Yarrr!

Right ho then, the Wiglaf dark age painting is continuing at my normal glacial pace, ensuring that the two armies will finally be ready when the figure manufacturer in question is no longer in business or the period has been done to death by everyone else. In the interim I’ve decided to resurrect my old East Indies pirate ships for a quick game.

The fluff.

Let’s pop into a very seedy dive in Nanorabas, Indonesia,  where three “gentlemen of the coast” are having a rum fuelled argument about who is the bestest pirate. Unsurprisingly things have become a little bit heated.

To save the “discussion” turning into a hostelry wrecking brawl, the worried tavern keeper suggests the three of them take part in a competition to sort it out.

After a bit of yarring and waving of grog filled tankards the three of them agree. I mean...what could possibly go wrong?

The terms of the competition are simple. The Captain who comes back from Danger Island with the most loot will have “bestest captain on the high seas” bragging rights for 1 whole year.

Allow me to introduce you to them. 

First up is...

Black Taff Llewelyn, aka, the man they couldn’t hang. An unlikely coupling of a beautiful African Nubian princess and a tailors apprentice from Neath (who ran away to sea to avoid some unpleasantness over a shipment of lace - if you need to know) which produced young Taff. He turned out a little different to his pa, (who was 5ft 2 inches tall with a receding chin and a cod eye) ...as you can see.

Taff is Captain of the Mardy Mare and his all female crew are feared throughout the Indian Ocean. Legend has it that they once laid alongside a potential prize and nagged its crew into submission, without a shot being fired.

Sitting opposite to him is an old friend from 1642andallthat.blogspot.com Captain Richard Tully now of the Cutty Wren. Tully has a wooden arm, terrible insomnia and a morbid fear of seagulls. A nasty piece of work, he is greatly feared by his crew, who’d turn on him in a flash if it wasn’t for his four permanently primed pistols and the fact that he never seems to sleep.

Now then who else, ah yes...

Handsome Jack of the good ship Spatchcock.

Obviously, no one calls him Handsome Jack apart from his mother, who also happens to be the ships Bosun. His real name is Neville by the way...

The crew are used to slim pickings on the loot front since Neville’s mom isn’t keen on things that might put her lad in harms way, but there’s always plenty of grub on board which serves to keep the lads happy.

Here are the requisite ship data cards I’ve made to use alongside the Galleys and Galleons rules - converted to hexes. Once printed out I usually fold them in half and laminate them. 

Danger island is actually two small rocky outcrops, the hexes around them being counted as shallows. Once a boarding party has put ashore they may roll 1D6, needing 6, then 5 or 6 and so on until treasure is discovered. Once located the value of the treasure is determined by a further roll. Treasure falls into two categories and is either, “a night on the town and your bus fare home” or “a kings ransom”. There is one large treasure and one small treasure available in total. 

Oh yes, did I mention that the island is infested by cannibals? If a crew searching for treasure rolls a 1 then they’ve been added to the menu.

Since my iPads running out of juice, I’ll post the game itself in a day or so, when I’ve found another 50p to put in the leccy.

Toodle ooh

Not dead, just resting

Had a few problems with the old noggin of late and gaming interest has been virtually zero. In the space of the last four weeks I’ve only managed to produce the twenty four figures shown below - which is about as many as Lee would do in an afternoon I reckon. Lol. 

Penda, centre of right front stand and Raedwald centre of middle left hand stand. Only another 15 stands to go to complete the two armies. Should be done by mid 2025 at this rate.

Being nuts is not easy but as a musical representation of the condition I’ve gone from this…(don’t click on it, it contains cuss words!)

…to this in just three weeks! 

Apart from being full time bonkers I’ve been dabbling in Victorian submarine warfare a bit, (possibly more on that when I’ve finished the models) and looking to using Norm’s Tigers at Minsk rules for my own VBCW project set in a post general strike Britain, circa 1926. (With Pendraken 10mm forces). It’s been interesting researching the pre Mosley fascist groups from the 20´s and how they managed to infiltrate the governments volunteer strike breaking force. This « lady » and her group were certainly new to me.

Rotha Linton-Orman, leader of the British Fascisti…

…when Oswald was still pretending to be a socialist.

I like the published AVBCW thirties stuff a lot, but I’m not keen on some of the more outlandish factions or its general « war’s a bit of a lark » theme. I’ll be pitching it as a straight up communist / fascist struggle I think. Again more on that when the models arrive.

Since I’ve labelled this post as «blether » it’s probably about time I swerved off on a tangent, so here goes.

On a visit last summer one of my grandchildren remarked that the sign for the nearby Preseli hills actually looked like it said the Presley hills. Naturally I’ve been attempting to exploit their naïveté (I’m a very bad Grampa) and I’ve been trying to convince them since that Elvis (who was actually Welsh and not from Memphis) is still alive and scampering around up on the high moorland as a sort of feral character clad only in a rhinestone encrusted loin cloth. I’ve now got pictorial proof that he’s also been secretly canonised… as per this sign on the Pembrokeshire coastal path.

If you squint a bit at the sign you’ll see it’s not a stairway to heaven but a pathway to St Elvis. The truth is out there! Follow the money…erm…and so on. 

On the old blog I documented my very own « operation dynamo » in which the wife and I packed up and moved back from France - for a more certain post Brexit life. I’ve now given it two years in Wales but there’s not a day goes by that I don’t regret the move and so the initial planning has now begun on our version of « Overlord ». 

Even as I type The Current Mrs Broom is busy crocheting a massive net for us to go house hunting in Finistère, Cote d’Amor or Manche. We’ve booked a ferry etc for mid September so we’ll see what happens. Thank God for her Irish roots (and passport). Hopefully at some point next year, or even the one after, I’ll be wading ashore on Gold beach with all our worldly goods. Lol.

Wales eh?!

I’m not saying it’s backward out here…but we’ve still got a Spud U Like. 

Case closed.

Toodle ooh