Where Seagulls Dare

 This was a game in the style of a dodgy war film and owes much to Ian Drury's 2005 game The Guns Of Toblerone (I ran it again in 2012 - link) .  WSD was set on a small island off the coast of southern France but filmed for reasons of economy on the Yorkshire coast - hence the name!  I'll not say too much at this point as I've been asked to run it at COW.

The mission involved sabotaging some German secret weapons. The cast er, I mean players were all given individual briefings and then had to select their equipment before being parachuted onto the island.  Meanwhile I set out the high quality terrain and elements of the garrison.

Being a properly rubbish old film, there was of course a Gestapo presence.

entertainingly the players spent several minutes speculating about the location of the
German secret weapons facility.  Then someone
took the time to look properly at the table...

a further cliche was the mountain-top castle.  I built the 'mountain' by draping a sheet over a table...

the German airfield soon attracted the team's attention

the garrison  - of course - included an obviously American postwar tank wearing big black crosses

One of many exciting incidents was the ambush on a mountain road next to the scary ravine.

A most entertaining game which the players entered into with good grace, and which produced several incidents and outcomes beyond my wildest imaginings!

The Airfix Olympics

I understand there is another competition underway in Japan but the real struggle took place last night on our regular wargaming Zoom call.  We were meant to be playing a Spanish Civil War game run by Simon but his village had been hit with a power outage, taking his internet with it!  Hopefully we'll be able to do the game this evening.

After a chat about various other things I offered those gathered a brief quiz, it's subject being some of the old aircraft models I have been refurbishing of late.  The kits in question - all Airfix 1/72 were as follows:

Boomerang, Ju-87B, YAK-9D, Il-2 Sturmovik, Mitsubishi Dinah, Helldiver, B-25 Mitchell.

If you want to try this yourself here are the questions.  No looking up the internet or old catalogues now!  Let me know your scores in a comment.  I may award a prize if I believe you!

Question 1.  The oldest of these kits is the Ju-87, originally released in 1957.  Rank the others in order of release year.

Question 2. Three of the kits are in Series 1.  Which three? 

Question 3.  Which of the kits are in Series 2?

Question 4.  Which series was the B-25 Mitchell?

Question 5.  I chucked a very tatty Airfix B-29 Superfortress in the bin.  Which series was this kit?

Question 6.  In the catalogue pictured above (price 2 Shillings!) only one 1/72 aircraft was in a higher series than the B-29.  Name the aircraft.

At this point we added up the scores and I added a tiebreaker.

Question 7.  Name this kit (1 point) and the series it was in (1 point).

Answers:

1. Ju-87 1957, YAK 1963, Il-2 1964, Boomerang Dinah B-25 1965 (these three can be in any order), Helldiver 1968 (1 point each - max 6 points)

2. Boomerang, Stuka, YAK (1 point each - max 3 points)

3. Il-2, Dinah, Helldiver (1 point each - max 3 points)

4. Series 4 (2 points for correct answer)

5. Series 7 (2 points for correct answer)

6. C-130 Hercules - a Series 8 kit! (2 points)

7. F-4 Phantom (1 point) Series 3 (1 point)

The scores of my players were:  Graham (who denied all knowledge of the subject) 5; Tim C 6; John 10; leaving Martin and Jerry in joint first place with 11.  

The surprise here was Jerry whose aircraft recognition is generally limited to "Spitfire" or "not Spitfire" but like most gentlemen of a certain age he misspent many hours of his youth thumbing though old Airfix catalogues.  

He says this was mostly for the railway kits - shades of Kenneth Horne claiming he only read Nudist Monthly for the gardening pages...

UPDATE:  Jeffers claimed he got 14 points while John B, the donor of most of this stuff claimed 13. 

Calls for a full enquiry and drug testing I think…

Meanwhile, in a maternity hospital somewhere in England...

A friend of a friend is a midwife. This was on the status board when she went to work the other day...

