Colonial Barracks Report -- Part 3

In this part of the report, I will display the pictures I took at the final two games in which I played.  The last part of the convention report (Part 4) will be of my game, The Lion and the Gazelle.  I will get it posted during the Thanksgiving weekend.

Pirates in the Main was run by Steve Wirth on Friday evening.  Steve used The Sword in the Caribbean variant of The Sword and the Flame rules in this game.

Pirates capture a town and Spanish troops have been sent to ransom or rescue the Governor.  But has this island been cleared of hostile natives?

The local natives are running the "mess line" with a bunch of English sailor captives.

The gal on the left has a tray of sliced vegetables with which she is flavoring the "long pork" stew while the chief looks on from his throne.  This scene is from Old Glory's Cannibal packs in their Pirates range (link and link).

The pirate "king" (Col Campbell, himself) questions the Spanish governor about the location of the town's treasure.

The Spanish ransom for the town and the governor approaches, led by a group of clerics.

The ransom begins to enter the town gates and the pirates swarm over the escort.  In the background, unmolested by the pirates, a group of British marines march past, hurrying to rescue the captives from the natives' pot.

But the clerics aren't what they appear and fight back.  One monk uses a huge candleholder to brain several pirates.

The British marines are charged by the natives.  Will modern firepower prevail?  Or will the natives overpower the Royal Navy's finest?

Ummm, the British marines didn't do so good.  It appears that the natives have increased their food supply!

The greatly diminished pirates look with fright at the approach of the Spanish relief column, which stormed the town and ended the brief reign of the "pirate king!"

In Nicaragua: 1926 was run by Ken Hafer on Saturday afternoon.  Ken used the With Ol' Gimlet Eye variant of The Sword and the Flame rules in this game.

U.S. Marines and Sandinistas decide they must deny this important piece of real estate to one another.

A Marine section with a heavy machine gun team occupies a cluster of palm trees.  They have already taken casualties from Sandinista fire.

Part of the Sandinista force is revealed, firing from the each of a large patch of jungle.

We were using hidden movement on maps provided by the game master.  Unfortunately the green Marine lieutenant (Col Campbell, himself) had his map oriented upside down and didn't realize it until the game was half over.  My fellow gamers razzed me about this for the rest of the game.  I can only protest that there was no "north" arrow so I didn't know which end was up (he says with chagrin).

Another Marine section successfully crosses a wide open area and gets ready to plunge into the jungle after a band of Sandinistas they can dimly see ahead of them.  Barely visible are the sailors that were with the Marines.  They engaged the Sandinistas first, but without a lot of close combat training they didn't do too well.

Although the fight wasn't captured for posterity, the Marines charged in with the bayonet, catching one band of Sandinistas by surprise and sending them reeling bloodily away.  Marines attacking with bayonets are +1 on all die rolls over and above their other modifiers (remember, Larry Brom is a Korean War veteran Marine!).  But there were more Sandinistas than you could shake a stick at deeper in the jungle and they came to their compatriots aid.  The Marines were forced back, carrying their wounded with them.

With our wounded almost equal to our survivors, the Marines and sailors withdrew, leaving the Sandinistas in control of the battlefield.  Not a great day for the Corps!

So out of four games in which I played, my record was one win (the French at Matehuala) and three losses (Arab cavalry in the Sudan, Pirates in the Caribbean, and Marines in Nicaragua) -- about par for me, alas.