RM5.3

“Danke, danke mein damer und herrer...

I thank you for this honour from the bottom of mein heart. I cannot tell you how much it means to a scientist, to have his work recognized... to have my work recognized! You must understand the brilliance of my work, to appreciate what I have done. What I have done!

So few people appreciate my work, understand what I have tried to do, where I have succeeded. The sacrifices I have had to make. Mein Gott! The things I have had to do in the name of our glorious quest! ...I must thank the Baron, for though he has only a limited understanding of my work, he has ensured its success with his support... if only he would see the limitless potential... The potential for a New World Order! A Higher World Order! A world where my work is not hidden away in the shadows but understood and appreciated... It is I who should win the Nobel, not this man Otto Loewi and his acetylcholine. What is acetylcholine compared to the mysteries of life itself?

It is I who has defeated death, I who have Mastered the Very Secret of Life Itself. I Alone Who Have Done What Other Men only Dare To Dream About! It Is I who.... Ja?”
A knock at the door interrupts Herr Doktor Metzger in mid sentence, and scowling he turns to admit the intruder to the washroom.
“What is it?” he demands in a sullen voice.
Oberst Doktor Holst stands in the door, towering above the short deformed body of his civilian superior.
“Who were you talking to?” Holst looks about the room suspiciously. His inquisitive eyes rest upon the mirror over the sink at which Metzger is standing.
“No one... I was rehearsing a speech” Metzger mutters.
Holst drops the matter.
“The Island is under attack.”
“What?” Metzger convulses with a start, then pushes past Holst, begins to limp rapidly along the corridor before coming to halt. He turns to look back at the taller man.
“The British?”
Holst shrugs. “Reports indicate an armed ship full of Africans, possibly some Chinese and Europeans too. I do not know who they are yet”
“It is him! It is Mansfield!”
“How do you know?”
“Do You Question Me?”
Holst takes a deep breath and follows Metzger to the operations room, where the staff nervously move aside and Metzger glares at a map of the island.
“Where have they landed?”
“Here at the northern anchorage”
“Ach so....” Metzger examines at the map, his nose mere inches from it. A bead of sweat drips from his forehead and lands conspicuously on the paper.
“They will either take the road, or attempt to push inland” he decides. Have the road blocked, and then activate Johan!”
“Johan? ...ahh, is that prudent?”
“Do Not Presume To Question Me!
I Am The Ultimate Authority On This Island!
You Will Obey My Orders!”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Starting

Players one, two and three begin at the northern end of the table, on the northern bank of the ‘lagoon’.

Player four begins in secret positions upon the table (see secret notes)

Player five begins on the southern edge of the table.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Player One

Rocketman (SMG & grenades)
George Macarthur (Handgun & grenades)
'Mad Dog' Mitchell (LMG & grenades)
Marcel Messnier (Rifle & grenades)

Players two & three

Each of the players takes one pirate group of their choice, but Captain Wangai and his group stay with the ship.
Note. No non named characters who were defeated in the previous game participate in this game.

Player Four: Johan's garden

Johan (Flamethrower)
Spore field
Flesh eating plants
Mutant bee’s

Player Five: Kampfgruppen Grün

Oberst Doktor Holst (Handgun)
4 x Schattensoldater (Rifles and grenades)
2 x Schattensoldater scharfenshutzen (Rifles with telescopic sights)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Map

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Victory conditions

Players one, two and three win by moving two thirds of their surviving elements across the table. See secret notes for further information regarding this point.

Players four and five win by preventing players one, two and three from crossing the table.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Special notes

All terrain is Rough, except the waterways which are Difficult and the rocky area’s which are impassable. The tree’s, rocks and bushes give the usual defence bonuses. The mushrooms offer little protection, but the large clusters (those bigger than two mushrooms per base) offer enough cover to conceal any one hiding behind them (equal to 2 inches of ordinary bushes). Shooting the mushrooms makes no difference to the spore cloud.

The lagoon is loaded with large leeches; up to several inches in length and any one crossing it must roll a die. A roll of 1 results in a serious leech attack, roll against a CF of 2. Any defeated elements stagger from the lagoon cursing and retching and find themselves incapacitated on the shore as downed elements. A roll of 2 results in a lesser attack, but the element must pause for 2 rounds once they reach the far back, to remove leeches.

The hut is very solid and cannot be destroyed by grenades. It offers standard protection.

The aeroplane fuselage offers +1 protection, regardless of direction.

