Fnurban #23 Rainy Day Miscellany

The other day I had the good fortune to be in London for the afternoon, before an evening of boardgaming with friends: the only drawback being that it was a rather wet afternoon in the Great Wen. Since the gaming was due to take place in the  Borough area, what better place to visit beforehand than the nearby Imperial War Museum? 

With those 15-inch guns, this is surely the best-defended property in the city, as long as any assailant remains about 15 miles away.  I had about 90 minutes in the museum - not really enough to  tour the whole thing properly, so contented myself with looking at a few old favourites. I may not have been there since the pandemic, but I had previously seen the fairly recent WW1 gallery, which is well worth a tour.  The temporary exhibition space sounds promising in that the current show is called 'War Games' - but that is all  about computer/video games, not my sort of thing at all.  I looked in at the Lord Ashcroft Gallery and its display about 'Extraordinary Heroes' :  This display houses the world’s largest collection of Victoria Crosses, alongside a significant collection of George Crosses. Discover over 250 stories of people who faced adversity and performed acts of bravery. All were awarded either a Victoria Cross (VC) or George Cross (GC) - the highest recognitions of bravery that can be given by Britain and, for many years, the Commonwealth. On display, for each recipient, are the medals belonging them, usually with a photograph ( even for the Crimeam War awards ) and   description of their act of bravery - a high proportion  of which resulted in posthoumus awards, which was  a sobering realisation. Sadly there is a distinct  'plus ca change' aspect too, when neighbouring exhibits relate to the long-dead heroes of the Third Afghan War ( 1878-1880 ) and those recently deceased in Helmand Province.   

Prominent among the 'old favourites' is Spitfire Mk 1A,  serial R6915, which saw action in 1940 with 609 Squadron RAF and is now suspended above the main hall.

By coincidence, only a few days before I had listened to Al Murray and James Holland discussing this very machine on their 'We Have Ways..' podcast, with special guest James May They had observed that though the Spitifre is undoubtedly a visually beautiful aircraft, when you get closer to it there is a distinctly rough-edged quality to the construction, with all the rivets and panel joins -  and I had to agree with them.  Beautiful maybe, but very much still a workmanlike tool for a particular job. 

Given that admission is free, one should find a way of giving some money, even if only for a cuppa in the cafe; on this occasion the museum shop ambushed me, with a display of books in a fine new 'Imperial War Museum Wartime Classics' edition, and a 'three for two' offer.

 Oh dear, more for the books backlog pile - which is considerable and probably unmanagable.  In my defence, I have been looking for a copy of Alexander Baron's  From the City, From the Plough for a while now, and the other two also look promising - all are fictional accounts of the British Army's 1944-45 campagn in NW Europe following D-Day, written by men with first-hand experience of their settings.       

There followed a fairly short walk to a pub in  Borough Market, to meet my friends Dave ( aka  St Cyr on Wheels ), Paul and Rupert  for a boardgame evening. We had agreed to keep things simple, so Dave tried out SQPRisiko  on us -  this is basically a version of the old favourite Risk  produced in Italy, with a Roman Empire setting, some new features such as naval fleets and battles, and amphibious attacks.

I haven't played Risk in decades, but I used to love it as a child;  all that time spent during school (and college!)  holidays came flooding back, and a thoroughly good time was had (one of the players, all well over 50, and a very keen boardgamer, had never played Risk - amazing!).  The addition of fleets worked well, allowing seaborne invasions of enemy territory  - so don't leave any coastal areas weakly-defended! There are also a number of territories with neutral garrisons, which are quite strong and can be expensive to conquer - if you attack one and don't quite manage to  wipe it out, you may leave it an easy target for the next player.  I think the Risk combat system is genius, and it's fascinating to see how different playing styles work out - in our game, two players went for slow and steady build-up of armies giving strong defences and gradual expansion, while the other two relied more on rapid attacks and didn't worry too much about in-depth defence - unfortunately the latter two tended to fight each other, allowing the 'slow and steady' players to build up strength. Victory points are scored for holding the most territory or controlling sea areas each turn, which gives an idea of who is winning or losing.   Almost inevitably there was no 'finish' to the game, but when we called time Paul was winning , having built 'slow and steady' in Northern Europe, and wisely invested in some fleets in the  Channel and Biscay. Overall, I'd say the game is a nice twist on a vintage classic, I enjoyed it very much! 

Many thanks to Dave 'St Cyr' for the below picture of our game in its early stages, before Red and Blue started building big armies while Yellow and Black tore lumps out of each other..

Early stages - I am blue, building up in Iberia

 

That's all for now, next time back to the toy soldiers I think. I've been looking at The Portable Pike and Shot Wargame, and also Rapid Fire Reloaded - which to try next? Meanwhile, keep well, everyone.