Campaign Madness

So the blog has been very quite lately, mainly due to a lack of any gaming activities for a long time.

 

I finally managed to get to gaming last night with the opener of the clubs Dux B campaign. I will post details of that game shortly. 

 

Our club has recently gone a bit campaign mad, with three Chain of Command campaigns all about to kick off.  John, the lunatic behind this mad scheme asked if I could host some of the campaign details on my blog.   I have created a couple of pages introducing the campaigns, with one set late and one set early war, with a third to follow shortly, set on the Russian Front.

 

I am a bit of a technophobe so far have only managed to create a page for each campaign , detailing the original brief supplied by John.  I will try and get the campaign maps uploaded at some point, and try to work out how to add extra posts on to those pages, so that I can track the casualties and results of each campaign.

All Good Things...

Monday saw the conclusion of our Chain of Command campaign, "48 Hours in May", with the German assault on the French town of Mont Lambert.  I was joined by Andy and Alistair, while lined against us were Ian, Allan and Barry. 

We had decided to do the final assault as a Big Chain of Command game, with the remains of the six platoons involved in the campaign all on the table at once, plus any support.  The scenario was to be the Flank Attack from the main rulebook.

My Platoon had managed to get off rather lightly so far, with only a few casualties, whereas everyone else was down a squad or so.  The support totals worked out at 20 for us, and about 15 for the French.

The view down the table from eth German flank attack. French would deply on the left.

Another view down the table.

View from the German centre, oppoing the French.

After a quick look at the terrain we opted to separate the table into three separate quadrants, each with its own particular needs in terms of support. The western platoon would have to assault the village so we assigned a flamethrower squad, perfect for clearing buildings. The flank attack would have to cover the most ground so was assigned am armoured car and a heavy machine gun team, along with emplacement. The central platoon would have decent lines of site at the French position and so had a spotter for an off table mortar attached.  In addition to this we selected a minefield to help block the road for any French tanks, an adjutant to allow to deploy our senior commanders quickly to maximise command and a pre game barrage to disrupt the French deployment. In the end Andy took the right, I took the centre and Alistair took the flank attack.  Our plan was to close down the French positions and limit their movement, thus limiting their firepower and bunching them up for a good mortar barrage.

The patrol phase went very well, with us able to prevent the French from getting any jump off points in the village, giving us some breathing space for advancement.  We also mange to get some very good overlapping fields of fire on the French left flank which would prove a decisive factor later on in the game.

The scenario allowed the Germans to start and we our centre and flank deployed troops cautiously 

Early deployment and getting into position.

The pre game barrage really made a mess of the French early game deployment, with hardly any troops getting onto the table. The allowed Andy to run a German squad right up the table and shut down one of the French jump off points before it had even been used.  On our flank the Germans advance was stalled by the appearance of a single French squad in a cornfield, but this quickly turned into a one sided affair when the Germans started to bring their numbers and firepower to bare.

On the German right Andy had consolidated into the village, covering off all the French advances and trapping them behind a barn on the opposite side of the road.  In the centre I continued my advance, acting as an anchor to the flank attack and threatening a crossfire if any French decided to deploy against our flank attack.  

Mid game and our armoured car turned up!  Then got destroyed by a sneakily deployed anti tank gun, which was itself then destroyed by combined fire from the German centre and flank. Alistair managed to quickly overwhelm the French left, pushing them back towards the centre of the board, while Andy and I forced them to bunch up in a small area behind some hedges.  

As soon as they were suitably bunched up I started to call in my mortar barrage, which managed to cover most of the French centre.  At thus point we were running short on time, so we stopped to take stock of the game.  One French Platoon was pretty much broken, another was trapped under a mortar barrage, and a third was trying its best to break out of confinement across some open ground. The German casualties were minimal, with a strong position from which to assault the French, or sit back and let the mortars do their job.  The GM decided to call it in favour of the Germans, although we did not actually finish the game.   

French forces unsure of what to do.

The German flank attack gathers momentum.

