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.