The Great Jam Raid - Turn 4

Racing forward from the back gate, Cleo Rockarse thinks to get a quick shot in at her nemesis, Lady Snapcase. Taking cover behind the statue of Sir Francis Snapcase (the man who singed the Queen of Spain's bush) she suddenly realises she is unloaded and stays in cover.

Lord Snapcase makes a beeline for some hard cover and shelters in the lee of the log store. He is also currently unloaded. By now Cleo has got a couple of cartridges up her barrels and lets fly at Lady Snapcase. One hit and Lady S. fails her save, falling to the ground with an aristocratic groan. The Mad Lord can only look on in horror, but his dander is well and truly up now. If Old Scrotum were nearby he would have been dispatched to fetch Lord Snapcase's fighting trousers.

Fighting off the urge to charge into battle (fisticuffs with a lady, would his old friend the Marquess of Queensbury allow it, he wondered?), Snapcase took the wiser course and stayed in cover whilst reloading his Purdey.

Meanwhile, Albert Steptoe (the rag and bone man) makes his weekly visit to the Snapcase Estate crying out "Any old iron?".

Meanwhile Sid and Marcel have dashed to the wall to get in cover. Now that the stealth rules are finished, they can see Miss Spankhurst and her party advancing at the trot, so to speak. Gizzard is not far behind them as he climbs over the wall.

Meanwhile, Cleo has been joined by Dr. Gitfinger, Reg and Honeygander. Reg and Honeygander shoot at Lord S. but all four shots miss. As a group their morale is OK because they need to take more than one casualty to undertake a 'dedication' test. So far, only Cupid has fallen by the wayside.

Old Scrotum has had to break into a run now the alarm is raised. It's not good for the poor old wrinkled retainer but needs must. On his second activation he manages to get into position behind the unsuspecting Sons of Stan and fires both barrels. Unfortunately, with his chest heaving from the run, he only manages to shoot the weathervane off the roof of the Hall.

Miss Spankhurst, Sponge and Young Futtock take cover behind a stone wall, preparatory to firing at Sid and Marcel. Chulmleigh carries forward at a run, he only has melee abilities. Peaches has run from her guard post at the front of the Hall but if you run you can't shoot in the same activation. The three at the wall open fire. They have all moved less than 3" so no penalty on the shooting throw, only the dark and hard cover is against them. 6 dice are thrown and 2 are hits.

Sid and Marcel take a hit each and both fail their saves. They are cut down in the side passage. Gizzard, seeing two of his mates shot down has to take a dedication test but he passes.

So there we have the situation at the end of Turn 4. Lady S. is down but the only casualty from the Snapcase retinue. The Sons of Stan have lost Cupid Stunt, Sid Snot and Marcel Wave. Things are not looking so rosy for the jam-bandits from Loose Chippings.

To be continued...

The Great Jam Raid - Turn 3

Having heard the suppressing fire from Lady S.'s Purdey, Cupid decides to open the back gates. This obviously created noise as they had not been oiled for some time. Her three compatriots moved into the gateway and opened up on Lady S. Six shots were fired by the Sons and all were misses! It was if Lady S. was protected by an invisible aura.

A noise token was taken for each individual gunshot which added seven to the board. The other group decided to try and keep out of sight and maybe gain entrance to the Hall whilst the defenders were distracted by movement in their back passage. They continued along behind the pig sty. As the player, I could see the figures but I decided that as Lady Snapcase could not see them, then she should not react to them yet.

Lady S. had taken her first activation this turn to reload her Purdey, so on her second activation she moved into cover behind the bee hive and let loose with both barrels. Modifiers related to darkness, her movement and range meant she had to throw a 5 or a 6. A 6 was duly thrown and the group at the gate had to take a hit.

Cupid was slightly further forward than the other three, so I decided she would take the brunt of Lady Snapcase's fire. She failed her save and went down like a sack of spuds.

Cleo, the leader of the gang removed her suppression marker from the last turn by remaining crouched behind the hen house during her first activation.

When Lord Snapcase's first activation came up there were enough noise counters on the table to wake him up from his slumbers in the drawing room. He had determinedly worked his way through half a bottle of thirty year old Laphroaig before drifting off to sleep in his armchair. The exigencies of command! Hearing multiple shots from his back passage, the old Lord stumbled out the back door (thus ending the stealth mode part of the game). "Where have you been you old fool?" shouted Lady Snapcase from the bee hive. "Don't worry about that, woman" he replied, "let's get at the buggers, tally ho!" With that 'tally ho' he fired off both barrels and missed completely.

Taking the reinforcement score from the last two rounds and adding a D6 enabled Snapcase to summon all his reinforcements now that the alarm had been raised. They entered from a random edge and unfortunately I threw for the edge furthest away from the intruders. Here we see Sponge the head gardener, Chulmleigh, the faithful bulldog, Miss Spankhurst (a great believer in disicpline) the housekeeper and Young Futtock the chaffeur (a particular favourite of Lady Snapcase).