SAM for sale

For those of you who, like me, lament the disappearance of the Airfix SAM-2 kit, salvation may be at hand.  I have found one for sale!  I should, however, point out that rather than the 1:76 scale favoured by Airfix, this one is in the universally popular 1:1 scale.  So you'll need a bigger boxfile to store it.

I spotted this SAM - complete with it's ZIL-131 tractor unit was for sale at Brightwells classic car auction via a mention on my motoring website of choice, Honest John.  Which by coincidence is the name of another missile system.

Sadly since HJ's post the SAM has been withdrawn from the sale.  According to Brightwells:
PLEASE NOTE:This lot has been WITHDRAWN; due to Section 5(e) of the 1968 Firearms act. We hope to offer this item at a later date.

White Christmas?

Well nearly.  At around 1830 yesterday a sleet shower turned to snow and began to settle.  The photo above shows the motor pool at Megablitz Towers at around 2300.  Fortunately we were at home and - dog walking excepted - didn't have to be anywhere today.  I gather that central Sheffield was gridlocked with the added bonus of a power cut.

 Above:  this was the situation at 1900.  Below: and at 2130.

Meanwhile in the parallel universe that is Little Cold Wars the roads were kept open by this splendid Simca Sumb snowplough which came with a collection of Solido military die casts I recently acquired.  It even has snow chains on the wheels.

A Mighty Wind

AMW was this year's Plenary Game at COW.  Although this was my idea and design, the real blame must surely lie with others for failing to talk me out of it.

Someone always goes too far and brings a flag....

This game arose from a daft idea I had while reading Nemesis – Max Hastings’ 2007 book on the final year of WW2 in the Far East.  What might still have been a sensible game took a nose-dive into frivolity when I realised that this was the perfect opportunity to use the pair of 3-foot long plastic toy aircraft carriers gathering dust.  After I put together the initial er, ‘concept’ I enlisted Bob Cordery’s support in bringing along more ships. 

The immense invasion fleet

All well and good, but I wanted other vessels as well as flat-tops so one June weekend it was off to the garage with some of my stock of off cuts of insulation foam and  a sharpened knife.  Though the COW game was set in 1944 I had already decided to go for a slightly more 'modern' look so that the ships might have a future role supporting amphibious landings in Little Cold Wars games.  Emerging some time later with four lumps of foam vaguely shaped like ship hulls and a few bits of potential superstructure I used PVA to stick the bits together.  For armament I cobbled together some missile tubes and after laboriously carving a pair of turrets had the idea of rummaging in the spares box.  This yielded seven suitable(?) turrets and some missiles which were secured with more PVA prior to the fleet being daubed with grey emulsion paint.

Anyway, back to the game.  Should you find yourself with a need to entertain 40+ nutters for an hour or so, it goes something like this:

Umpire team sets out 'fleet' on lawn.

Appoint a Japanese CO.  Other Players work in pairs.

Brief the players thus: “It is 1944 and the Home Islands of the Empire are threatened by the godless enemy.  To defeat the invasion fleet a terrible new weapon has been devised!  The enemy will be scattered by waves of bomb-laden aircraft which will be deliberately crashed onto his ships.  I congratulate you for volunteering to die for your Emperor in this heroic way!”

Admiral Rapier (right) inspires his pilots

Phase 1. Ground Crew makes a headband for the pilot.  Pilot composes a haiku and writes it on a sheet of A4 paper. CO makes an attack plan.

Phase 2. Ground Crew build a plane (paper dart type thing) from the above mentioned sheet of A4. Pilots are briefed by CO.

A properly equipped player showing an appropriate level of dignity.

Phase 3. Ground Crew bid Pilots a tearful farewell (possibly including drink, bowing, flag waving etc). Pilots attack US fleet on the lawn.  Umpire Team reports ‘hits’.  If any.

Scary eh?

Phase 4. Gather up all 'planes to be kept by umpire team for selective inclusion in Nugget.