Rocketman has two hero points in this game.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Secret notes

Crossing the game table is very difficult and most probably cannot be done in under four hours. In order for Rocketman to reach his destination in the event of the game bogging down, only the the six foremost elements of players two and three survive to participate in chapter 5.
All of Player One's elements survive regardless of whether or not they've been defeated in this chapter.

Johan is an old experiment which has been turned loose by Metzger, an amalgamation of reanimated dead body parts; he lives in the wooden hut. He has no free will as such, but is capable of picking his targets carefully once he has been ‘activated’ by a chemical compound released into his blood stream. Johan has multiple back up organs and armoured skin. This makes him very hard to kill, especially since he is technically already dead. A curious by product of his life support system is a highly flammable urine which is siphoned into a flame thrower unit that has been grafted onto his left arm. Johan’s right arm and legs are incredibly strong and his endurance is far beyond that of a normal human being. Johan is not intelligent enough to adapt quickly to new weapons.

The spore field extends three inches from any given mushroom

The flesh eating plants are concealed amongst the other tubular vegetation. They have a one inch range.

The mutant bee’s have a ten inch range, but will only attack one element at a time, and only that element which is closest to their hive.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Conclusion

wearing my oldest 'gaming t shirt' to look the part
I bought it in 1988 and it shows

This game took a very long time to 'incubate', I've been fiddling it since 2007 and the map turns up quite a few times in older sketch books, usually as a consequence of having watched an episode of 'Lost'.

The game began with a few notable changes due to Rasmus having cancelled and so the leeches got removed and I shortened the map by 20 inches or so. Even this didn't make it possible for Oleg and Goeg to fulfill their winning critieria, but this didn't matter too much as the emphasis of the game was surviving the strange and terrible dangers left lying around as a consequence of Dokter Metzger's diabolical experiments.

Rocketman and his allies set off up into the forested sides of the Islands extinct volcano, atop which is the curious building assumed to be a research station. In order to reach the building before nightfall, the group had to press on with all haste, but the Germans were aware of their approach and had activated a local asset; Johan. Oleg played Rocketman and the second group from Le Mollusc under the command of Dominique Lavarre. Goeg played the fifth group from Le Mollusc under the command of 'Iron fist' Chung. The remaining groups from the mercenary ship remained to guard the vessel from any possible German counter attack.

The red det marks the location of the game

One day, if I ever get a room I can devote to wargaming,
I'll build regular 3d table tops with better scenary and vegetation!

Rocketman, his friends and the mercenaries, crossed the lagoon and began to climb onto the far bank, but as they did so, they disturbed the first of the islands many surprises, a swarm of mutant killer bee's, each insect as long as three inches and with a terrible sting. Rocketman immediately tried to use his rockets to blast the bee's, but only partly succeeded. Curiously, he then used his machine pistol and the bee's fled in disarray, presumably having had enough of the commotion and disturbed by the weapons shock wave. What ever the reason, the hero's pleasure was short lived as the mutant plants which were growing on the northern bank of the lagoon, revealed another surprise. Some of the plants had mutated to the point where they were both carniverous and had flexible truncks which were activatd by pressure on the roots. Since the plants were all over the northern bank, it was impossible to spot the dangerous ones and the threat was only revealed when a Chinese rifleman suddenly had his head bitten off.

Chaos ensued.

Whilst the invaders were floundering in disarray, the Germans were quietly taking positions further up the slope. Due to the nature of our table top skirmish games, building a sloping battleground in my living room is a no no, so we make do with contour lines and fevered imagination (thankfully we have enough of the latter to compensate for any mistakes I might make drawing the contour lines).

I used my scratch built triffids for the carniverous plants
Note the dots. These are a 1 inch grid pattern I've drawn up using a permanent fabric marker

Oberst Dokter Holst and his small team of sharp shooters took up their positions around the crashed aeroplane, where exotic mushrooms had grown suspiciously tall and deadly. Fortunately for the Germans, they had gasmasks and could not be effected by the dangerous psychodelic spores which floated gradually from the underside of the mushrooms. Had any element not wearing a gas mask approached the mushrooms they would have suffered a chemical/biological attack and if defeated they would have gone mad; player four would then be in control of that element, allowing the mad person to be used against their own side. Alas, Rocketman and his friends never got that far up the table as once the snipers opened fire, the emphasis of the game changed from moving to surviving.