Marcel Wave and Sid Snot climb over the wall unobserved with Gizzard Puke not far behind.

The three Sons of Stan in the gateway take the opportunity to reload their shotguns and Cleo, discretion being the better part of valour, joins their group. She takes a shot at the Snapcases but misses with both barrels and thus ends Turn 3.

To be continued...

The Great Jam Raid - Turn 2

Turn 2 and the Sons of Stan activate first. Cleo whispers "follow me" as she moves towards the back of the hen house to keep cover between herself and Lady Snapcase. After, Cleo's fall at the wall, the rest of the Sons inside the wall watch Cleo creep away and then go the other way. I think there may be a vote of 'No Confidence' in their leader at the next meeting at the 'Slug and Lettuce' in Loose Chippings.

Outside the wall, the rest of the gang start to move towards the back gate. As Cleo moves, Lady Snapcase again hears something. She makes Cleo take an observation test. With it being dark and hard cover intervening between the good Lady and Cleo, Cleo only needs 1+ to make the save from being observed. She throws a 1! Technically a save, but a 1 always fails in this game and Lady Snapcase sees movement in the shadows behind the hen house.

She could shoot but it's an unlikely shot with all that cover and she chooses to try and alert the household by shouting "the buggers are in the grounds!". Cleo gains two noise tokens. This is Cleo's view of the back of the Hall.

The rest of the gang move up alongside the wall quietly, but upon hearing Lady Snapcase bellowing like she's riding to hounds, They make a run and reach the gate posts of the back entrance.

Lady Snapcase knows there is somebody there but cannot see well enough to aim at whoever it is. However, in Black Ops you can use suppressing fire. Lady S. unloads both barrels of her Purdey (I gave everyone a double-barrelled 12 bore to make it simple, this being my first go at Black Ops) in the general direction of the hen house. Sweeping the gun from left to right (as she's been trained to do from a young age by Suet the gamekeeper) as if she's tracking a crossing bird, one shot comes close enough to suppress Cleo and she goes to ground behind the hen house.

Cleo now has two noise markers and a suppression marker and the gang outside the wall have a noise marker as well. However, it's the end of the turn. Lord Snapcase had no chance to try and respond to the intruder alert because all his activation cards had gone. 4 was rolled for reinforcements making a running total of 9. The noise markers will be removed as it's the end of the turn but the suppression marker will remain into the next turn to be resolved then.

To be continued...

The Great Jam Raid - Set Up & Turn 1

Snapcase hall - the ground floor.

Snapcase Hall - the first floor

Snapcase Hall - the second floor (food crates (room on right) are used to mark the position of the blackcurrant jam, rhubarb chutney and sloe gin).

Various views of the approaches to Snapcase Hall.

Using the stealth rules from Black Ops, the leader of the defenders must initially be otherwise occupied. The leader does not enter the action until he hears the alarm raised by the guards or gunshots nearby. Here we see Snapcase in the drawing room, polishing his Purdey.

Also, in the stealth rules, only half the defending force can patrol in an area of 24" x 18" (the set-up is 4' x 4') in the centre of the board/table. The other half of the defenders are off table until a cumulative dice roll (made at the end of each turn) is enough to bring them on at a random edge as reinforcements. The defending guards must be placed before the attacker decides which side of the board to enter from.

The modern day Peaches Snapcase takes guard at the front of the Hall, near the memorial statue erected in the memory of her relative with the same name, who was brutally murdered on those very steps in 1940 by invading German troops. This was during the attack on Much-Piddling related in this very blog as 'On the Day, Went the Eagle's Landing Well?' back at the end of 2018. Chulmleigh the bulldog (nemesis of the Much-Piddling postman, Peter Hazel) can be seen on the left.

Old Scrotum, the wrinkled family retainer takes guard on the lane between the Hall and the stables.

Lady Snapcase takes position in the back passage of the Hall, a formidable woman this.

...and so to Turn 1. The Sons of Stan elect to enter the table keeping the high brick wall between them and Lady Snapcase. It is night and therefore visibility is considerably reduced. The Sons of Stan want to take advantage of the cover between them and Lady Snapcase.

Cleo Rockarse activates first at the wall, attempts to climb it and falls arse over tit. Definitly a loss of face for the leader (the purple gem denotes a noise token indicating noise made by climbing).

The Sons split into two groups with Cleo (at her second attempt), Gizzard Puke, Sid Snot and Marcel Wave making it over the wall but generating a second noise token. Reg Prescott, Cupid Stunt, Dr. Gitfinger and Honeygander Gooseboote make their way slowly along the wall exterior.

Lady Snapcase hears something but turns to listen and can't identify anything.

