Wednesday 22 June 2011

Alma Terrace in Flying Squad Swoop

  
FELPERSHAM
EVENING STANDARD

The city's rundown Crimea Viaduct area was the scene of violent arrests yesterday following the shooting of several suspects. Several Police Officers involved in the arrest also fell victim in the hail of gunfire.



Bianca Doherty, barmaid in the Station Hotel said, "It all happened so fast, these three men charged in just as I was serving Mrs Perks her babycham. They ran upstairs and I heard shouting then a gun and then a lot of shooting; though I did hear someone shout "You're nicked Croydon!" then two came back down. One went to the front door and shouted to someone, "they got Terry" while the other asked me for a large whisky and a pack of Players".

Meanwhile, on Alma Terrace, a fierce gun battle had erupted between DC 'Bungle' Goodhope and a pair of gunmen hiding out in The Arches Garage. One uniformed officer was wounded while Goodhope held off the villains - being wounded himself  whilst shooting one dead. With the arrival of the local SPG, armed uniformed officers moved up to the cover of the Railway Cafe. At this point DCI Hacker called on the surviving gunman to "give it up it's not worth it you toerag".

Once again, after a mornings violence Felpersham counts the cost, one dead detective, Terry Tomlinson 32, two dead civilians- both members of Felpersham branch of BMGU, two wounded policeman and three arrested gunmen.

DCI Hacker was forthright "These trots and blaggers have to be stopped. Me and my lads will do all we can to bring them in and stop this armed liberal anarcho nonsense".

The spokesman for Felpersham against fascism", Sid Grundy decried the  "brutal murderous bully boy tactics of the fascist goons, this is a government clampdown..... you got to decide,whose side are you on, next time the whistle blows!"

This was a short, sharp, riot of a game using GEEZERS: SHUT IT! played via Skype. Took 30 minutes to play but generated an hour of excited chat afterwards. Minis were mostly Platoon 20 for the detectives and slags with ex-Hotpsur armed police for the SPG.

Cheers
Mark
   

4 comments:

  1. That terrain totally reminds me of the "Camberwick Green" sequence from Life on Mars. In a good way.

    "Where's DCI Hunt? Is he kicking in a nonce? Oh dear."

    I'm intrigued that this game was played via Skype. I regularly play and GM roleplaying games using Skype and a virtual tabletop application called MapTool. But I'm interested in hearing how you used Skype with a regular miniatures wargame. How did it work? Webcam?

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  2. Well, Dr, firstly thank you. To be mentioned in the same breath as "Life on Mars" is brilliant - especially the Camberwick Green bit. Any comparison is totally coincidental but now you mention it - yes it's there - probably due to what Mark calls my "minimalist approach to terrain" and the grey card base.

    Skype gaming as Mark and I know it consists of one of us setting up a game and positioning it so the onboard webcam gets a good(ish) view. the host then tells the other guy what can be seen and moves the figures/resolves dice rolls. It does help that we email a briefing a day or so before the game giving a basic details and info - which may or may not be totally accurate.
    So its more of an umpired game really, though we are trying to mirror forces to try a back to back game. The current system does give a very good fog of war as you dont have a perfect view - I believe that 5 Para are due to do an "observation/reaction" patrol somewhere in the Hassock Hills shortly and I fully expect to get lost in the hedges; I hope Mark's paras have berets as it will help me spot "my" lads.

    Finally, have a look in the earlier postings set in East Whittington, while DCI Hacker is officially 50% Gene Hunt and 50% Jack Regan, we had a bit of fun with his official photo.....

    Cheers

    Maff

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  3. Hi Dr V.

    We have webcams built into our respective laptops and the photo is a screenshot of what I saw on Maff's table.

    I find Skype wargaming in many respects superior to face to face gaming. The figures and scenery are less important than the game and the host can drive the game along, very much in a role playing/games master style. Your focus is on the decisisons and actions - rather than making individual cm based move/ranges for every miniature on the table.

    It helps in our case that Maff and I have been gaming for 15 plus years and for us the game is more important than the outcome/who wins.

    I'll write a post dedicated to gaming over Skype where we can share more photos of Skype sessions and provide feedback on the lessons we've learned to make it a more enjoyable experience.

    Cheers
    Mark

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  4. Thanks for the responses, guys. It sounds like your experience of remote wargaming matches mine of remote RPGs. Some things don't work as well, others work much, much better.

    A "double blind" game with duplicate terrain and forces played that way could be really interesting.

    And I see what you did with DCI Hacker, you geezers you!

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