Full circle

Sometimes the best laid plans of mice and men go awry. Sometimes the cyclical currents of the cosmos carry you back to a place or a position you were always destined to occupy, whatever foolish ideas an individual might have held otherwise. Sometimes you’re just pissing against the wind.

We journeyed over to France last week, house hunting in Normandy, Brittany and Cote d’Amor, but unfortunately every property we fancied had a queue of Dutch folk outside…Dutch folk carrying Intermarché bags stuffed full of 50 euro notes. Mmmm. 

The situation quickly forced The Current Mrs Broom and I to reconsider our options. We wanted seaside. We didn’t wish to be as isolated and out in the sticks as last time. We wanted quasi Parisian ish sophistication, the chance to discuss Flaubert perhaps, with learned individuals at a special symposium. I wanted to wear cravats for gods sake. 

However, like I said. The unseen forces of the cosmos are forever at play, quietly nudging you onto the path you were apparently always destined to travel.

Our plan B turned out to be the « C » word. No not that one. C for Creuse, the department that is the butt of every sophisticated Frenchman’s humour. Bucolic, enormous and largely devoid of anyone other than these folks:

It is of course where we used to live, and as far from the sea and sophistication as it’s possible to get. It’s about the size of Wales but it’s population is probably no bigger than Droitwich. It’s a five hour drive, minimum, to any stretch of coastline. 

So to recap. Near the sea? Nope. Sophisticated? Erm…nope!

The few things it does have going for it though are well, lots of buildings like this:

I made a cheeky offer on the tower but they were having none of it. Bugger.

and this:

The current Mrs Broom makes a rare blog appearance.  She’s wondering how many curtains she’d have to make if we bought the tower in the background. I’m wondering how many years I’d have to spend as a male prostitute in order to pay for them. 

Bourganeuf. First town in France to have had a domestic electricity supply, and boy don’t they go on about it.

Bourganeuf central. Without our two massive heads blocking the view.

So we did the six hour drive down to the département and saw this, amongst many others:

In a town, so sort of sophisticated, massive, and emanating that especially french sense of faded and slightly tragic former glory. It was also dirt cheap.

You’d definitely need a goodly selection of cravats if you were going to live in it. 

Along with a masters degree in household electrics. The house was rewired in 1926. This was a clumsy recent attempt at grafting it onto a new supply. Oh yeah there was an asbestos and boiler problem too. The diagnostic report on the property ran to 14 pages.

From a Broom disaster narrative perspective this property had everything going for it. An expensive money pit in which I could regularly electrocute myself. Unfortunately I’m not getting any younger so despite the prospect of generating good stories for the blog, we eventually settled on this:

An architect designed barn conversion with an attached gîte. 

Our offer has been accepted and if all goes smoothly (it never does) we should be in it October ish. 

Sublime to the ridiculous. There’s seven bedrooms to choose from to turn into a games room. I shan’t miss  the box room I’ve been confined to for the last two and a half years that’s for sure!

So that’s the « what I did in my holidays » bit over and done with.

Gaming won’t really restart until we’ve moved and most of my toys will shortly be packed up ready for the removal chaps.

Post move I’ll be returning to my Strike campaign, plus working on some pre dreadnought naval action and these chaps:

Pendraken 10mm Elizabethan’s. Pike and shot - but not as you know it. 

I’m a bit torn at the mo between doing a Low Countries campaign with them or maybe an alt history Armada invasion one. The enforced lack of gaming will at least grant me a little time to make that decision I suppose.

Right then, I’d best sling my hook I suppose.

Toodlooh for now mes amis!

Be careful what you wish for…

This post was originally going to be called «The Day Of The Rat» a humorous tale of thwarted ambition and animal cruelty - but events have sadly overtaken me. 

You may recall a previous mention of my nipping over to France in September to have a look at Brittany, Cotes d’Armor and Lower Normandy - with a view to moving back there one day. No rush. Let the idea settle in. Do a bit of prep work…you get the picture.

Having taken our time to consider things in the round and presumably become comfortable with the concept I thought we might eventually put our house on the market and have a punt at it.

Again…no rush.