Nicely bunched up ready fro the mortar barrage.

A very satisfying end to the campaign (from the German point of view anyway!), with another very interesting game.  I think our success during the patrol phase went a long way to putting the French on the back foot, and also the pre game barrage proved very valuable. Alistair did a large portion of the German heavy lifting, getting right in the teeth of the firefight, but he was up to the job as he was ably supported by an armoured car and a heavy machine gun.  Andy lucked out quite early and thanks to closing a French Jump Off point very early in the game did not have too hard a time of it.  My Germans in the centre did not really have that much to do. I provided the threat of flanking fire to any French that deployed to close to our flank attack and kept the French bottled up in the middle of the board.  As for the French they were very unlucky as the pre-game barrage really made a mess of their plans, but they came out and gave it a god go, especially Ian who was hampered by some terrible deployment options and some even worse dice rolling!

All in all a great campaign, well run by John and with everyone getting into the spirit of things.  A good narrative campaign makes all the difference to a game, with the consequences of success or failure in having a direct impact on locations and future assaults/defences. That added an extra level of interest and challenge to the outcomes of our games and I am already looking forward to our next campaign.  The fact the Chain of Command plays so well and it is very difficult to play any nasty bending of the rules also helps a lot!

Next week is round four of out Necromunda campaign.  You can never have too many campaigns going on!

Sodding Mortars

So another Monday at the club , and another game of my current set of rules Chain of Command.  This time John wanted to give them a bash and so we pitted his British Platoon against my Germans using the lists in the book.

We generated the Hold and Objective scenario and rolled randomly to see who would be the attacker. Fittingly for late war my Germans would defend this time.  John rolled a six for support, which left me with a measly three points.  He selected an observation team for an off table mortar (groan!) and an adjutant, while I took an additional senior commander and an adjutant. I figured in a game where my opponent would be able to lay down lots of smoke having good command and control would be vital so that I could keep my force fairly mobile.

View down the table from the German Table edge.

The German Strongpoint

The patrol phase was fairly neutral, with John gaining control of the crossroads in the middle of the table and me having my jump off points. 

When we began John got right to it and deployed a squad on my right, along with the mortar spotter and then deployed another squad on my left. I responded and deployed a squad against each one.

British left flank deployment.

German left flank strongpoint.

This resulted in a fairly static exchange of fire while John attempted to get his mortar barrage off.  He managed to do this a couple of times but being a jammy git he kept rolling triple sixes, ending the turn.  On my right flank I was starting to come of worst in the exchange of fire and decided to get out of the line of fire. On my left flank John's mortar barrage was finally called in.  To try and avoid being pinned I moved my senior officer back towards my objective. Unfortunately the mortar barrage overshot, missing me deployed squad completely but landing on my senior officer, killing him outright!  That'll teach him to abandon his men! 

Luckily the turn ended before John managed to move the barrage on to my men.  In the meantime he had deployed his third squad into the house in the centre of the board and was slowly advancing it down the centre.  My right had collapsed and the British were advancing. My left was still fairly secure though, but the British in the centre were going to cause a problem.  In the end I lucked out and managed to roll three sixes for my command dice. This ended the turn, removing another of John's mortar barrages and allowed me to deploy my last squad, catching one of Johns squads in the open.  I opened fire, and then for my repeat action I did it again.  This killed most of the squad, effectively neutralising them.    We decided to call it a night then as time was running short and there was not much left  to do, leaving us with an unfinished game, but looking increasing unlikely that there was anything that John could do to capture his objective.

Another interesting game, with me defending for once, and having a lot less toys to play with. This game was fairly static for me, with very little to do but hold my position and react to John's attacks.  German firepower carried the day in the end.  I just wish that I could have one game of Chain of Command where I didn't have to face an off table mortar. To be fair the last two games they mortar barrage has achieved nothing, but if John had saved his large amount of Chain of Command dice to keep his mortar barrages on the table at the end of the turns rather than using them to carry out interrupt actions things might have been different.

