thunderous roar…

The earth shook, bringing down their tea chest Shangri-La in a clatter of broken planks and flying pamphlets. Moments later the tunnel mouth followed suit.

Sergeant Hobbes was first up - shouting “stand to, stand to!” but in the sudden smothering dust filled darkness order was impossible to establish. Eventually he relented and all went quiet apart from the coughing and cursing of the entombed men.

Heaving himself out from beneath the crates, still clutching the Protect and Survive leaflet, 249 Jones struck a match and held it up so he could include Figgis in its flickering amber glow. 

“I reckon we should go and ask after the safety of the Colonel’s tea set about now, don’t you, Bryn?” he said sarcastically.

The situation:

It took three days of shifting rubble before No 1 section managed to emerge dazed and unkempt from the tunnel entrance. Though the plate layers hut had only partially collapsed, the Lieutenant was not to be found. 

Bereft of orders and unsure of the situation Sergeant Hobbes decided to march his men the 20 odd miles back to their Company HQ in Peverill where fresh purpose and succour was most likely to be had.

As it transpired they didn’t get far from the railhead before night fell and they hunkered down by the side of the road to share out the remaining rations. It was as they took stock that they noticed the trees ahead had become backlit by a strange pulsing green glow. 

Figgis had seen that sight before as a frightened private defending Hounslow. He nudged a grey faced Len in the ribs. “Oy you gog* bugger,” he whispered urgently, “make sure you keeps your B an’M** close to hand, d’you ‘ear?”

242 Jones regarded the horizon. “And to think my mam said we’d be fighting the Kaiser next,” he said sadly. 

So then the mini campaign:

The map below is composed of a series of linked zones which the section must traverse from left to right in order to reach their Company HQ. A fleeing refugee has revealed that tripods now patrol the most direct route west, so the Sergeant must plot a course avoiding these powerful opponents if possible.

Moving from one map node to another will generate an encounter with a randomly generated Martian force, a randomly generated friendly reinforcement and a randomly generated “in zone” mission. The section only needs to get some of the men off the opposition board edge each time to win an encounter and move to another node, but completion of the side mission will add difficulty. Each map node bears a depiction of a prominent terrain feature that will feature in that zones battle.

As far as I can see if Sergeant Hobbes and his men continually move west there should only be between 4 and seven games in this, so that should keep the whole shemozzle short and sweet. If any of the original section get to the HQ node on the left I’ll count that as a win for humanity! 

After a little experimentation I have adopted Mr Lambshead’s no dice rules for these skirmish battles with a small addition to cover the unusual weapons and tactics of the AI Martian player.

TTFN

* Gog - derisory name for the north Welsh.

** B&M - Baker Monroe breath preserver. Allows 5 minutes “loiter time” in Martian black smoke…or thereabouts.

 

Sisyphus no more

A gnomic title I grant you, but if the UK’s current Crime Minister can flaunt his classics knowledge then so can I. 

I have begun to discover that living in an area of outstanding national beauty or an AONB as I believe they are called, has its down sides. I am currently on week 4 of a seemingly never ending parade of relatives who thought they’d just pop by to see us (and coincidentally…the beaches). It seems that as soon as one lot empties the fridge the next lot arrives to suckle at our teat instead…urrgh. 

I’d been happily going at full modelling and gaming throttle, when whammo..the brakes have been suddenly and unceremoniously applied. 

Dining table - forget it. 

Spare room - fully occupied. 

Office - camp bed central… you get the picture. 

Add to that the never switched off lights, the disappearance of charging cables, and the constant requirement to be entertained and you have the misanthropes perfect nightmare.

The enforced gaming / modelling hiatus has however allowed me 5 minutes to reconsider what I enjoy about the hobby and like a number of others (cough - Lee and David) I’ve taken steps to change a few things. 