Johan makes his warm and lovable personality felt

Survival became all the more difficult when Johan sneaked down the gully to the lagoon and snuck up under the surface of the murky water. At the last moment, his presence was detected but by then it was already too late and the great mutant zombie arose from the water with his flamethrower arm spouting a great plume of fire towards Vesper and Ganz who were guarding the rear. Amazingly they survived this encounter but only by fleeing (see image above). Johann then turned his attention to a nearby group of four mercenaries and incinerated the lot.

The carnage wrought by Johann and Kampfgruppen Grün

We ran out of time not long after this and the game was a victory for the German side. Of Rocketman and his allies, only the fore most six of each side make it up hill to fight in chapter five.

These include;
Player one; Rocketman, George Macarthur, 'Mad Dog' Mitchell, Marcel Messnier
Player two; Dominique Lavarre, Jean-Francois Laguna and Vixen,
Player three; 'Iron Fist' Chung, Soo Suk Wang and three generic Chinese riflemen.

(All the photo's were taken by Oleg as usual)

T minus 11 days and counting

The big four oh approaches and I'm supposed to have a mid life crisis or some such. Maybe thats what all this dieting and exersize is really all about, though I don't believe that myself. My deteriorating health was more than enough incentive to pull myself together. Literally.

I can't but help notice the other 'senior' members of my gym who always seem to be there when I am though. Usually I go on mondays and fridays, but this week I went today instead, and so I saw a fresh batch of faces, quite a few hoochies too which I hadn't seen thus far. Not that I actually give a damn any more. I couldn't but help notice my biceps have suddenly developed a hardened internal 'lump', which I take must be the beginnings of increased muscle growth and this was of far more interest to me than the pumping slender muscles of young women in flattering clothing... So maybe I am in a midlife crisis after all? If I am, then I'm wondering what the big deal is, mid life feels far better than the last decade of youth did.

Winter is upon us now and as I cycled home today, on my way to the gym, the freezing rain, slanting across my face, was relentlessly cold. Darkness fell around 15:45 and I had all my winter gear on, I even bought a high visibility vest because I'd rather look like a living clown than a dead cool guy and the ring roads of Århus are packed with speeding morons yapping on their cell phones as they speed up to squeeze through the junctions just before the lights change from amber to red. The inner ring road and Vesterbrotorv are the worst. There are no markings for cyclists and people squeeze in any where they can, even along side the city buses which are notoriously bad for your health.

Currently I'm contemplating high contrast images and trying to figure out why they are so appealing. I think it must have something to do with over emphasis, ripe fruit, engorged sexual organs and the way our brains are wired towards procreation... but I'm not sure.

Rolling out the big guns

EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!

I already have a lot of work to do to get my mid war models and figures ready for RM6, but some few are already completed and amongst these are four Vickers Mk II medium tanks (image above) bought from Copplestone. Actually my Dad gave me three of them in return for my building a steam roller model for him (of which I shall shortly be posting as its a seriously difficult model by comparison to my wargaming models). As always I've painted the models in generic colours, with minimal markings for maximum use on the table top. I have half a mind to buy four more of these, just so I can paint them brown and pit them against each other. Its been impossible to find a comparable medium tank from the same period with which to arm an opposing force. The only viable options I've managed to find so far are 1/56 scale Japanese type 89's by Company B, or multiple FT-17 light tanks. I know of two companies which make the latter, but one lot are 1/56 and they look rather small, and the other whilst looking slighlty better at 1/48, cost €45 each.

Below is this evenings work, two assembled and based Bolshevik 76mm divisional field guns, of the 1902 type used in huge numbers by the Soviets in the early twentieth century. No sooner had I bought them and a few additional Bolshevik infantry, than Copplestone put out an offer for a full Bolshevik army, with a 25% discount. I was well tempted as I am by Novembers offer, a full Chinese army, which I could certainly make use of in RM11 but the costs are just too great. If I had but the surplus funds to take advantage of the offer I would, but such is the lot of wargaming alas. You can never have too many figures because more figures equals more possibility!

Party on moif!

Last night I went to a party.

I'll repeat that for full effect.

Last night, I went to a party, at my work, and I dressed in a shirt, a slim shirt and with a hint of the suave about me. I managed to comport myself with some sense of occaision, and I even danced to applause from the girls and something akin to admiration from some of the guys (I'm guessing they thought I had two left feet perhaps?). Since I'd already been to the gym first, I took a taxi so as not to arrive in a muck sweat after having showered and annointed myself with something that smelled socially acceptable. I don't actually know if it was male or female, it was something with no alcohol in it that Mette had in the bathroom, so I'm guessing I smelled slightly feminine. I guess I shall have to find a more appropriate scent for any future social events, something masculine that sweeps people off their feet and has women swooing at my mere approach.

