Back to sea in small ships.

It has taken me a couple of days to get around to this report thanks to the incompetent doctors at my local surgery, I have had an infection which has made my life miserable for almost four weeks now, they said it was gone, I said it hadn't, so a week without medication and it got worse. Then they give me penicillin despite what I suspect was a big red warning across the screen as I am allergic to it, thankfully I noticed it before I took any. The sorry saga continues.

Due to the above I toyed with the idea of not going to the club, but Stuart and Rob had brought 'Cruel Seas' for me to try and I couldn't let them down. As you know this game seems to be sweeping the board in popularity at the moment, you can't walk the streets now without searching for torpedo wakes. I do not have the game and will not be getting it, three people at the club have it and I have my Seven Years War project to throw money at. Despite not getting the game I have been following developments as it is produced by Warlord Games, it would seem there were ten pages of errata within a week of publication some minor but others serious, why does that company keep shooting itself in the foot, is it because the money keeps tumbling in regardless.

The game, we ended up with five players so the scenario had to be jigged to accommodate everyone, the Germans had to escort two trawler types off the board, to safeguard them we had four S-Boats, the Royal Navy attacked with seven MTB's. I honestly do not know how any large ships can finish their cruise in this game, many of these small ships have four torpedoes so there were around 26 tinfish to dodge, and due to the slow speed and size of the trawlers that was going to be nearly impossible. Now having said that I did guide my trawler through most of the deadly weapons, but once hit it was Goodnight Vienna. You have to rely on the torpedo not exploding if it hits. I honestly don't know what the S-Boats were for as they could not stop any of the MTB's launching, we did manage to sink two or three of the seven by the end of the night but of course the damage had been done by then and it took a long time to reduce an MTB to the point where it sank.

Stuart printed off the armed trawler on his printer.

Every time you are hit you get a splash marker, even from weapons which are really peashooters.

Torpedoes galore.

More torpedoes.

How you move your ships is very clever, the shooting etc.is quite basic so no headaches there. I think the main selling point of this game is the ship models, they are very nice and can paint up a treat. Not the best of reviews but I really wasn't up to it.

On the SYW front I have completed a French ammunition wagon, I want to get the odd wagon and civilians as I go along, I have seen the vignette's at Tales from GHQ and Carryings On Up The Dale and they do make the battlefield sparkle. I think perhaps the wagon should be redder, they were painted brick red and this one rankles a bit, not enough to amend it thankfully. I have started the 51st Foot but have not picked a brush up for some time now, hopefully I will be back to normal in a week.

We have had British Gas in recently and they have destroyed my heating system and taken a wad of cash to do it. As I type I have thermals on, a jumper, a bodywarmer and a scarf, I am thinking of asking them to send out the Penguin from the ad as I am sure he could do no worse than their engineers.