 

Next week is game two of out Necromunda campaign, and I am hoping that my gang can improve on its terrible opening game.

 

Fire and Manouever

Things are starting to get back to normal at home, sort of, ish.

Ian and I decided to have a game of Chain of Command this week. This would give Ian a chance to use his Americans,  as most of the games that he has played so far have been using the French in early war scenarios.

We rolled for a random scenario and got the delaying action.  In this one the defender has to prevent the attackers from catching a jump off point t one end of the table, with the game being played lengthwise down the long edges.  We also rolled a die to see who would be the attacker, with the Germans making the assault. I also rolled the maximum 10 for support.

The view up the board from the German edge.

I opted to take a pre game barrage, a heavy machine gun, a 2nd Senior officer and a flamethrower team.  Ian opted for an adjutant and a spotter for an off table mortar battery.

The Germans got to kick of the action, with a single squad deployed in the centre to test the American defences. I hoped that the pre game barrage would prevent the Americans from deploying properly, giving me the chance to get up into the central buildings before they managed to get a defensive position set up.  This did not exactly go to plan as Ian's first set of activation dice came up with three sixes, ending the turn and also my pre game barrage.

The start of the German deployment

The view up the table

Ian deployed one squad into the centre and another in a field on my left flank, setting up some very effective firing lines.

I started to advance up my right, and also sent a squad of riflemen up the centre, with the HMG team providing cover.  In a flurry of 6's Ian managed to get three phases in a row, and made a mess of my right flank advance, and inflicted some shock on the rifle squad advancing up the centre.

My advance was going wrong and I had not even fired a shot yet!

The one ray of sunshine in all this was that Ian had called in a mortar barrage, ended the turn before it had landed and when he tried to call it in a second time they were unavailable as they were busy elsewhere.  That was going to make things a bit easier.

In an effort to even things up I deployed my HMG team in the centre where it would have a good line of fire to cover my right flank and also deployed another full squad on my left, catching the Americans in the open and causing some casualties.  After assessing the situation Ian opted to withdraw from his forward position and regroup in the fields behind the ruined buildings.

Americans go to ground

Germans push up the left, while the right flounders.

Americans caught napping.

Annoyingly he left 4 men hiding in a building in the middle of the table, and with no clear line of sight and them sitting on over watch I was unsure about how to root them out.  In the end after a few phases of moving and reshuffling on both sides I obtained a Chain of Command die and used it to deploy the flamethrower in an ambush and roasted the lot of them.

This opened up the table for the advance but alas we had run out of time.  I was late turning up and we had not played the game for a while, which made it slow going.  At the end it was still anyones game and could have easily gone either way. Both forces were relatively intact, and the Americans were in a decent position, but there was also enough cover to let the Germans advance to within close range.

End of game German positions.

End of game American positions

This was an interesting game and a very different experience to my usual games of Chain of Command.  Usually my games are decided by a steady stream of firepower, withe Germans ability to lay down lot of fire with they Machine Guns being the deciding factor.  This game had a lot of manoeuvring and we spent a lot  of time staring at the boards and trying to work out what to do.  On my part I was trying to work out how to get through the American positions and force them to withdraw, while Ian to his credit as soon as he saw his position was compromises he withdrew to stop his force form being outflanked and outgunned. 

A very enjoyable game and very different form our usual fare.  I really enjoyed all the moving for position that went on in this and it made for a very interesting game.

Open Ground

We finally managed to continue with our small Chain of Command campaign, "48 Hours in May."

The German assault on Bacthaun by Marco's platoon had been seen off in short order, and my platoon, flushed with success from their victory over Barry at the other end of the village.

Once again the Germans would be forced to advance over open ground to try and dislodge the French from a defended position. 

I rolled a ten for my support which gave me some nice options. The temptation was to just take a spotter for an off-table mortar barrage, as the French were probably just going to do their best to make a defensive position round the single building on the board.  I decided that would be a bit dull and took a few things that I had never tried before.  In the end I took a Flamethrower team, Off table artillery barrage and a Heavy Machine Gun team in a defensive position.   

