Yesterday I made the trip up to the part of Scotland which is known as Perth & Kinross - a title which is not exactly concise, and which probably isn't very traditional either, but at least it's unambiguous. The occasion was a visit to Schloss Goya, the home of the famed Count. I had a splendid trip on the bus, and arrived in time for coffee and a quick viewing of the regiment of Bavarian Chevauxlegers which the Count is very kindly painting for me. Great stuff - I am confident these chaps will be ready to show here very soon. The advantages of getting Goya to help me with painting work are twofold: (1) I don't have to paint them myself, and (2) the quality of the painting is definitely superior!
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| German force advance out of the low sun of morning - my two Panthers are on the left flank, advancing as slow as necessary to allow the accompanying infantry company to keep up |
He was kind enough to lay on a very fine lunch, and in the afternoon we had a bash at a WW2 game he had set up - a small encounter action between German and Russian forces, racing to seize a crossroads. It was the very first WW2 miniatures game I have ever taken part in, and the rules we used were
Rapid Fire for Rookies, the two-page babies' version of
RF, as befits my experience level. I was the German commander; I'll not attempt to give a coherent narrative, since I had very little idea what was going on most of the time, and I must apologise for the very poor photos, taken with my iPhone. I took a great many more pictures, but most were blurred and horrible. I must also emphasise that the game did look rather better than this sketchy post might suggest! I wasted a lot of time in admiring the 20mm figures - this is all new to me.
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| Overall view of my "left hook" with the Panthers - heavy weapons group heading into the woods in the middle |
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| I regret to say that this is the only photo of the Russians which was clear enough to make out - this taken from a spotter plane early on. I suspect that it was fear which caused the camera-shake. As you see, the old Russkis are very keen on straight lines |
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| I was pleased to get my tanks into this position so quickly... |
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| ...but instantly one of them was knocked out... |
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| ...and immediately afterwards my only gun was also kaput - my full repertoire of German swear words proved inadequate (obviously something I'll have to work on) |
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| So my surviving Panther went off on a tour of the battlefield which eventually put paid to all the opposition's armour, and also eliminated a lot of his infantry |
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| My infantry trying to keep up with the advance |
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| Mostly because I wondered what would happen, I sent a single soldier with a Panzerfaust to take on a Russian self-propelled gun which was causing problems. He missed, and you only get one shot with a Panzerfaust. That's what happened... |
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| The unstoppable Panther continued on its tour, mopping up resistance... |
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| Though I suffered almost as many infantry casualties as the enemy, I won on points, as they say in boxing, and I was definitely in control of the crossroads. Very interesting little game - I enjoyed it, but I sincerely hope I don't get promoted on the strength of it |
I had a lot to think about on the bus back to Edinburgh. Another grand day out!
