Hors de combat (temporairement)

Bit of a filler post this week cos I’m out of commission thanks to first world problems. 

The end part of our house has some massive wooden shutters front and back which make it comfortably zombie apocalypse proof but which require a degree of maintenance to keep in tip top condition. 

The shutters of doom, 3m square (whatever that is in old money) and that’s just one set. 

Long story short I’ve been using an orbital sander intensively for days on end and now have hands like cows tits. All of my fingers on my right hand are numb, in a way that I’d welcome if it were my brain, and that has meant no typing or painting in my so called down time. Some folks have the gift of being ambidextrous but I’m firmly right handed and it’s that one that’s copped the worst of it. I’d say my left hand is useless but it’s not actually that good. Come to think of it, along with my left arm it’s done little but flap lazily in the wind for most of my life. Ruddy useless, though I suppose it does add a certain symmetry to my ((coughs)) Adonis like physique.

I digress. The last game of the Brompton Campaign is sort of set up…but picking up toy soldiers and moving them around is a bit like operating one of those coin op amusement arcade claw machines, only the crane bit’s made out of ham. For my models sake I’m going to leave it a couple of days until I’ve walked this off. 

I think I’ll just move my Indian mutiny collection with all their delicate bayonets what could possibly go wrong?

Anywhoo. Seeing as typing this is a ruddy nightmare, what with sausage fingers and auto correct, here’s a bit of a post I’d prepared previously to pad things out against a dry blogging month, culled it must be said from correspondence intended for my granddaughter who hopes to live out here one day.

Soz if it’s jarringly out of context for a wargaming hobby blog but needs must when the devil vomits on your eiderdown n’est ce pas?

French Lessons #101

Everything you learned at school or in language classes about speaking French is wrong, and I do mean EVERYTHING. Don’t forget that the main use of the French language is to root out foreigners and only after that to transmit information. Subtleties and nuances in its usage abound, dotted around like linguistic land mines to catch out even those who’ve done 2000 consecutive days on Duolingo. (Bitter…moi…Non!)

Talking is of course essential and should be done through the nose at all times. But what to say? And how do you say it? You’ve assembled all the words for “things” in your intended sentence, remembered what their sex is so you can join them together with correct gender joining words, conjugated a Byzantine series of verbs and then altered the whole sentence structure so that adjectives describing ONLY beauty, age, goodness and size go before the noun (“le chat blanc” - the cat white in English, for example, versus “une belle robe”, a beautiful dress)… and after that, assuming you’ve managed it in the usual two second thought to mouth window, you’re good to go. Great you’ve managed grammatical perfection. 

Sadly, despite this mini triumph no one will understand you because you will have pronounced ONE of the words incorrectly and no one uses grammatically perfect french anyway… other than foreigners. Job done. You’ve been busted you filthy barbarian. 

(French people don’t say “oui” (wee) they say “oui” (way). Nous (we) is only written, in spoken French they say “on” and they never say the “ne” bit in “je ne sais pas” (I don’t know). Anything pronounced slightly off (even if the meaning is obvious) becomes entirely incomprehensible and must be immediately dismissed from the average mind Français.

Level two of language being used for rooting out étranger is the use of “Verlan”, the French version of Cockney rhyming slang.  How it should be used and when it is socially acceptable to use it is still a closed book to me but essentially it is taking a standard word like “fou” (crazy) and switching the letters around so it’s pronounced “ouf” (oof). I think it’s meant to imply that you possess subtle inner city wit or some such, but don’t quote me on that. It used to be pretty niche, but it’s even on tv now.

Last in this cautionary tale of vernacular mayhem are the words borrowed from elsewhere that don’t mean anything much but are just thrown into a sentence at random to indicate you are generally “hip”. Witness the new word… “wesh” which may or may not mean anything (it hasn’t yet made it to La Creuse where we live) and can be interposed between any words in a sentence with no apparent problem. I’m told it comes from North Africa if that’s any help.

French Lessons #102

Table manners. Essential knowledge. Never leave your baguette upside down on the table, it’s bad luck (it’s the one left out by the baker for the towns hangman, apparently). Never slice your baguette with a knife (what are you some kind of animal?) it should be torn into chunks, with your hands. I’m told it was because back in the day cutlery was considered insanitary, but to be fair, I’ve never seen a Frenchman actually wash his hands…

Cheese. There are officially 246 different varieties of cheese in France and apart from the blue and the Comte they all taste the ruddy same. If you are tired of life you might like to make this observation at a dinner party. On the other hand if you wish to curry favour, mutter that it has subtle notes of hawthorn or camomile. Never EVER take more of some you’ve taken a liking to. Another piece of cheese would be “seconds” and “seconds” implies the host did not feed you well enough in the main course (either that or you’re a glutton and should be socially shunned). Don’t forget to look askance at the host if the cheese board has an even number of cheese selections on it. For reference 5 varieties is considered the perfect number, anything more is just vulgar and showing off.

Cutting cheese (not a euphemism) is a science and again an opportunity to sort the social wheat from the chaff. Pie shaped cheeses should be cut into wedges (#obvs), log shaped ones should be cut into cylinders and triangular slabs of Bree are a bloody etiquette nightmare. Basically it seems you have to keep cutting pieces off at an angle till you are mid-way then you can cut perpendicular to the rind so that everyone gets a bit of the rind.  This way no one is left with just a firm piece of rind at the end. There you go. Crystal. Oh yeah, never claim to have had a nice cheese from Brittany. There is no such thing. They’re only good at salted butter up there.

Cheese do’s and dont’s.

Don’t say: “I reckon you can’t beat a nice bit of cheddar.”

Do say: “Have you tried the Ol Sciur with its fragrant blend of raw goat milk cheese, hibiscus, berries and rose petals?” (It is of course Italian, but you’ll be demonstrating your sophisticated European cheese palate to an approving audience).

There you go a wall of text, totally out of context with the blogs raison d’être. Blogging suicide according to those in the know. I must have a death wish.  

Righto I’ll be off now, but be warned, if you’re naughty I’ll know, and I’ll post another few snippets of this crap. lol.  

Heck, who knows, it may even prove useful should you ever find yourself on La Continente.

Leave us a comment if you can be arsed.

À la prochaine mes amis.

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 - Game 3 of 4

 

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.