‘Nam 68 - Operation Turkey Dinner. Gaming

 Today saw the a gathering of the Old Guard for a last game of the year . Martin and I had pulled together a Vietnam game using an unofficial supplement called The Earth Was Red. We had a 17x6 table for the US forces to move along to “seek and destroy “ along with find out what was happening in the village of Chi Mi. Martin and I would do NVA/VC forces and inform the guys of the various events . We used our system of random tiddly winks with a range of good and bad events . 

We gave the guys a map to prepare their assault - arriving from the east. 

Damn that teddy bear fur looks the biz in that picture! 

 

John had a couple of units of special forces up near the village already. Angus would air lift in Stgs grunts to the LZ nearest the village and James was driving the APC section with Ian’s grunts..  We had given each of the US players objectives and victory points to aim for . This might be enemy kills , intel , weapons caches , prisoners - promo shots from the embedded photographers - or it could be bad things happening , losing men, the photographer finding bad things to shoot with his camera etc . 

What could possibly go wrong .

The corpsman was kept busy and cas-evac became a priority 

Navy Skyraider saved the day on a few occasion 

Helicopter shot down by an RPG -fortunately the troops had already got out . 

The APC platoon turns up..

The village started to show signs of NVA occupation .

More next time.

Musings - Challenge XII

 It’s that time of the year again for Curt to set in train the winter painting challenge . 

I will both be participating and helping admin it as the Friday minion.

With recent events I am a bit behind on planned preparation , but there is certainly plenty of stuff to go at . 

So for those of you out in the blog world who are participating- have a great one 

Musings - RIP Scotty

Unfortunately a few weeks ago my gaming friend “Scotty” died suddenly at the age of 52. 

After 40+ years of friendship and lots of gaming in various forms over the decades it’s left a major hole in my life and is taking some time to start to come to terms with.

In addition I am also dealing with his wargames related estate for his wife Julie . . After 40 years of collecting stuff / hoarding it /never parting with any thing , there is a lot of stuff to attempt to realise the value of for Julie his widow. I have started with a local show bring and buy (which went very well) , the local club (thanks guys - you’ve been great) and now moved on to e bay .

I have some reflections so far, based on having to sort through mounds of stuff. 

1) the simple option is for your family to hire a skip and bin the lot if they don’t know what it’s worth. Yes  those few bits of plastic/lead can  really be worth £25 /50/100/250/1000s etc  and at volume this adds up . 

2) Talk to someone about what you might want to do with stuff after your  passing - even mention some in elements in a formal will.

3) Leave some guidance to help the person sorting stuff to identify what it is in the box or drawer . Or an opinion of expected value . Have a conversation in advance about someone dealing with your estate .

4) Books are a real problem on moving on . Value is pennies against pounds bought for unless it’s really unusual . 

I feel a rationalisation of my own projects coming on next year .

I have been able to draw on a network of contacts which has helped to ID stuff and enable it to be sold locally or on e bay and it’s been a real help  to me - thank you all .

I am out scattering Scotties ashes this weekend with his wife and family and will reflect on the many happy times we had over the gaming table ..

 

RIP Scotty 

“Your dice rolled low one time too many my friend”