The turn ends and the defenders roll a 5 on a D6 which acts as a cumulative score to bring on reinforcements. Snapcase elects to wait another turn as he will gain more reinforcements by waiting. Let's hope the incompetent old buffer knows what he's doing this time!

To be continued...

The Great Jam Raid - Prologue and Dramatis Personae

The scene is Much-Piddling, home to Lord Snapcase in his palatial residence at Snapcase Hall. The time is now and a rather nasty virus is sweeping the country. As a consequence, the general public have been panic-buying food and there is a shortage on the shelves of the village shop, Arkwrights. Snapcase has received a call from his old commanding officer, Major General Kenwood-Chef who lives in nearby Loose Chippings. Apparently there is a gang of toughs on the loose who are stealing food. Several raids have been made in Loose Chippings and Kenwood-Chef is calling to put Snapcase on the qui vive, as it were. Lord Snapcase has responded to the crisis by making more of his prize-winning blackcurrant jam (Best-in-Show at the 2018 Much-Piddling Village Show, don't cha know). Lady Snapcase has been making Rhubarb Chutney and the two of them together have been making their famous Sloe Gin. All in all, a rather tempting target for the Loose Chippings gang.

Snapcase has put the whole estate on the alert and here are the defending force (stealth rules from Black Ops, Espionage Mission, Village Scenario).

Unknown as yet to Snapcase and his loyal retinue, the opposition are the Sons of Stan gang. They were going to be the Sons of Satan gang but when they had their T-shirts, patches and stationary printed by Chippy Minton in Loose Chippings, Chippy omitted an 'a' in Satan and there they were, the Sons of Stan, led by Cleo Rockarse!

So "Cry 'Havoc!,' and let slip the dogs of war."

Ben Gunn, Petards and Pasties!

Britain's earliest pasty recipe dates back to 1510 in Plymouth, Devon. However this is not a reference to that 'food of the Gods' us'n eats down yer. This is a reference to a pastie which is a cover worn over one's nipple, shown here on the right to such good effect by Boubou Flaring, an employee of the Pink Pelican Inn. Expert operators of the pastie often have tassels attached which the most adept can cause to contra-rotate in an hypnotic fashion. Mimsie Slopcorner, proprietress of the Pink Pelican, knows what draws the punters in.

To Boubou's right is a man in a cauldron (no AJ, this is not the mini cauldron of which you speak). Of this, no more is to be said at this point.

On the left is Ben Gunn. After his adventures being marooned by Captain Flint and hiding his treasure, Ben has become a hermit on Isla Serpiente. He has an obsessional craving for cheese. He will be an important man to find in the game as only he knows the hideout of the two bombers, one of which will be necessary to complete a certain mission.

On Ben's left is the first of the two bombers, Pétomane le Pétardier. Pétomane is of French origin and learnt his art in the powder mills of France. He and his colleague 'Stink-Pot' (not shown) are much in demand for specialist jobs such as blowing up entrances into forts and suchlike. Pétomane has been accused before of using too much black powder and this has resulted in one of his clients rebuking him by saying “You’re only supposed to blow the bloody doors off.”

(Interesting fact: the word Pétard comes from the Middle French péter, to break wind, from the root pet, expulsion of intestinal gas, derived from the Latin peditus, past participle of pedere, to break wind)

Another mission in the game will be to steal items of Sir Gilbert Hill's luggage. Being a very wealthy man, Sir Gilbert has many items of luggage which he has left on the quayside to be dispatched by his minions to Government House. He has also left it under the guard of his pet monkey, Asmodeus. If the players are quick, they may be able to snatch items of great value (or they may end up with Sir Gilbert's laundry which, after several weeks at sea are not the most savoury of contents!).

The Blue Death and Ena Sharples

A lot of the characters shown so far have been either targets for the players in terms of their treasure or are merely embuggerance factors designed to frustrate the players and provide the umpire with smug satisfaction. These two characters may prove more useful to the players.

On the left is Arya the Assassin, otherwise known as the Blue Death, referring to her habit of always wearing blue when out for a kill. She is a master of disguise. Very little is known about Arya but she can be hired by the players to assassinate others. On the right is Ena Sharples, an habitué of the Rover's Return. Ena is a herbalist (some may say witch) and potion-maker with a reputation for healing. Don't be put off by that massive wart on her nose. Players buying her a milk stout (her favourite tipple) at the Rover's may find a wound or two healed.

The Relic Bearers

These Brothers complete the Brothers of Santo Marcas. They are the Relic Bearers and are entrusted with the most valuable and revered relics in the Brother's possession.

L to R: Brother Godot holding the Rod of Asclepius, Brother Guildenstern with the Holy Grail, Brother Karamazov holding aloft the Rose Croix and Brother Rosencrantz with the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch.

