Much-Piddling Cricket Club Pavilion

Just finished the MPCC pavilion this morning, one more for the Dad's Army game later this year. The player's are not painted yet but hopefully will be complete soon.

The Much-Piddling Cricket Club.............

.............their only opponents at present, the St. Trinians girls! The MPCC have 542 to make owing to the 6^th form St. Trinians girls having seduced the scorer to get at his barrel of scrumpy (and in the process, fiddling the score). Caught in the slips, indeed! The bowler’s Holding, the batsman’s Willey.

and the pavilion. Lord Snapcase, Chulmleigh the bulldog and Old Scrotum (the wrinkled Snapcase family retainer) inspect the wicket at lunch.

Much-Piddling Water Mill

The Sarissa water mill is now complete. This is planned to be used in the DevLAM '18 Dad's Army game but will also fit in nicely in my Witchfinder General project (more details The Belstone Cleave Coven). It is a very nice MDF kit and I decided not to detail the interior.

 

Much-Piddling Home Guard

In preparation for the much-anticipated DevLAM '18, I am preparing a Dad's Army type game set in my home village of Much-Piddling. The scenario is somewhat insane, too involved and impossible to play, so I'm definitely going to run it! We shall probably use Bolt Action rules with the Unternehmen Seelöwe supplement.

Here is a rough draft of the scenario which will evolve over the coming months:

Dad's Army Game (|A Working Title), Version 1.0 - DevLAM '18

Die Luftwaffe

I see John as Staffelkapitän Peter Wilhelm Stahl (2^nd from right), Iron Cross First and Second Class, German Cross in Gold of the highly secret and elite Kampfgeschwader 200. Stahl heads a detachment within KG200 responsible for flying large aircraft (including captured allied planes) on special long-range flights under difficult navigational conditions. As there will be minimal Luftwaffe figures in the game, John will also command the Nazi fifth column in Devon (obviously there will be German agents dressed as Nuns, maybe even a pram or two?) and maybe a Fallschirmjäger unit.

Der Kriegsmarine

Doug of course is Kapitänleutnant Günther Prien, Iron Cross First and Second Class, U-boat War Badge with Diamonds and Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves. Prien is in command of the new type VIIB Unterseeboot, U-47.

Home Guard, Royal Navy, Women's Land Army, Much-Piddling Women's Institute etc.

I see myself as the bumbling and incompetent Captain Bertram Wilberforce Snapcase, 10^th Earl of Snapcase. Snapcase is in charge of the local home guard only by virtue of his position in the county. At the time of the incident, he will be the senior office present in the vicinity! Oh Lord!

Scenario

It is 1940 and the Battle of Britain is underway. Two female SOE agents have stolen the OKW plans for Unternehmen Seelöwe and, impersonating Abwehr agents are about to be dropped into England by parachute from Stahl’s plane. Stahl believes they are on a secret mission for the Abwehr in England. Hanna Reitsch is flying as Stahl’s co-pilot. The plane also contains secret early German radar equipment for testing, codenamed Hohentwiel. The agents decide on a risky strategy of setting the plane alight after crossing the English Channel, in order to force the plane to land in England. They can then deliver the plans, capture Stahl and hand the radar equipment over to the RAF for examination.

Stahl manages to transmit a May Day call giving his location as near Much-Piddling, Devon before crash-landing the plane. Fearing the secret radar equipment may fall into enemy hands, the Germans mobilise all resources to either recapture or destroy it. U-47 (the nearest German force) is patrolling the Atlantic and is tasked by the Kriegsmarine to land a force of sailors near Barnstaple to retrieve the Luftwaffe crew, the secret plans and the radar itself. Meanwhile, agents of the Abwehr in Devon have been alerted to the plight of the downed airmen and the fact that SOE agents have the secret plans. To avoid being shot by the Luftwaffe crew, the SOE girls are currently with the plane crew who think they are protecting them. The agents will make a run for it if they think the circumstances are right.

Objectives

OKW Secret plans

Radar equipment

Possible capture/kidnap of important characters

Forces

Doug – U-Boat crew

John – Plane crew, fifth column (possibly small unit of Fallschirmjäger delivered by glider, Otto Skorzeny?)

Martin - Home Guard, Royal Navy, Women’s Land Army, Much-Piddling WI

Notable Characters Who May Be Present!

HRH Princess Elizabeth

Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark

Winston Churchill

Roderick Spode, 7th Earl of Sidcup

Recommended Watching

Went the Day Well?

The Eagle Has Landed

Cottage to Let

DevLAM '17

Over the course of a November weekend three like-minded LAFers met at Snapcase Hall, Much-Piddling in Devon for a long weekend of gaming, drinking and socialising. A superb time and some really great games. Here are a few teaser photos, links to the full AARs below. In the meantime I would like to thank Doug and John for a really great weekend, I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it (apart from my hang-over that morning!). It was my privilege and an absolute pleasure to game with you both.

NULLA CUCUMERES, NULLA INFLATIO

The Haunted Temple (run by Doug em4, Frostgrave)

The Cattle-Baron's Daughter (run by Mad Lord Snapcase, Shoot 'N Skedaddle, scenario very kindly provided by Elbows)

The Elven Lord's Treasure (run by Doug em4, Frostgrave)

Return of the Mabel Street Gang (run by Vagabond, Two-Hour Wargames)

Momento Mori (run by Mad Lord Snapcase, Pulp Alley)

Doug's empties!



The Protagonists: Doug em4, Mad Lord Snapcase, Vagabond - yee haaar!

After Action Reports

Game 1 - The Haunted Temple

Game 2 - The Cattle-Baron's Daughter

Game 3 - The Elven Lord's Treasure

Game 4 - The Return of the Mabel Street Mob

Game 5 - Memento Mori

Not 'Rise of the Runelords' Yesterday

It should have been a continuation of our Rise of the Runelords RPG Campaign yesterday, but there were some 'no-shows' (you know who you are!). Down to two people we had a game of Anachrony. First time I've played it, great game. I was a bit worried about the number of tokens etc. but once you get started it all makes sense.

The Stoic Arms

I've finally finished the Stoic Arms from 4Ground. Quite an undertaking but a superb building. Took quite a long time to make it but I'm very pleased with it. It's not going to be called the Stoic Arms but I'm still contemplating it's name. I need it to fit into several different genres; Fantasy, Three Musketeers, Pulp, Gothic Horror and more..........

Set-up for DevLAM '17

A trial set-up of the terrain for the Gothic Horror Game at DevLAM in November. Still got to finish the pub!

A Pathfinder RPG Campaign Begins in the Grim North

The commencement of our first Pathfinder campaign with the Popcorn Brothers in Yorkshire. Really looking forward to this..............

Alliance of the Big Battalions Artistry

Dismounted cavalryman from Ney's rearguard on the retreat from Moscow 1812

This is my first entry into the latest painting club on the Lead Adventure Forum.

http://www.lead-adventure.de/index.php?topic=101939.0

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…………………………………….