Fast Ball in the Outfield!

The UNMENTH Office & FOB, somewhere in Hav

Captain Price: "Soap! Op on! Ops room now!........You're on the bloody Xbox aren't you?"
Soap: ".......Yes Boss.....Call of Honour3 Contemporary Warfare, really ally stuff...........the op?"
Captain Price: "An Italian Parliamentary Deputy has been grabbed by the Slavicovan National Army and is being held in a farm near Hradsograd."
Soap: "NRA? They're nutters! "
Captain Price: "Right. We have less than 24 hours before they top him or the Italians give them what they want. "
Soap: " We'll need to get across to NE Alcovia....boss , Ullos got one on for us already, he'll bite the carpet if we overfly..."
Captain Price: "Sorted - some of those Iqmenis I trained are on their army council, they'll let us stage out of one of their bases."
Soap: "Nice one Boss."
Captain Price: "OK, whose on Readiness? "
Soap: "Butch is on leave, Snooze is in trieste , Dai has the D&Vs so it's you me and Stench."
Captain Price: "Right, get onto Mavrakis at the CRB. Tell him to have 2 bricks of his best blokes ready to move now, then you select 8 of them. Make sure they have NATO kit, not that Hav spetsnatz wannabe stuff. Ok?"
Soap: "Crystal. Epirou airhead in 2?"
Captain Price: "Good one. Move it!"

Transmission ends; further report to follow.....

Cheers

Maff

Hav-Trebizon Government makes formal denial

"Good Evening, we interupt our popular soap opera 'Alcovians do the funniest things' to bring you an announcement by Minister of Protocol Vannos Sperakos."

"The Government of Hav-Trebizon has become aware of speculation, misguided speculation, as to the involvement of the Republic of Hav-Trebizon in the assassination of an Alcovian officer by British Special Forces in 1985. We deny this completely; the actions of the then Levantine Republic of Hav, which of course expired in the Co-National Crisis of 1986, cannot be laid at our door. No doubt things were done by many people that would be regretted were those persons still in power or even alive, presuming that those actions even took place. Today, the United Nations Mentoring (force) Trebizon-Hav (UNMENTH) would never allow our armed forces to act in such a way.

Furthermore, the officer, a Major, now General, Bostic is alive, well and living in Trebizon as a respected member of the expatriate Alcovian business community. So, you have to ask, assassination, what assassination? We must also refute internet desciptions of our honoured Bongolesian guests as "gun runners". Bongolesia is a major trading partner of ours, the agricultural spare parts sector is booming thanks to their entrepeneurial flair and they are always welcome here - the tragic death of three Bongolesian diplomats in a broom cupboard in the Royale Casino last summer haunts me still. Thank you."

"And now we return to 'Alcovians do the funniest things' where Latka is still looking for his goats in the potato shed......"

Cheers

Maff

Trouble in the Borku?

Jeremy Paxman: "......Thank you Evan. So, with the EU crisis rumbling on, it cannot be any consolation for the EU leaders that trouble is not confined to the eurozone. Down in the Borku, things are pretty ugly too; there's been a civil war in Alcovia for almost a year and now, apparently, the Alcovian King, Ullo, is looking to pick a fight with the neighbouring state of Trebizon-Hav. I am joined by Martin Bell, BBC War Correspondent and former MP, and Mr Jeff Ross, formerly of the US State Department. Gentlemen, just what the dickens is going on?"

Martin Bell

Martin Bell: "Well, Jeremy, many people would say King Ullo is simply making the usual noises."

Paxman: "The usual noises?"

Jeff Ross

Jeff Ross: "Martin is probably right but for the wrong reason, there is no real indication, firm attribution, that Ullo said anything of the kind."

Paxman: "Mmm. So, what did someone say that Ullo may have said?"

Ross: "Allegedly, he may have said that..."

Bell: "He said 'One of these days we are going to have to level that tiny little City-State' "

Ross: "Allegedly said"

Paxman: "That's pretty clear cut isn't it? I mean there's a lot of history here."

Bell:"From 1453 down to today. I was in the Borku in the mid 80's during the Hav-Trebizon war and I can tell you that there were Alcovian Special Forces and Militia all over the place."

Paxman: "Jeff, you were in the CIA, weren't you, what were the Alcovians up to then?

Ross: "I really have no recollection and wouldn't be disposed to discuss it if I did"

Paxman: "Come on Jeff, you can do better than that!"

Ross: "I seem to recall you Brits had some Alcovian adventures of your own?"

Bell: "I know I did, not that I wanted to. The thing is, Ullo has a civil war on his hands, he's not going to invade anywhere. This is someone close to him stirring the pot and trying to scare Hav."

Ross: "And Hav has come a long way since '86, they have rebuilt, renewed and have a major entrepot down in the deep water harbour at Epirou."

Paxman: "So there you have it, trouble in the Borku, well at least they aren't in the Euro. Goodnight."

Down to the wire

We return to Captain Price's top curry house, somewhere in Herefordshire, with a post chicken saag tiger beer, the Captain finishes his story....