ARTHUR:
Yes, of course! The Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch! 'Tis one of the sacred relics Brother Maynard carries with him. Brother Maynard! Bring up the Holy Hand Grenade!

MONKS: (chanting)
Pie Iesu domine, dona eis requiem
Pie Iesu domine, dona eis requiem. Pie Iesu domine, dona eis requiem. Pie Iesu domine, dona eis requiem

ARTHUR:
How does it, um-- how does it work?

LANCELOT:
I know not, my liege

ARTHUR:
Consult the Book of Armaments!

BROTHER MAYNARD:
Armaments, chapter two, verses nine to twenty-one

SECOND BROTHER:
And Saint Attila raised the hand grenade up on high, saying, "O Lord, bless this Thy hand grenade that, with it, Thou mayest blow Thine enemies to tiny bits in Thy mercy."
And the Lord did grin, and the people did feast upon the lambs and sloths and carp and anchovies and orangutans and breakfast cereals and fruit bats and large chu--

MAYNARD:
Skip a bit, Brother

SECOND BROTHER:
And the Lord spake, saying, "First shalt thou take out the Holy Pin. Then, shalt thou count to three. No more. No less. Three shalt be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, nor either count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, then, lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch towards thy foe, who, being naughty in My sight, shall snuff it."

Sir Gilbert Hill

Followers of the blog 'The View From The Hill' (listed in the sidebar) will no doubt be familiar with the name of Sir Gilbert Hill of VBCW fame. This post features one of Sir Gilbert's ancestors of the same name.

Sir Gilbert Hill has just arrived at Puerto de Viento Pasajero (the main port town) on the Islas de Pasaje de Vuelta. He is a friend of Sir Frobisher Fotheringay-Featherstonhaugh, the Governor. Rumours are rife as to why this tremendously wealthy dilettante and doyen of English high society would take the trouble to visit these small islands in the Caribbean, far from his vast estates in Herefordshire.

Just visible in the background is the enormous travelling chest which Sir Gilbert has brought with him. Already, various nefarious elements of the island's ne'er-do-wells are speculating as to the possible contents of said chest.

Sir Gilbert has stopped off at The Pink Pelican for a quick one to wet his upper-class whistle. Trudi and Helga (who are twins) have brought out some liquid libation to stiffen the sinews of Sir Gilbert. There is also a flagon of ale for Sir Gilbert's valet and fixer who is known simply as Wrench. Wrench is never without his seven-barrelled blunderbuss, which he refers to as "my persuader!"

Jean Vagabondé sits quietly in the background swigging his brandy, eyeing the foppish newcomer with disbelief. "Un autre rosbif" he thinks to himself, "autant d'utilisation comme une théière au chocolat!"

On the left is the exotic dancer, Redolence Sweetmeat. Redolence has been forced into the life of a dancer at the Pink Pelican at the behest of Sir Frobisher. The Sweetmeat family owe him money and Redolence has been forced to work at the Pelican to pay their debts. Her younger sister, Perfume has been taken on as the cleaner.

The Mule Gun

The Brothers of Santo Marcas have acquired a cannon. The brothers are normally armed with sticks and cudgels but they feel that in light of the troubled times, something more is required in the way of fire power. Consequently they have renovated an old Spanish cannon, found on the island. The Brothers call it their Mule Gun, as their mule, Muffin does all the hard work transporting the gun, powder and ball around the island, escorting the monks on their travels. Brother-Gunner Graham has been given the job of firing the cannon but in actual fact all the gunnery knowledge comes from Hercules, an escaped slave adopted by the monks. Hercules understands the science of gunnery after a short stint on a pirate ship. Brother-Gunner Graham seems to be holding his hat on, expecting a rather large blast but I don't think he has too much to worry about with that pea-shooter. It could give attacking pirates something to think about though.

Jean Vagabondé

Here we have Jean Etienne Gerard Vagabondé, a very salty old French seadog. Jean will always be found at the Rover's Return. His past history is unclear although there are many rumours. The most common theory is that he was a very successful pirate who decided to retire whilst the going was good. It would at least explain why he seems to have plenty of dubloons and no seeming need to work to obtain any more. Although Jean seems wealthy, he didn't get that way by throwing his money around and he's always the last to the bar and quite often seems to have left his money pouch in his lodgings. Jean would prefer to cadge drinks by telling his seafaring tales for the price of a good brandy and it must be a good brandy. Old in years now, Jean still feels a young man at heart. Some verbatim quotes from the old matelot himself:

“Much like my own reputation as a brave French sea dog has been gained in sweat, blood and bravery over many hard years at sea and that can never be taken away.”

“Don’t think I’ve always been this fellow with grey whiskers that you see today, propping up the bar in this old tavern.”

(Followers of Vagabond's Wargaming Blog may recognise this fellow! Refer to the Sails of Glory reports of daring naval actions!)