Fortunately my confidence is high having lost so much weight and last night I stepped onto the 'dance floor' with the steely eyed determination of a man with something to prove to himself, and although ten years of sitting in front of my computer, developing a backside capable of withstanding earthquakes has left me slightly off balanced, I was more or less able to include my sudden lurches to one side into my erratic dance routine. I realised after two dances that what I really need to do is go to some kind of dance class. The gym, cycling and dieting is all well and good, but nothing leaves you gasping for breath like two numbers on the dance floor. My knee's were ready for industrial action after the first ten minutes, but I suppressed their complaints and took a turn in the cool air with the smokers to cool down again.

The biggest problem with the evening was the divergence of music tastes. My boss, who dances like he believes in it, is a great fan of vapid pop music, where as my colleague Garn prefers Death Metal and Gangsta Hip Hop. I can dance to almost anything I think, but its hard when the music keeps getting hijacked. One song I did enjoy despite other people's complaints (one girl actually took to shouting "No!" when it began) was the above video by a Danish band called Nephew. It reminds me of Depeche Mode, which is always good in my mind. Poor Goeg was sick so he missed out on a good evening.

It helped to know most of the people, by sight if not by name. I was able to converse and the clammy hand of teen angst which once strangled my voice when speaking Danish in public has passed almost into memory. The irony of it though. Especially ironic is the comfortable indifference afforded by years of a steady relationship. Liberation through indifference you might say. When it mattered, I couldn't speak to a girl to save my life. Now, it doesn't matter and I find I have little to say anyway. I'd rather just dance.

Admiral

Dir: Andrei Kravchuk

No Rocketman this week as RL imposes itself onto our fantasies, instead Oleg and I watched 'Admiral', a self described Russian 'blockbuster' which details the last years of Admiral Alexander Kolchak, who was one of the military leaders of the Imperialist White Russians, including his time in battle against the Germans, then later against the Bolsheviks and all the time framed by an evolving romance with the wife of one of his officers.


On the face of it, this film ought to press all the right buttons, and indeed some of the naval combat scenes came close to exciting, but essentially there are two major flaws which I could not ignore. The first was the plot which leaped from scene to scene with little regard to context, and half the time I had difficulty keeping up with what was going on. The Russian revolution and its causes for example were not mentioned, nor even hinted at before sailors were bayonetting their officers to death. The Germans were nothing but pixels rendered at a distance, and worst of all, history went by as if it were a murky landscape glimpsed from the window of a speeding train. I kept having to turn to Oleg, whose paternal family are Russians, to ask if he had a better grasp of events, which he generally did. The film is not entirely historically accurate however, painting a very benign picture of a man whom history portrays as far more nuanced and there is very little mention of Kolchak's involvement with the British

I can live with a sporadic plot and dodgy history if the acting is good, but alas it wasn't. The actors playing the two main characters seemed utterly mismatched, and if there were any chemistry in their great love affair, then I couldn't see it. Konstantin Khabensky, who plays Kolchak makes his way through the entire film with only one facial expression and I wasn't sure if this was intentional (Russian stocism in the face of mounting hardships) or just uninspired acting. Elizaveta Boyarskaya who plays Kolchaks lover, Anna Timiriova did a slightly better job of portraying emotions, but as often as not the speed of the plot meant events were happening faster than the two actors could manage; thus they met at a party and within a few seconds the people around them are showing concern at how close they are. A few seconds later and Kolchak is declaring his impossible love with a deadpan face, cut to next scene, months later and suddenly its the Revolution and Anna Timiriova is openly flaunting her desperate love before her helpless husband.

The Discovery Institute’s Russia Blog writes, “Russian filmmakers have proved once again that they can outpace Hollywood’s production with a tenth of a Hollywood film’s budget".

I think not.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

9

Dir: Shane Acker

I've been looking forward to seeing '9', for quite some time, so maybe my expectations were unrealistic. Watching the film I felt slightly cheated because it seemed rather simplistic. The animation was great, and the ambience too. The characters and creatures were basically well done and the rendering was excellent, but the story was very simple, and the premise was student-film-weak.

Halloween, 2009

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!