"Great, mints..... now, there we were ghillied up in a hide on this ridge extending into the Ladu Pass, with the road winding around it in a U shape; Angus has a good shot lined up, our exits are clear so I give him the OK to shoot. As I did, I ping a file of guys in balaclavas, woolie hats, the usual militia walters, bimbling off on our right. Too late, Bostic is down, his guys are piling into their trucks and the spetsnatz are heading for the woods.....I reckoned on a couple of options, sneak back to the border through the woods, relying on the ghillie suits and banjoing any local heavies who popped up; second, lurk down to the BMW hotwire it and floor it to the border or thirdly, stick to the ridge and then cut back to the border. The patrol was getting closer, the guys in the trucks were driving off to the checkpoint in a hurry and the spetsnatz had gone to ground somewhere......OK, the woods it was. Now, visual aids....this knife is the ridge, these mints they're the woods and the border is over there by the beers....."

The Ladu Pass in happier times

Captain Price (left) and Trooper Angus "Smelly" McTavish (right)

cunningly concealed as trees Bostic is down, the Border Guards realise that with a VIP
dead, they really need to be elsewhere; the local balaclava boys go for a stroll


The SAS hide in the rocks while the Militia "patrol" past


And the Militia still cant spot the SAS - but uhoh, the SAS can see the Spetsnatz


Price and Angus pretend to be trees once again


The Spetsnatz stop, have a cigarette, think, realise "that's not a tree!"
and make their move. Angus drops one and the SAS take a lot of return fire but succesfully lurk backwards into the woods and then leg it for the border

"There's the wire Angus!"

"Action right Boss!"

The Alcovian Border guards time their patrol to perfection

Or not.

Angus drops one and Price banjos the other two with his MP5, over the wire and away.

"What were the Alcovians doing on the Hav side of the wire, Boss?"

"Shut up and keep running"

"So, Bostic slotted, pursuit evaded and banjoed as appropriate and me and Angus back to Hav in time for the floorshow at the Casino. Of course, back this summer, Craig from the Scalphunters nailed Urquhart in his Hav office, so I reckon he'd sold us out to the bad guys. Right, I'm off, nah, the curry's on me. Cheers!"

Captain Price calls for a taxi from the curry house

A thoroughly fun game with far less shooting than usual. Heavily inspired by CoD MW. Figures - Liberation Minis, terrain - mainly FoW Battlefield in a Box, barbed wire made in Hong Kong approx 1968, rules - Cold War 83. Curryhouse - The Panama. Angus? Soap's less famous brother. And a final word from Captain Price:

"Angus chopped Bostic back in '83. One hell of a suprise to see him meeting some Bongolesian gun runners in Hav in 2011. We're going to have to shoot him again."

Cheers,

Maff

A blast from the past

In a safe curry house, somewhere in Herefordshire, Captain P reminisces:

".....Back in '83 I was posted to Akorotiri on the Special Projects Team, training up locals from the Iqmemistani National Resistance. We had this fastball, direct from D Ops in London, no scalphunters available so we picked it up. Deploy by next BA flight to Athens, then drive up country to Hav, pick up kit from Urquhart, tab up to the Alcovia border to the Lampardij Ladu Pass, get into a LUP and wait for a convoy of Warpact military to meet this BMW, take out the guy in the safari suit from the beemer. Home for tea and medals. Easy. Yeah, right. Yeah, pile into the poppadoms, the brinjal pickle is cracking...."

"Anyway, the target was this Major Bostic of the Alcovian Gendarmerie, a local fixer and all round bad guy. He wasn't on our "to do list", apparently the DGST had it in for him but being frogs and useless had no local capability. Meanwhile D Ops, a devious sod called Burnside, needed a favour from the French and Bostic was their price. So there we were, me and Angus up to our knees in goatshit, eyes on target, only matey boy Bostic has half the Alcovian Gendarmerie with him and he's swigging vodka with these guys in blue berets who have 'spetsnatz' tattooed on their knuckles; Angus is saying "do I take the shot, Boss?' and all I can think is 'I hate salt on my chips, let alone mining the stuff for the rest of my natural'. Happy days. What did I do? First things first, lad - mine's a chicken saag, pilau rice, two kheema naans and another large Tiger. Cheers!"

As soon as Captain P has worked his way through his curry, he'll be here to finish his yarn, pull up your sandbag and watch this space....

Cheers

Maff

Alcovian Village Houses

Looking to expand my Alcovian village, I picked up this group of three Triang OO station kiosks for just £1.99 on eBay. The single storey, hipped roof architecture is just right for Alcovia. Well, at less than 70p each that is.

Their footprint is 90mmLx60mmWx65mmH which makes them perfect for 20mm figures. They look a bit bland right now but imagine them with corrugated iron verandas, maybe barn doors or an extension covering the opening - could even turn it into a walk-in village Borsch shop.

Not far off, eh?

A couple of extra windows are necessary and potentially, I could add a small dormer in the roof to give the building an upstairs but I'm not convinced in this instance.

Finish off with wooden or breeze block or mud brick extensions out the back and/or to the side, catslide tin roofs and a small brick chimney and we're done!

Well almost..... The walls are smooth and I am already thinking of some sort of rendering or a mix of rendering and exposed plasticard or cardboard breeze blocks/random stone.

Cheers
Mark