War of the Ring

On a recent sojourn in the Grim North of England, we managed a game of War of the Ring.

The set-up.

The Fellowship elects to attempt a military victory and the Ring never leaves Rivendell. Saruman sets up in Orthanc and the hordes from Mordor advance towards Minas Tirith.

Minas Tirith falls, under the gaze of Aragorn (who is subsequently killed).

A nasty moment for the forces of Sauron as Angmar (the Fellowship player only needs 4 victory points as opposed to 10 for Sauron) falls to the Elves.

The Witch King flies north and retakes Angmar to the relief of Sauron.

We eventually called it a draw, late in the evening as we did not have time to finish it. A great game though, to be played again.

Currently reading...............

Flashman in the Peninsula (Adventures of Thomas Flashman Book 3)

This is the third instalment in the memoirs of the Georgian Englishman Thomas Flashman, which were recently discovered on a well-known auction website. Thomas is the uncle of the notorious Victorian rogue Harry Flashman, whose memoirs have already been published, edited by George MacDonald Fraser. Thomas shares many of the family traits, particularly the ability to find himself reluctantly at the sharp end of many major events of his age.

While many people have written books and novels on the Peninsular War, Thomas Flashman’s memoir offer a unique perspective. They include new accounts of famous battles, but also incredible incidents and characters almost forgotten by history. Flashman is revealed as the catalyst to one of the greatest royal scandals of the nineteenth century which disgraced a prince and ultimately produced one of our finest novelists. In Spain and Portugal he witnesses catastrophic incompetence and incredible courage in equal measure. He is present at an extraordinary action where a small group of men stopped the army of a French marshal in its tracks. His flatulent horse may well have routed a Spanish regiment, while his cowardice and poltroonery certainly saved the British army from a French trap.

Accompanied by Lord Byron’s dog, Flashman faces death from Polish lancers and a vengeful Spanish midget, not to mention finding time to perform a blasphemous act with the famous Maid of Zaragoza. This is an account made more astonishing as the key facts are confirmed by various historical sources.

The Case of the Mukkinese Idol

Professor Moriarty

Whilst Professor Moriarty sits motionless, like a spider in the centre of its web, that web has a thousand radiations, and he knows well every quiver of each of them. Currently there was a minor quiver in the strand that led to Snapcase’s Emporium of Wonders located in a tumble-down warehouse at the the back of an abandoned farm. The farm on the outskirts of Zeal Monachorum was known locally as Splatt’s Pond Farm, although Farmer Splatt was long gone and the pond was now no more than a puddle.

One of Moriarty’s myriad criminal enterprises was the sale of real or fake (he wasn’t fussy which) artefacts for the use of cults and secret societies across the country. If you wanted an altar to sacrifice a virgin on or the skull of a serial-killer to swear your secret societies’oaths of allegiance on, then Snapcase’s Emporium of Wonders was the place to purchase said items. The proprietor, one Athelstan Snapcase (younger brother to the Earl of Snapcase and the black-sheep of the Snapcase dynasty), known to his friends as Stan was about to pull off a right royal swindle.

Benjamin Plugsocket, Zeal Monachorum’s jobbing carpenter had carved an exact likeness of the fabled Mukkinese Idol. This idol was said to bestow immortality on it’s possessor and had been lost in the mists of time. Moriarty’s henchmen had put the word about ‘up in the smoke’ that the Idol had been rediscovered and was up for grabs if you had a Guinea or two about your person. Well, eight thousand Guineas to be precise!

An unknown gentleman of foreign extraction, Count Vladislav Dracule had expressed an interest to Moriarty and was on his way down to view and perhaps purchase this legendary artefact. Stan was already calculating how to spend his share on Dolly Mops and gin.

Unbeknownst to Moriarty, Stan or the Count, a telegram had just arrived at 221b Baker Street and had been brought upstairs by Mrs. Hudson.

COME AT ONCE. DEVIL OF A BUSINESS. DIRTY DEALINGS AFOOT. SPLATT’S POND FARM. ZEAL MONACHORUM.

LESTRADE.

Our tale begins…………………………………….