Halloween isn't really a big deal in my experience, but this year, with Freja's kindergarten celebrating it, we bought a couple of pumpkins on the way out to my Dad's and I cut my first Jack-o-lantern. We met up with (my youngest brother) Philip, who gave me his old digital camera, having acquired a shiny new one with additional bells and whistles, and together we spent a reasonably enjoyable day, inspecting my Fathers fairly successful attempts at setting the old house into order, moving a mechanical piano and engaging in arguments.

The Goon Squad

In my family, any occiasion has traditionally meant a debate, bordering on an argument, and once in a while, objects being tossed about. Its not so much physical violence, as too much testosterone, with my Dad doing his best Uncle Joe routine when ever more than one of his sons is present and needing to be put in place. Naturally none of these dog fights are about anything remotely important but this doesn't prevent every one giving their all, whilst any female members of the family who happen to be in the blast radius shake their heads in resignation and contemplate cheap flights to warmer climates.

Though I say it myself, I think my pumpkin came out rather well.
Mette took the pictures which is why there several of me and none of her.

Magnezilla & Flicka, hair not included

Its life Jim, but not as we know it!

Freja and Magne were not too happy about the day. Both of them got really cranky, especially Magne who's been ill and 'distempered' of late, but Freja did enjoy the pumpkins, which is weird as to me they are still an American cultural oddity. Actually Jack-o-lanterns appear to have originated from Ireland so there's my cultural ignorance and preconceptions showing me up.

Currently I am well and truly p'd off though so I will beg leave to be slightly grumpy. Most of my life is going really well, but since I started making some fairly decent money, I've had nothing but huge bills from social services demanding I repay obscene amounts of moneys received over the course of the last year. Perusing these letters reveals some unusual numbers to say the least. Some one some where is operating under the false pretence that I have made about three times as much as I have, which wouldn't be much of a problem, if it wasn't for the fact that the Danish social servies are entrenched by miles of telephone answering machines, vacant offices (he's on a course and won't be back for three weeks) and just plain old fashioned misdirection. In the mean time I have eight days to lodge a complaint or the matter will be considered closed. Four days have now passed and all attempts to lodge such a complain have been met with better defences than the 8th airforce faced over Berlin. Tomorrow and Friday are my last chance to avoid paying back as much money as I've received in my wages for the next two months as no way will any one be in an official office over the week end. In fact even friday is highly dubious. If I have to, I'm going to start lobing bricks through windows tomorrow so if I suddenly stop blogging in the next few weeks, its probably because I've been arrested for stating an opinion.
Rant over.
Happy thoughts.
I get paid on friday again and I intend to buy some more figures, though the last lot, ordered a month ago from BTD still haven't materialised yet...


...in the mean time, I am prepping RM6 (warning, its all wargaming babble from here), but I still have a lot of painting and assembly to do. Ever since Trace decided to rejoin Rocketman, I've been juggling my initial set up trying to make it all work. Previously the game was structured around a 3 vs 2 imbalance, with Goeg and Rasmus playing support units to Oleg's heavy tank main Bolshevik force. Facing them would be Palle and I with our Vickers Mk II's and Mk VI's and British infantry support.

Changing the games to 3 v 3 without additional armour is difficult, so now, Palle and I will be playing reduced forces (we both give an armoured Rolls Royce to Goeg who plays Rocketman and Afghan allies). This is a bit risky as Goeg is still a noob, but I can't see how else the game would work. Tracey can take Goeg's oroginal group (Olga and her Uigher bandits) and what we end up with is an equilibrium of sorts

Palle = Lt Col Sir John Napier, 1st Tank Company & British Inf Company. (2 Vickers Mk II medium tank's & 1 Mk VI light tank)
Jan = 2nd Lt Algernon ’Lefty’ Leftbridge , 2nd tank company & Sikh Rifle Company. (2 Vickers Mk II medium tank's & 1 Mk VI light tank)
Goeg = Rocketman and ’Afghan contingent’ (2 Rolls Royce armoured cars and one Vickers Mk VI light tank)

Oleg = Main Black Guard command with heavy tanks and infantry support
Rasmus = Uzbeck Bolshevik support group with light armour, anti armour guns and infantry support.
Tracey = Olga & Uigur bandits with 'technical'

I anticipate mass slaughter

Since I now have a working digital camera again, I'll be posting some more posts regarding models and figures soon.

Any way, time for some atmospheric gaming music...

Georges Bizet

Part 2. Part 3. Part 4.

Yesterday was Bizet's 171st birthday and I forgot it, so here is some of his splendid work (and which isn't from 'Carmen'), to celebrate.