CoC game again, plus various ramblings.

On Wednesday Gus and I braved the darker reaches of Torquay to visit its shortest resident.  Casa Goodyear saw another game of Chain of Command, with the Italians, commanded by Gus, taking on Nathans British.  This time we were trying out less commanders on the Italian side, plus neither side knew what the other had taken as support.

Jump off points in place

Gus had an Italian platoon (1 senior leader and 2 squads each with 1 junior leader and 19 men), supported by an additional senior leader, a 75mm infantry gun and a forward observer with 8cm mortars on call.  Nathan had a British platoon (2 senior leaders and 3 squads of 1 junior leader and 9 men).  His support was an M10 Achilles.  Of the two forces, Gus' had the best support options as Nathans M10 had no HE capability and, as Gus had no armour, its mighty 17pdr was wasted.  He also cunningly forgot to bring on his 2" mortar.

Italians on the flank

Italians pushed back

The map was set up and off they went.  Gus pushed around on his left flank, but was then driven back by the combined fire of 2 British squads.  The other British squad was exchanging fire the the remaining Italians in the village, but 10 men with 1 LMG will always lose out to 20 men with 2 LMGs.

The 75mm infantry gun started banging away at the Achilles at long range.  As the HE shells exploded on the glacis plate, the crew of the Achilles were forced to keep their heads down.  Their return fire with the pintle 50cal was ineffectual and the driver decided to move them behind the hill and out of sight.

British advance into the mortars barrage

Nathan reads the wrong rulebook

"Happy" Gus, who finally won a game

Things got a bit rocky for Gus on the left when his sergeant went down, but the mortars saved the day for him.  The CO called them in and when they started coming down they decimating the British squads on that flank.  As his troops fell, Nathan's morale did the same and, before you could say "put the kettle on" he was falling back and quit the field of battle. 

So, another victory for the Italians and Gus has finally won a game of CoC!

 In other news, I have finally got some painting done this month.  Things took a bit of a downward turn as I was getting very pis, ahem, I mean fed up with being ill.  It has been over a year now and lately its been worse than before, which was getting to me.  So I had painted sod all this month until Monday.  Monday morning arrived and I went off to see the consultant, hoping for good news but not expecting much.  I had a scan back in March, were I had to eat some radioactive scrambled egg and then sit in front of a scanner for 90 minutes.  That was fun......it was so riveting that I fell asleep for about half an hour.  Anyway, the idea of the scan is to see how the stomach is doing at moving the food about and sending it on down the digestive system.

Now I had assumed that there was no news as I hadn't heard anything.  The first words out of the doc's mouth were "Well, it's not in your head", which is nice to know.  The scan had shown that my stomach was doing nothing and the radiation just sat there in a nice tight ball for 90 minutes.  That explains why I get stomach ache and feel sick whenever I eat.  The technical term is Gastroparesis, which goes well with my scarred pancreas, hiatus hernia and irritable bowel.

It is nice to finally have a diagnosis though, now I know what I have to beat into submission.  So, after spending the last few years eating high fibre foods, then the last 4 months eating gluten-free, I am now on a low fibre diet.  No more granary bread, which I like, its back to plain old boring and tasteless white bread.  The healthy options of high fibre cereals are taboo too.  So all the stuff I used to eat for its health benefits are now verboten.

So, Monday afternoon I started painting again.  Tuesday morning I finished the first unit of Napoleonic Old Guard for Andy, then I started a WW2 German platoon.  Things have gone on like that, so that I have now painted 70 WW2 Germans, 32 WW2 US Paras and 32 French Napoleonic infantry.  Not bad, although it is all going to slow down again now for a few reasons.
A - The in-laws are down again, so I have to do "holiday" things (see note C).
B - I am off to Twickenham tomorrow with No2 son to watch the rugby premiership final.
C - Sunday we are going to Bristol zoo, with the in-laws........
D - Monday we are spending with the in-laws before they leave to go home again!
E - Monday night is gaming night
F - Tuesday is also scheduled for a game as Panjo has a free day so we are going to Nathans again.

So, no more painting now until Wednesday at the earliest.

So, basically this month has taken a definite turn for the better. Be happy folks and keep rolling those dice.