Wash, rinse, repeat: Pegasus II

 After the success of Pegasus I I wanted to take another shot at it to see how and if it played differently, I roped in mate Rob and despite real life I managed to get a start this week and finish off today. This will be my last game for this year as it is getting cold in the PO and having the lights on as darkness falls around 1500 I must look fairly sad playing on my own with wee sojers, although almost everyone in this area by now must know how 'different' I am. I was mentioned recently in a fictional story in a local Parish News  as 'the Warlord of Warton.' Perhaps a television or big screen adaptation could be the future.

 Anyway on the morning of the drop HQ obviously got their timings wrong and the brave Paras dropped in the half light of dawn and were scattered to the four winds, apart from 1 Section who landed on top of the walled field and began to set up an ambush position and await Jerry reinforcements. An early riser in the the Cafe Normandie was surprised by the sight of British paratroopers landing almost at his front door, he managed to raise the alarm despite his shock, the paras meanwhile made for the factory fence. Communications were good and elsewhere the British sections made for their objectives as the cover of night disappeared, the men in the field were spotted and the machine gun in the pillbox opened up a desultory fire on them while the guards hammered on the door to be let in. Very soon the first of the German reinforcements began to turn up, the British reaction was pathetic and a truck soon unloaded a full squad along a nearby hedge while the MG in the staff car swept the stone wall. By now 2 Section had taken up position in the station and brought the pillbox under fire, but the inexperienced defenders were brave behind the concrete and held their ground, the other sections continued to make their way to their buildings, 3 Section chased by the squad from the Cafe Normandie and taking casualties as they ran.

 

The Paras in the walled field were not making the best of their position and they failed to stop any of the reinforcements turning up, these same sent one truck to the factory and ran the gauntlet of fire from both the field and the railway station to deposit its passengers at the factory gates. The rest of the Germans began to surround and outnumber the defenders in the field, so much so the Para commander made his way to the field to lend his support. The position in the factory was getting desperate as the Germans brought in more and more men, the useless PIAT team was cut down and 3 Section decided to blow their explosives before they met a similar fate, Building 3 went up in pieces, as the British picked themselves up they were taken prisoner. Soon after Building 1 also blew up, again the Paras only just making it to safety outside the perimeter fence, a close call but with Jerry seemingly everywhere the decision had to be made. Elsewhere 2 Section also withdrew as the Germans concentrated on the troops inside the factory and the survivors of the ambush party, these men were also forced to surrender.

 So Pegasus II a victory for the British, albeit again with heavy losses, the German reaction this time was very quick and when I play it again I shall have at least three proper night time turns. The British ambush was not very effective this time due to bad die rolling and failed order checks, I also think that the gap between the walled field and the station was too far for the sections in those positions to offer mutual support. I am happy the way both these games played out and am looking forward to the time I can face a human opponent across the factory floor.

I have taken over more space in the PO as the boxes arrived to contain my 'Berlin' project, our lending library has now been squeezed into an ever smaller area, it is my plan to eventually do away with this altogether and hope the missus doesn't notice. I have also managed to get covers for all my mats as well, everything ship shape and tidy.

  I have now received my second Kickstarter, the Terain Tutor's 'Terrain Essentials' book, I am hoping this will give me inspiration to keep working on my terrain in the coming year. It is a well produced book and you also get a small plastic figure of the Terrain Tutor himself (Mel Bose). I now only have one Kickstarter extant but this has been in the works for almost four years now so I might get it before 2525 not that it will do me any good by then.

  I got my birthday presents early and decided to paint them up, the first was a 6pdr anti-tank gun for my Airborne forces, I got this in the hope that Two Fat Lardies will complete their much touted Arnhem campaign book at some point, if not I shall just use it in Bolt Action scenarios. My second present came about from my purchase of 'Panzers in Berlin' where I saw the little Borgwarde Wanze for the first time, this little tankette started out as a remote controlled bomb, a big bomb, but as the Reich fell some were converted to anti-tank machines by mounting what were in essence six panzerschrecks on the side. I learned that Warlord did one and therefore had to have it for Berlin games. It is a lovely little model and looks to have a young lad as the operator, it should have three smoke dischargers on the front but they were too fiddly for my fingers so mine does not have them, but then the real ones also do not always have them either.

 A customer looked at the set up for the game and asked if I needed more rail track, I said sure as I do not have any curves, a day later he turned up with an old, yet complete, Hornby train set with oodles of track. The train itself will need a repaint as will some of the rolling stock, some may not be useful for WWII but I can check that out later, result! And lastly with no club this year (or next) we will not be having our usual fun packed Christmas Game, our resident chef Julian always treated us to a tray of excellent mince pies and Andy brought a tin of chocolates. So imagine my surprise when Julian said he was popping in to collect some flags and a carrying case I had for him and would bring ...... yes, mince pies. With all this and the two Volksturm troopers given to me by Rob, how lucky am I?

 Thankfully I finished this before hearing the bombshell which has floored me, the u-turn that we are not getting the five days of Christmas but the one day of Christmas with enough caveats to make it a completely miserable, lonely day for millions. In the words of Dickens or somesuch "Gaw'd 'elp us every one"