I had of course forgotten that the Current Mrs Broom is a force of nature - a woman who brooks no delay in anything. A week or so back she suggested that we got a valuation of our current gaff, so that we’d have an idea of what we’d be able to buy when we went over there. Seemed quite reasonable. Couldn’t argue with that. A valuation was duly booked. It turned out to be a good one. Very good in fact. Good enough that I couldn’t think of a valid reason not to put the house on the market straight away. 

Obviously it’d do no harm. I mean; finding a buyer takes months doesn’t it?

Apparently not. 

Within a week we had an offer of the full asking price and my carefully curated risk averse dip of a toe in the French property market had come apart at the seams. As proof, (if proof were needed) that we will soon be leaving, we were finally accepted onto the local Welsh NHS dentist list last week, (it’s only taken them 2 1/2 years to get around to it). 

All of that means that there’s been no gaming or even painting possible over the past ten days since everything has had to be squared away. The viewings have now stopped but thoughts are turning to packing stuff up for a move - or more likely putting stuff into short term storage. 

Without any gaming to report on blogging activity will naturally be sporadic for a bit and probably comprise of little more than place holding updates - so please accept my apologies in advance.

Suffice it to say that the lovely Elizabethan Pendraken 10mm army I’ve ordered will probably get little more than a cursory glance when it eventually arrives and the AVBCW project along with little a pre dreadnought flirtation I’d been working on will have to be shelved for the moment too. 

The removals men unloading my crap on Gold Beach

The whole thing’s pretty exciting - but more than a little bit scary too. Hopefully we made all our mistakes last time we lived on the other side of the Channel…gulp.

Toodleooh, or more accurately perhaps in future, «à bientôt mes amis!».

The Bagley Field heist - Part 2

I ran the game today and was very pleased with the way TaM worked, though it’s definitely designed for more units on the board …and a different era of warfare!

The background fluff for this game was laid out in the previous post, so if you want to go back and look at that I’ll wait.

Up to speed now?

Okay then, the whole shebang took 7 turns and about an hour to play but there were enough potential alternative outcomes that I’ll probably run it again (off blog) at some point. 

Here’s a few piccies of the action.

Turn 1. The workers « assault » busses rattle their way up the track to the Nissen huts on the aérodrome, one of which is chock full of guns and ammo. Major Clanger (left of picture) had his lucky hat on, but he still rolled a 1 which meant that his chaps couldn’t arrive in his allotted portion of the turn. I had previously established it would take thirty minutes for the local coppers to respond to the alarm being raised by the caretaker. Worryingly for both parties the game clock advanced nine minutes on this, the very first turn. Ooh err. Better get my skates on!

T2. My workers leap out of the busses, pause to light a fag, then remember they’re meant to be searching for the weapons cache. One section heads to my ordered target the other lot wander up the lane towards the northernmost Nissen hut. In the background Major Clanger is grinding his teeth. In his portion of the turn he rolled high enough to bring his lorries onto the board, but the hex they occupy failed an activation die roll so they just had to sit there and watch as the blue collar types finished their snouts. As a bye the bye I rolled for which one of the Nissen huts the good Major was going to send his men to search and found that it wasn’t the one nearest to me, which was a relief. The end turn admin phase die roll saw another 8 minutes of the available raiding time disappear so my lads were clearly enjoying their fag break. That’s 17 minutes out of the 30 before the rozzers are destined to turn up by the way.

T3. The workers on the left of the picture burst into the Nissen hut and the busses move around a bit to prevent them becoming a lucrative single hex target. All of the hexes containing my units activated as required. In a normal TaM game at least one and sometimes two hexes (depending on troop type and command capabilities) will always be assured of an activation. I restricted it in this game because none of the men involved are professional soldiers and command and control would be almost nonexistent. Of course on the workers side the whole « command » thing is a bit of a sticky subject in itself…! Seems they’ve become a bit averse to having a boss telling them what to do. Clanger’s trucks inch forward down the track, perhaps spooked by the unexpected presence of an opposing force. Worried about the safety of his transports the pink one orders his men to get out and make for the nearest hut. No one knows at this point which hut contains the goodies of course but in the later admin phase a die roll determines that they are actually in mine. Woo hoo! Sadly I can’t type what Clanger said at this point. Alarmingly the game clock is advanced by another 9 minutes leaving only four minutes before the peelers of K division show up.

