"Pig Whoooey!"

Its become a bit of a tradition for our small group to gather in GHQ just before Christmas for an annual 'fun game'. For the past four years that game has been a 'Pulp Adventure' type of game, played very tongue-in-cheek indeed. I thought it would be appropriate to post a few shots of Wednesday night's game, set as always around P G Wodehouse's fictional Shropshire setting of Blandings Castle. For those of you only familiar perhaps with Wodehouse's "Jeeves and Wooster" stories a few words of explanation might help ~

Blandings Castle is the seat of the Earl of Emsworth, his family, various staff members and eccentric guests galore in the best country house tradition. Emsworth's sole pleasure in life is his 'Champion Fat Pig', the "Empress of Blandings", around whom all the stories orbit in one way or another. Our games always concern the pig and efforts to nobble it/save it from disaster and the like. In previous years the games have been noteworthy for eccentricity by the bucketful from all of our group, but with minimum violence allowed ~ handbaggings/fists/shovels, that sort of thing! This year I decided to up the anti and set our game in 1940's Britain, following a hypothetical German successful execution of Operation Seelowe.

An overview of the table

In the foreground of the picture you can see Market Blandings with its ancient Parish Church; to the right is Home Farm and in the distance lies Blandings Castle. The Castle has its own LDV force comprising various members of the staff ~

Lord Emsworth {yours truely} inspecting the Castle's LDV

Market Blandings has its own Home Guard unit, ably lead{?} by Captain Mainwaring-Robinson, which comprises three sections ~ No 1 {Jones' Van} Section, No 2 Section and No 3 {RECCE} Section, mounted on bicycles!

No 1 Section ~ "Don't panic!"

No 3 {RECCE} Section

The Germans were tasked with carrying off the "Empress", with a view to creating a 'Master Race of swineflesh' to feed the Thousand Year Reich! Jon, aka Kapt. Weiss, lead the Germans as they attempted to outwit the Home Guard and the Castle LDV and carry home the bacon, so as to speak.

As ever, we found the game amusing and demanding at the same time. Jon's force made straight for the Castle and the 'decoy pig', as it turned out, and got bogged down in a fire fight with the castle's LDV and No 2 Section of the Home Guard. Meanwhile No 3 Section attempted to cycle towards Home Farm, initially to outflank Jon's Germans I felt, but later to accidentally discover the "Empress", hidden in plain sight in the farm's pigsty! Meantime, Emsworth dispatched his trusty butler to snatch the pig, without success of course, leaving No 1 Section to dash across the bridge under the cover of the ongoing firefight and carry off the decoy pig and achieve their objective of providing a 'Christmas Pork Supper' for the OAPs of Market Blandings.

Weiss surveys the Castle's environs ~ the centre figure represented the SS Vet!

So, as Phil said, a highlight of our gaming year and a memorable game in our ongoing Blandings Castle Campaign. Rules were modified Rate of Fire with a card driven turn sequence introduced to add to the friction of war in the game ~ a very successful adaption we all felt! Oh, the title you ask? "Pig Whoooey!" ~ the universal pigman's cry to call any pig, at least according to Wodehouse!

The "Decoy" pig and pigmen

On a different note, I've finished painting the Raja of Rhanli's Guard for our Byklabad Chronicles games from the Indian Mutiny, so a couple of shots to end with ~

The Raja's Guard ~ unit and detail shots

Well, I hope you enjoyed the brief game synopsis and the pictures of the Raja's Guard. I'm working on a second BHA Limber set now and hope to finish that and another Mutineer Sepoy unit before the end of the year {DV}.

David