I’ve always found the process of painting two armies (the curse of the solo player) to be a total grind that takes me so long that even before I grimly reach the end of the process I’ve lost interest in the very forces I’m assembling. It’s always felt like pushing an enormous bolder up a hill, only for it to roll back down when I start another project. The double curse is that I’m pedantically driven to complete a thing before I allow myself the pleasure of any diversion…lol.

Faced with an unmoving lead pile and my current inability to do  much about it I came to a previously unthinkable (but logical in these entitled times) conclusion - someone else should take on my burden and make it their problem.

Luckily our Lee over at a figure painting therapy project has decided to devote himself to the painting of miniatures rather than gaming. It seemed a match made in heaven… 

You can be certain that I intend to ruthlessly exploit…sorry,  casually take up his generous offer of support, from time to time.  Suffice it to say that quicker than I could clean my brushes he’d knocked out 37 of my VSF Prussian forces to a better standard than I could ever manage. 

I suspect he’ll be seeing a lot more of my stuff in the near future!

Anywhoo…coming back to old Sisyphus for a mo, my wonderful iPad has decided to “theme” pictures from my photo library and show them to me every day - for some unexplained reason. 

The first to appear was  this one.

While resident in France the current Mrs Broom complained that having a largely inoperable spinal tumour meant access to the house down a slippery mud “path” was less than ideal. I was reluctantly forced to agree…and thus began “operation step”. 

Each level involved digging out large irregular rocks, with hand tools, down to a depth of a foot, before the accumulated aggregate could be smashed into hard core and relaid as a base for the pouring of concrete. There were 12 steps in total (each 2m x 1.5m) and starting from the bottom it took two months in baking heat to mix over 10 ton of concrete by hand - on my tod (my mixer died on day two). Now that was a Sisyphean task I can tell you. 

Here’s a few more pictures to have a titter at:

This one is of course a “classic” from the old blog where I graphically described the day the septic tank pipe got blocked. I’d like to point out again that not all of the brown stuff on my clothes was actually mud. Apart from 73 being my favourite prime number it was also the age that I had advanced to on that terrible winters day.

What’s next, oh yes. Boris. 

A neighbour and I agreed it would be a good idea to share the rearing of a couple of Turkeys that would be ceremonially “topped” at Xmas. Given the brexit debacle I called mine Boris. 

When the dreadful day came for “lights out” Boris and I went into the barn…for a chat. Now obviously I had an axe but given the size of the bugger it was still touch and go as to who would re emerge into the daylight. For the record he came close to felling me with at least one swift right cross but thankfully he never made a move for the axe when he had the chance. Tricky buggers, Turkeys.

The photo was taken at the moment when Madam Tranquart (out of shot) enquired if I would like a chicken sandwich. My expression says it all. Most of poor old Boris remained in the freezer for over a year before he was given away. It’s amazing how killing and dressing your own meat makes you feel a lot less like eating it.

I suppose one more won’t hurt. This is taken from the day of divination as it became known.

I’m long enough in the tooth to know that two copper rods cannot detect water, whichever way around you hold them. Jean Pierre was convinced it had worked for him though and here I was “having a go” to keep him happy. I think I’m saying, “what like this?” but I’d concede that “altogether now” would also work. 

The rods did not pick up the septic tank but the two continually crossed each other when I walked over a corner of the back garden to the right of the picture. I laughed it off at the time, but a little while later as part of “operation wall” I had cause to dig in that self same spot. 

First thing I found was the sole of a shoe, then the shoe itself, then some bone, a sock, the remains of some trousers, and finally some dentures. I was alarmed and called Lionel our Gendarme…who laughed. 

The copper rods had found the site of the well that had once been on the property. When mains water was piped to the hamlet in the 1950’s the stupid paysan who owned the place dumped all their rubbish down the well and covered it over. Sure enough a little more digging by Lionel and I produced a broken crockery layer and eventually a broken wine bottle layer that I never got to the bottom of…surprise, surprise.

So much for CSI eh?

I think I owe you a proper games or miniatures post next time…

TTFN