By the way if you get really close to the picture and listen carefully you might just pick up the feint jangling bells of speeding police cars.

Tell me you didn’t just do that.

T4. The driver of the bus and his mate begin frantically stowing wooden crates containing rifles and ammo. The workers leave them to it (due to job delineation concerns) and head out to confront the approaching middle class mob.  I didn’t tell Clanger that I’d found the weapons cache - so his men continued on towards his target hut. At the end of turn 4 the game clock only advanced by two minutes when a double 1 was rolled. Phew. For anyone still counting there are only two minutes left before the rozzers arrive.

T5. The good news was that Eric the bus driver managed to get the last crate on board, the engine started, and a hex worth of progress down the track to the south. The bad news was that none of the other hexes containing my chaps managed to activate. (I’m assuming they’d stopped short in order to shout ribald comments at the oncoming capitalist lackeys. We’ll probably never know). Meanwhile Colonel Bagshaw (retd) - one of the leading lights of the aforementioned capitalist lackeys, had brought along his shotgun, a cartridge for it, and a face puce with rage. The Colonel wasted no time leading his shopkeeper and clerk cohort into a round of fisticuffs with the communist oiks. Harsh words were traded and manly uppercuts attempted. At some point the shotgun went off with a bang, scaring everyone witless. The OMS pulled back… shaken. Clanger had entered into close combat rather than fire with little hope of success from an adjacent hex - but it had all gone wrong. (It really wasn’t his day) Taking a hit in the melee his section had been forced to pull back and become pinned. In the end admin phase there was more bad news. The game clock had advanced past 30 minutes and the fuzz had now shown up. Originally I’d intended that this would end the game but I’d got a truck full of goodies and a clear road to get off the board. Maybe I should continue (I thought) and see which road hex the coppers would turn up on; north or south? I rolled a dice.

T6. Bugger it. A bloody great idea that turned out to be!  “Allo allo allo, what’s goin’ on ‘ere then?” The skull crackers of K division had spread out across the south road, blocking the busses exit. Dammit. There was only one hex that activated for my side but thankfully it was the bus hex. Eric gunned the engine and released the handbrake. 

T7. At a blistering 10mph Eric smashed through the police cordon and set course for freedom. There were unsurprisingly no TaM rules for this eventuality but I reasoned that even at that crazy speed some of the coppers might just have managed to jump out of the way in time.

T7. Contd. “You’ll never take me alive copper” shouted Eric, but unfortunately he was wrong for Inspector Knacker had taken the precaution of arming his bobbies with rifles. Despite the speed of the passing vehicle the guardians of law and order had time to discharge their magazines, reload and then have another couple of goes. Some of them got so excited they kept on firing even after the busses tyres blew out and the engine caught fire. Braving the flames inspector Knacker did a bit of unnecessary trunchening on poor old Eric’s noggin before shouting the traditional K division victory cry of “Your nicked sunshine.”

The outcome: Well it was a draw I suppose, since nobody got what they came for. On the wife’s insistence I diced for the possibility of the busses cargo exploding (she was passing by at the time) but it didn’t… and she also asked why none of the protagonists had used the dinky little machine guns on the back of the parked up plane. 

Bloody women. 

After arresting Eric and securing the munitions the police swept the site. Inspector Knacker was surprised to see the number of « workmen » apparently digging holes and a party of the better sort seemingly practising their golf swings behind the hangers. 

Conclusions:

The TaM rules worked really well, though with more units it will really come into its own. Playing with a game clock is a first for me (for some reason) but it added a definite frisson of tension to proceedings and will be included where possible in other games I play. 

It was a practise game of little consequence but I thoroughly enjoyed it and as usual found I could construct enough of a narrative to keep myself amused. 

Hope you liked it…there’ll be more of it coming soon enough.

Toodleooh.

