After eleven and a half years before the mast I handed in my
ID Card and walked through the main gate of HMS Cochrane and realised if I
wanted to go back in I would have to explain myself and have someone vouch for
me then be quizzed about why I wanted to go into the base before I could walk
through, a minute ago all it would have took was a flash of ID card. No
handshakes, no flags, no bands, no enthusiastic crowds, and no thanks, I went
in with nothing and I left with nothing, OK a superior attitude to everyone
else on the planet, but basically off you go mate, go on, move along you can’t
stand there, bloody civvy.
I was lucky to start almost straight away offshore in the
North Sea as a Radio Operator. Now that the fear of providing for my growing
family had left me I returned to the more important thing in life, wargaming.
It was my mother who came to the rescue, she pointed out that there was an ad
in the local paper where some bunch of guys ‘played with wee sojers’ just like
me and were asking for like minded people. I immediately phoned the number and
to my great joy found that they played a lot of WRG Ancients and met every
Saturday in the local Community Centre, I was even offered a game. This was my
moment to shine, although I had Scots and English armies they were not as
complete as my French, so I would take them, I poured over the rules until the
last minute and came up with several different compositions before arriving at
the Centre on the Saturday, my first real game.
The club members were fairly young, at 27 I was almost the
‘old man’ of the bunch, everyone had an army of some kind, all 25mm of course,
but they did lean towards medieval which of course suited me. I found I had
been drawn against a Seleucid army commanded by a certain Jimmy Douglas, a big
imposing kind of guy with a hearty laugh and a kind of wild highland look about
him, he was the only one older than me. He said he knew me which was a surprise
to me, later my mother on hearing his name informed me that he used to watch me
in the bath! Before you gather up a lynch mob and leap to defend me it was not
in a Jimmy Saville way, Jimmy was a neighbour and we played about as kids
seemingly and he was always at our house and the bath of course was a tin bath
in front of the fire. Anyway I spent some time deploying my army in a fairly
usual way, cavalry on the flanks and infantry in the centre, and then off we
went, within a short time I had been taught some very valuable lessons and my
army humiliated without Jimmy breaking a sweat. His army contained
‘skirmishers’ and he handled these guys so well I was taking javelins from all
sides without seemingly being able to do anything about it, his pike phalanx
seemed to be recruited from ballerinas, tough ballerinas of course, as they
seemed to be able to swing the big poles and form up on a sixpence every time I
thought I had flanked them. And then there were a gamut of other specialist
troop types against which I was also at a loss. I obviously had some catching
up to do.
I turned up every Saturday I could after that and I fought
the others and continued to learn, I don’t know why but maybe it was just the
time but we almost exclusively fought WRG Ancients going through several
editions, more medieval armies turned up and we always had at least four tables
set up. Jimmy remained the man to beat, he didn’t appear every Saturday and
eventually drifted away but no one except me ever beat him, he gave me a bit of
a rep for arguing but in truth I was the only one who ever questioned anything
while playing him and it was only on rule interpretations which, if you ever
played WRG seriously, you knew would come up at least once or twice in every
battle.
I did get my revenge after weeks or months of wondering how
to win, when I deployed my French with the infantry on the wings and my cavalry
all in the centre, a huge line of nobles chomping at the bit and looking pretty
frail to a Seleucid phalanx. On came the pikes while my infantry at last
managed to sort out the skirmishers and others on the flanks being in much
larger units than those opposite them, still the cavalry had not moved, still
Jimmy did not see the trap. “Dismount” or whatever the equivalent is in French
rang out as the phalanx was approaching charge distance, my vulnerable mounted
knights now became dismounted robo-warriors and went forward in fanatical
charges all along the line led by their king and his officers, the phalanx
never knew what hit them and were soon fleeing for the rear, take that Jimmy
Douglas! I was carried aloft by my victorious troops, no I wasn’t but in my
head I was, Jimmy remained the best man and one of the finest gamers I ever
fought but I felt the years of waiting had now all been worthwhile.
I even felt confident enough to try the tournament circuit
and put my name down for the WRG 6th Medieval tourney or something
like that one year. The first army I fought was an early Spanish force, I was
using Scots and I have to be honest how this mish mash of a force was going to
take on the amount of spearmen I had was beyond me, I duly walked home to
victory, my opponent was a decent guy and the visit to another club was fine.
My second fight involved a guy who had went out on a limb and brought an
Albanian Highland Sheep Herders army, and I can’t remember whether it was the
early, mid or late Sheep Herders but I did know that even if they could handle
sheep they couldn’t handle my Scots in a month of Sundays, again however a nice
outing and my opponent wasn’t too surprised he lost. Then came my third combat,
the semi-finals, this involved a young whippersnapper with attitude, I could
tell right away as the atmosphere was as frosty as the white bases of his
Viking super army. He had a plan from the outset and it involved hitting me
with fanatical wedges of berserkers, in they came and knocked back my
schiltroms, my boys fought like Trojans and I saw the surprise in his face as
they halted the enemy. What I didn’t see and the absent umpire spot, was that
because I had held his men I should have lost a -2 combat penalty and gone back
to normal and massacred them, my poor boys eventually lost out having given
their all. Another piece of wargaming baggage to carry around for all time. I
don’t think I even got a handshake at the end, the lad just trundled off and
left me to pack up my bravehearts, no more competitions for me.
I had also taken to writing for money to help with my
growing collection of soldiers, books and paraphernalia, I turned out articles
on many battles and periods I became interested in, at least two or three a
year, not a huge amount by any means but they seemed to be well received and I
am vane enough to enjoy seeing my name on the byline.
While at the club over the years I sold and renewed my
Scots, sold my French, something which also haunts me to this day, built
Normans and then quickly sold them as they did not like me and I didn’t like
them, I still hate Normans, I also built Swiss and Late German, one to get a
pike army and the other to get an Emperor. And out of them all my favourite,
once the French had gone, became my Edward I English, a great army as ferocious
for me as they were in their day. After almost ten years at Carluke Wargames
Club WRG fell by the wayside and it became harder and harder to get someone to
play a game of the latest edition, I was stuck in a rut, I had had years of
battles and looked on myself as a competent player but it was time to move on
to something else and maybe even somewhere else or I might find myself back in
that wilderness again.
George,
ReplyDeleteWhen's Part 4 ? Are you going to mention the WAB years ? This is more gripping than "Dick Barton Special Agent !!"
Hate to do it George, but I have to agree with Phil - very interesting stuff and looking forward to part 4!
ReplyDeleteThank you gents, just shows how busy I am at the moment, although that is all about to change when No1 sons family arrive tomorrow from Korea and him a week or so later. And I will bring the story up to date Phil, although I might have to airbrush a certain character out.
ReplyDeleteI now realise I missed out the tale about my wargame stalker while at Carluke, and not in a groupie kind of way.