The Guns of Toblerone

At Sheffield Wargames Society's games day on 28 December, I ran a slightly silly game which rendered the great public service of keeping ten wargamers off the streets and away from polite society for a couple of hours.
The Guns of Toblerone was originally presented by Ian Drury at the Wargame Developments Conference of Wargamers in 2005 and took the form of a sort of role-playing game in the style of a 1970s war movie.  Was it based on any particular film(s)?  Well, you must decide for yourselves.  I shall say only that in addition to the crack team of stereotypes (dropped by parachute from a captured Ju-52 dressed as Germans), the game also featured Greek partisans, coastal gun batteries, cable cars and of course some very postwar vehicles disguised with very large black crosses. 
I had made a few minor tweaks to Ian's original version of the the game and written parts for additional players.

Above - the island of Toblerone.  The big-budget terrain was drawn and written on A4 sheets of thin card.  And yes - there are three Airfix coastal defence forts present! 

 The cast aboard their Ju-52 for the outbound flight.

The cast were as follows:

Martin R as Major Smith - a ruthless British spy

Steve R as Captain Jim Ryan - a US Army Ranger

Lloyd P as Lt. Myles Fitzbohun of the Welsh Guards - lending tone to the proceedings

Mark H as George Psychoundakis - a Greek Army officer attached to Special Operations

John A as Sgt. Jock McTavish - a hard drinking Glaswegian demolitions expert

Steve T as Cpl. Johnny Walker - the inevitable (and frankly irritating) irrepressible Cockney

Paul L as Cpl Andy Morant of 2/4 Australian Regt - hanging his bush hat where it's not wanted

Kayte H as Heidi Van Rentle - glamorous female secret agent

Paul B as L.Cpl. Frant Paget - an obnoxious and outspoken Yorkshireman

Dave R as Caporal Jean-Pierre Le Croix of the French Legion Etranger - musclebound continental glamour (but scarce a word of English...)



 Steve T and Martin R wearing appropriate silly hats.

Another view of the three Airfix Coastal Defence forts.

After landing safely in the woods (except for the dead Major Smith), the party linked up with some Greek partisans (played by the swiftly re-cast Martin R) and after retrieving a drunken Cpl Morant who was getting friendly with a taverna waitress were soon bound for the lower cable car station in a stolen truck.  On arrival they were delayed by a German patrol searching for saboteurs.  Little did our heroes know that Fritz had been tipped off by the Communist Partisans!

When they eventually reached the battery the German speakers tried to talk their way into the three emplacements.  Cpt. Ryan did so successfully and soon overcame the unsuspecting gunners.  Meanwhile Cpl Walker was in discussion with a German sentry on the subject of crap officers but had got no further.  L.Cpl Paget was welcomed into 'his' battery - where unknown to his erstwhile comrades he had gone to surrender and betray his team!  The alarm was soon sounding as confused Germans ran back and forth.  Taking advantage of the chaos our heroes soon silenced the German flak gunners (with the aid - it being a film - of 'nuclear' hand grenades).  Spirited resistance from the emplacement where the traitor Paget had taken refuge was soon brought to a fitting end by Ryan and Fitzbohun firing their captured '88' through the back door!

By then we were out of time so the full story of how our brave lads escaped will have to wait for the sequel...