The virtually unscathed fleet sails on....

Phase 5. Pilots and Ground Crew swap roles, start again at phase 1

For the game at Knuston I was again very pleased by the level of enthusiasm the 40+ players brought to a pretty flimsy game outline.  Sadly their aircraft construction and piloting skills lagged some way behind.  The first strike yielded two hits, the second only one.  Maybe that’s why the concept never really caught on….

It's Competition Time!

For the plenary game* at the forthcoming Conference Of Wargamers I need a 'fleet ' of warships,  I already had two big plastic toy aircraft carriers and pair of smaller carriers.  Bob Cordery has also offers to bring two of the larger toys.  All well and good, but I wanted other vessels as well as flat-tops so last weekend it was off to the garage with some of my stock of off cuts of insulation foam and     a sharpened knife.
Though the COW game is set in 1944 I had already decided to go for a slightly more 'modern' look so that the ships might have a future role supporting amphibious landings in Little Cold Wars games.
Emerging some time later with four lumps of foam vaguely shaped like ship hulls and a few bits of potential superstructure I used PVA to stick the bits together.
For armament I cobbled together some missile tubes and after laboriously carving a pair of turrets had the idea of rummaging in the spares box.  This yielded seven suitable(?) turrets and some missiles which were secured with more PVA prior to the fleet being daubed with grey emulsion paint.  The newly built models are shown with an iPhone (which I didn't build) for scale.

Which brings me to the question.  Can you identify all of the turrets I rescued from the spares box?  I'll need the original kit manufacturer(s) and kit names.  Feel free to ID the missiles - I've no idea what they are!

The first correct answer will entitle the winner to name two ship models of his (or her) choice from the four in the photo.  The second and third placed entries will each get to name one of the remaining ships.  Comment moderation is now on until Tuesday.

Ok, so it's a crap prize but come on- what did you expect?  Blame Paul at Plastic Warriors for giving me the idea.

*more about this game after the event...

All the nice girls love a sailor

While tidying up the blog a bit I noticed this unfinished report from COW last year.  Presented by Jim Roche, this session recounted his late father's experiences in the Royal Navy during WW2 and was illustrated with slides and songs.  Yes - another COW singalong!

Basic training at HMS Drake - one of the RN's 'stone frigates'.

Jim describes the 1937 Fleet Review - scene of the notorious 'Woodrooffe Incident' when broadcaster (and former RN officer) Thomas Woodrooffe's commentary was rather compromised by his booze intake.  "The fleet's all lit up" quoth he.  Something it had in common with him.  Have a listen to the recording here.

Not the finest tribute ever paid to County class cruisers....

Dogzilla

So there I was in the garden photographing my bodged-up 1/48-ish scale M-247 Sgt. Yuk.   Suddenly the view through the camera is obscured by a furry monster....

 ...but this was no alien.  Instead, Zoe, our ever-inquisitive two year old Lurcher was getting in on the act...

...and looked to be a more formidable foe than my East German MIG-17.  I'm well used to my toys being licked in battle - but not like this!

The ghost of President Fred?

While on holiday last week I spotted this headline in a local paper and decided it was too good to resist.

 Life imitating art?  Well games anyway.  I think so.

Dicing with Darth

The recent sci-fi game I reported on saw Darth himself getting stuck in.  I was so taken with the following sequence of photos that I felt they deserved their own post.  We take up the story as Darth gets to grips with one of the military types from the Evkri 'provisional government'.

Darth strikes.  The Evkri is down...

...but there's an upset, Darth himself is down!

Let's try that again...

...and finally Darth gets his man.

The Belgian invasion of Yorkshire?

Postings have been a bit thin recently as we've had a few days away in the Lake District.  Mostly much-needed 'down time'.

