&^%*$!

 More about &^%*$! in a mo. Firstly what with all the recent cowboy nonsense and after a game of What a Cowboy I took Dead Man's Hand along last week, it was a three way throw down scenario where two gangs had to steal money from a safe and a third had to stop them. If you are under 30 and easily triggered do not read any further, cultural references and body shaming will be part of the story.

I led El Arana once again, hoping against hope he would come through at last, Jimi had a bunch of Desperados and Simon led the Lazy So and So ranch hands. I sent one of my least experienced men towards Simon's side of the street just to put pressure on him, I also had 'Beaner' in ambush so he could appear anytime, anywhere. Jimi simply sent his men forward eschewing cover, Simon's cowboys, tooled up with rifles opened fire and Jimi's men began to fall, as did my brave but useless cabellero who despite getting close to the stable failed to hit at point blank range and died in a hail of lead. Despite taking losses Jimi managed to get Dumb and Dumber into the bank, however they were so inept it would take four moves to open the safe, The Spider held back waiting for the boys to crack the safe but got into a gunfight in the backyard, Fat Pedro lived up to his reputation and couldn't hit a barn door with his shotgun, as the bullets flew he bit the dust.

"My mistake, more coffins"

 Beaner now turned up in the rear of Simon's men around the Stable, they rushed to take him down, bullets hit everything except Beaner, but sadly he also couldn't hit a barn door. Simon now realised that he just couldn't sit around sniping at people, he actually had to stop the money being taken so a bit late he rushed two men towards the bank. The clunk of the safe was heard opening, Dumb was shot down through the bank windows by Simons late arrivals, The Spider kicked the back door open and entered firing like a mad man but only hit the walls as the customer service people cowered behind desks, in the alley the Mexicans had shot down the last of the Desperados. Dumber, surrounded by enemies squeezed past the surprised hombres at the door and fled, the money bags however slowed him down and he caught several bullets in the back, I still had one man left to go, he sprinted, grabbed the bags and set off. THE END

Everyone has an interest in the bank.

The Spider and his men.

Beaner leads a charmed life.

There we go, an exciting game which came down to the wire on the last move, a lot of fun and laughs which is what is required of such a game, and in my humble opinion, far better than any other cowboy game.

I have had a bit of a break from painting, well a few days at least, what with the heat and real life needing my attention. So I picked up enough to finish an Imperial cavalry unit and start another, this second one is very close to also being finished, it will be on to Landsknecht arquebusiers after that.

Today I ventured to Penrith for a game with Matt, a beautiful day and I am glad the Dungeon is cool. On arriving I found he had set up a hypothetical game in Sicily where some US troops were defending against the Germans, some of whom were Fallschirmjager, and he also had a Tiger I, scary. I had a 75mm Sherman, an M8 Armoured car and a jeep for my main supports. The Jerries had a couple more squads if I recall.

We used the Chain of Command patrol phase and jump off points at the beginning of the game, this worked very well and allowed us to get into action far quicker than a normal Bolt Action game. I kept my tank and MG jeep off the table at the beginning waiting to see where the Tiger would turn up, the rest of my men I lined up in cover where they could and sat back to see what would happen. Matt did not beat about the bush and on came the Tiger heading for my left flank, along with two infantry squads. I moved my HQ team with the bazooka towards the road keeping out of sight of the beast for now. The main German infantry attack with four squads was heading for my right, I was asking a lot of the squad there to stop the Jerries getting the objective but I also sent along a HMG, the M8 and eventually the jeep although it took a couple of turns to arrive. I now brought on the Sherman and sat it in an ambush position to wait on the cat moving, Matt had no qualms and trusted in his armour protection, he moved flank on to the Sherman and the 75mm barked, or tried to as the shell scraped the paint work, the Tiger returned fire and also failed to penetrate.

The Yanks are here.

So are the Krauts.

Lovely table to fight over.

As the turns counted down the troops I had moved into the large courtyard and a two story dwelling were proving a problem for any Germans moving towards my centre and right, the Tiger was needed as support for the attack on the left. It was a new turn and a lovely blue die came out, the Sherman opened up, a six, the shell penetrated, a six, and the Tiger blew up, a six, I really needed to stop moaning about all the ones and twos I had been getting, well that's what I remember. I now moved my central squad over to the left just in time as the poor doughboys there were whittled down and ran away, things were now getting desperate for the Jerries, even though their artillery had taken out my M8.

German left flank attack stalls.

The centre, decisions, decisions.

Tiger!

Now, fire now!

A last gasp assault on my left failed while a thrust towards the centre was dealt with by the men in the courtyard supported by the Sherman, on the right some Fallshirmjager managed to mount the hill on which an objective was sitting but were wiped out by the waiting Americans. THE END.

The tenuous right flank.

Boom!

Now the Sherman has no fear.

The End.

Once again an excellent game at the Dungeon on some lovely terrain with beautiful figures, you cannot beat it. It was also nice if frightening to see a Tiger on the table, although this was surprisingly taken out quickly by a very lucky Sherman crew. I have some holidays coming up and a few other things so I am unsure when Matt and I will meet again, although he seemed keen on some SYW.

&^%*$! now what is that about you ask. Well I had some problems with my drawing tablet as I think I mentioned, I got Alexandra, who put me through hell and decided I had to uninstall/reinstall and delete all sorts of files before my machine would work. I tried but gave up knowing I had a new computer on the way. I got my new machine and ran into a different problem, I got, yes, Alexandra, who again urged me to do all that guff above. Let me talk to someone else as I am not doing that, Benjamin was just as adamant that I had to do what Alexandra was telling me. Get lost says I. Then I remembered something from the distant past (not that easy nowadays) and click, click, problem solved. I told Wacom that Alexandra and Benjamin were useless and could actually have caused me further problems and funnily enough I have not been bombarded with endless emails about 'how did we do?'

Long story short I got a new monitor so that I could continue to use two for my mapping, the new one is super duper, 24 hrs later my second monitor had a black screen, it had died, why me? Oh and of the old monitors that I have only one is compatible with the new PC, lucky white heather? The new computer is magnificent, built by mate Simon, far too powerful for anything I actually need unless Houston gets a problem and needs help and some disk space. Well done Simon.

And we now have our approval to convert the old Post Office back into a room in the house, it cost us oodles of money it should not have done, but hey, here is hoping that by next summer I will have my personal wargaming space up and running. I have boxes of paracetemol at the ready for dealing with the builders.