The Bagley Field heist - Part 1

Dateline: 8th May 1926

The General Strike is in its fourth day and the situation has begun to spiral out of control. Reluctant to involve the Army, Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin has so far relied on the “concerned citizens” of the Organisation for the Maintenance of Supply to keep essential services running; with the Police, somewhere in the middle, attempting to keep order. Fights between the OMS and those on strike have caused numerous injuries, two deaths and (worst of all to the Daily Mail readers) some damage to property. 

Without any centralised orders to do so, small groups of the protagonists have begun to arm themselves with whatever they can find.

Word reaches the ears of the Stoke OMS leadership that guns and ammunition have been secretly moved by the Government into storage at nearby Bagley Field aérodrome. * Apart from a single caretaker the cache will be unguarded. Plans are laid to seize the stash so they can finally overawe the local strikers. At a late night Lodge meeting, two Army trucks are proffered to carry away the haul.  

Unfortunately for the OMS, a spy gets word of their plans to the Stoke Workers Defence Committee and the comrades resolve to seize the haul for themselves instead. Overnight a couple of busses are stolen from the local corporation depot and prepared for a dawn raid.

The mission:

I’ll be taking on the (none hierarchical) command of a small Workers Defence Committee strike force, tasked with seizing the cache of weapons from the airfield. At the end of the landing strip are two Nissen huts, one of which contains our prize. Overnight sabotage of the OMS transport means they have been slightly delayed in setting off. The key to success will be getting there the fastest with the mostest, however the busses I’ll  be using to carry away the goodies have no cross country capability and will become immobilised if they leave a road hex (they have a grey base as a reminder).

Notes: 

All miniatures are Pendraken 10mm and the game will be played against my old nemesis, (Major Clanger) using Norm’s Tigers at Minsk rules (in a period they were never intended for, so soz Norm).

My chaps will enter on the southern board edge road on turn 1 and the OMS will enter from the north board edge when a 1D6 die roll of 3,4,5 or 6 allows.

The first Nissen hut to be entered will be tested to see if it contains the weapon cache with the same die roll as above. The weapons cache will always be in one of them. 

A vehicle must be within an adjacent hex to the hut for the driver and his mate to load it on board. It takes a full single turn to load and the vehicle may perform no other action.

Any single transport is capable of carrying two infantry sections.

A single transport vehicle is required to move the haul to safety - loss of either sides available transport is an automatic mission fail. 

TaM amendments for the period and scenario:

Due to the amateur nature of both sides there is no nomination of a hex that is automatically « in command » all potential hexes in which activity is required in a turn have to be diced for.

Game clock. The attack takes place at 6 o’clock in the morning but after thirty minutes the local police will arrive in strength.

Both sides have a moral rating of two. Lorries don’t usually count towards the force / morale total in TaM, but they are essential to complete the mission and the men involved would be more easily spooked by the loss of them than regulars in a bigger conflict.

Both factions are employing men armed with a mixture of short range civilian firearms. They have a range of 1 hex and a close combat die roll of 1D6. (Very limited in TaM terms).

Neither faction has the ability to make smoke and neither has any anti armour fire capability.

This game is an attempt to work through the basic TaM rules and sequence of play with just a few units per side. Although it will count as the first campaign mission none of the losses incurred will count against the faction force pools on this occasion.

Bagley field aérodrome. Dawn, 8th May 1926. Workers assault transports entering from the south. 

Force pool:

The Workers: 2 x sections of angry workers. 2 x corporation busses.

The O.M.S. 2 x sections of concerned citizens. 2 x « cough » civilian lorries.

My plan: 

I’m going to load all my workers into the leading bus and stop at the first Nissan hut. Keeping the vulnerable transports out of shotgun range I’ll search the first hut for the weapons with one section and send the other to either search the second or disrupt any arriving OMS. My primary target will be the OMS transports.

Major Clangers plan: 

No idea! I’ll dice for the hut he’s heading for when his forces arrive on the board.

This has to be the smallest game (with the fewest units) that I’ve ever attempted. 

And finally:

…a cry for help. If anyone knows where I might get some info on Elizabethan infantry or cavalry flags please drop me a line. I’m after the 1588 plus period but I can’t find anything on the inter web to speak of.

*totally made up place - naturally