Anyway, back to the (slightly alarmist) subject of this post.  One day last week I was driving through Hull on my way to meet a client when I became aware that the other lane of the road contained a convoy of military vehicles.  Nothing rare in that, but I didn't immediately recognise the trucks as being in British use.  They turned out to be Unimogs (and a lone Iveco LMV)

A Belgian Army Unimog on a camping holiday.  Not in Hull.

As I began to pass the convoy I noticed that the number plates sported small Belgian flags.  There were about 30 vehicles in all.

An alternative to my invasion theory is that they had been on an exercise at a Ministry of Defence establishment - probably the Driver training school at Leconfield in East Yorkshire.

So, exercise or invasion - what do you think?

A question of cohesion

During the recent Megablitz game at the Defence Academy Shrivenham, I stuck my Michelin map to a whiteboard using a blob of Blu-Tac which I found in the room.  When packing up, many of the players lent a hand and someone other than me folded up the map.  When I was sorting things out last week I was surprised to find the Blu-Tac still attached.  Now I am worried that it may have been the only thing holding the British armed forces together!  What should I do?

More Naval Battles

While on holiday in Whitby last week I sloped off for a day to meet up with fellow blogger Stephen Beat. A jolly chat about toys was the main business of the day but as he lives not far from Peasholme Park in Scarborough we were overcome by the need to see the naval battle which has taken place there daily for 80+ years.  The ships are 20+ feet long (so I couldn't get any in the car...) and are 'driven' by their captains.

In the olden days the 'baddies' were of course the Germans.  Now, we have a generic enemy with a big bad battleship and a submarine who attack convoys.  Not German at all then...

My thanks for SB for allowing me to steal his photos - there are more on his Milgeek blog. 

Packing for COW

It's the same every year.  I start piling up stuff for WD's  Conference Of Wargamers the previous weekend and by Thursday I'm fretting about fitting it all in the car.  This year I seem to be taking a particularly large amount of stuff to go on the (very informal - like all things at COW) Bring & Buy.  And then there's the kit for two games.  And at least one silly hat.

 But somehow it all goes in - without any fuss.

 So what was I worrying about?

Good to go!  If you're coming to COW I'll see you in a few hours - if not book early for next year!

Don't expect any posts over the weekend but I'll get some photos and reports up next week.

Daft dice

My Triples purchases conclude with these ridiculous dice.  Other than not having bought any silly dice for ages I can't explain why I bought any of them...

D6 and D10 - in French!

Probability dice.  Probably a good idea.

And finally - the dog dice!  Who thinks of these things?

War with Vulgaria!

The Daily Snooze         10 April 1912

 Naval flotilla dispatched to Vulgaria!

"Send a gunboat" urges Empress

 

It can now be reported that a state of war exists between Vulgaria and the Empire of Anglophobia.  Tension has been steadily rising since Anglophobia's Ambassador to Vulgaria, Sir Austin Morris received a communique from the Vulgarian Foreign Ministry commenting on the recent unsuccessful Anglophobian expedition (caused by a slight navigational error) to Forbodia. 
The note read simply "Ha ha."

A considered response was then sent by HM Government and delivered by Sir Morris.  Our source at the Foreign and Colonial Office has suggested that the response included the wording "Who are you laughing at you bunch of pointy-helmeted jessies?"

The latest Vulgarian message includes an expression which has no direct equivalent in Anglophone.  Roughly translated, however, it reads "Come and have a go if you think you're hard enough."

Ships of the Anglophobian fleet pictured en route to Vulgaria

More news will be reported as it breaks.

Little Wars Centenary

In celebration of the centenary of the publication of Little Wars by H.G.Wells, Mike at Black Hat Miniatures has announced this special 54mm figure of HGW playing with some toy soldiers (and wondering if it will ever catch on as a hobby for grown men?)

Mike writes "The figure is a 4-part metal casting and comes with tiny toy soldiers and a house.  This is a quick picture of the first master casting, but it should be in a production mould this week and up on the Black Hat shop for £5.00 a piece."

What a delightful idea - mine is already on order!