Allan opted to take an off table mortar, a heavy machine gun and an anti tank rifle.

The patrol phase was fairly predictable, with the French ending up with all of their jump off points within the grounds of the fenced off building, with the Germans all being placed in the the corn fields that surrounded then French position.   The objective of this game was simple, break your opponents force morale. I got lucky and ended up with a Force Morale of nine, while Allan's was eight.

Early game saw me deploy two squads onto the table and my Heavy Machine Gun team. Is started a cautious advance with my squads while my Heavy Machine Gun waited to open fire on any French that deployed.   Allan had some terrible luck and failed most of his deployment rolls, as the French were obviously having a hard time restoring order after the initial artillery barrage.  When he did finally manage to deploy a machine gun section I promptly shot most of them with the rest fleeing the table. First blood to the Germans.

Unfortunately just as I was advancing out of the corn fields the turn ended, leaving Allan to deploy unopposed, which he started to do.  My advancing Germans started to take a lot of fire, but thankfully casualties were light mainly as a result of opting to take advantage of any cover.   In the meantime my Heavy Machine Gun, under the personal command of the Platoon Officer was making a real mess of the French that were using what little cover they could and the French casualties were starting to mount.   

Mid game saw one of my Junior Officers killed and then the French managed to call in their off table mortar support, pinning one of my advancing squads and doing a fair amount of damage as well. I tried to ignore it and kept up my storm of machine gun fire into the french position, killing a lot more men while also wounding the French Officer, and killing the mortar spotter as well.

The Germans advance cautiously.

Heavy Machine Gun deployed, under watchful eye of the Platoon Commander

More advancing.

Bloody Mortars.   French nicely bunched up though!

After the mortar was neutralised I brought on another squad on my left flank and the Flamethrower team.  My left flank started to advance again after stalling badly earlier in the game.  My second squad started to provide suppressive fire at the French position, allowing my rifle teams and Flame thrower teams to resume their advance over open ground.   In the end though they were not needed as in a flurry of bad luck Allan and a few more commanders shot and another section wiped out, which reduced his force morale to 0, leaving the Germans victorious.

Another good game slightly hampered by the fact that neither of us had looked at the rules in a month or so, and I could not find my copy of the rulebook as it is in a box ready for moving day.  The field was very open and there was not much in the way of fancy tactics going on.  This game was more about firepower than anything else, and the Germans definitely have the advantage there. 

In terms of the campaign this means that the Germans have managed to successfully complete all their first day objectives, albeit slightly later than originally planned.  My Platoon is pretty much intact at this point, with only one Junior Leader lost. Marco's platoon has taken a bit of a mauling and Pete's platoon has yet to see action.   The French are in a similar state.  Allan's platoon took a lot of casualties in last night game. Barry's French took s few casualties in our last encounter, but lost a lot of leaders, including the Platoon Commander. Ian's French are still relatively unscathed.

My Platoon is being given a rest for now and we are rotating Pete's platoon to the Front to assault Ian French position. I'm looking forward to see how that one plays out.  I think for the final game of the campaign we are planning to stage a three on three game using the Big Chain of Command rule from Too Fat Lardies. Looking forward to see how that one plays out.

I mentioned earlier on in the blog that I was moving house in a few weeks.  We are now well into the packing and anything not essential for day to day running of the house is getting packed up in preparation. Unfortunately this means most of my gaming stuff, with all of my rulebooks being the first casualty.  It has meant that the loft has had a good clear out, and I took this quick snapshot of all of my boxes of toy soldiers:

Small fry by a lot of wargamers standards but looks like a lot to me!  Not to much of it unpainted though which is nice.  Mainly lots more Lord of the Rings miniatures, Oldhammer stuff for 3rd edition WHFB and Rogue Trader Orks. They are projects for another year.

No games or updates for a few weeks in all likelyhood as I am going to be a bit busy in the coming weeks.

June Gallery

So here are some photos of the latest models completed for Chain of Command.  In no particular order we have a set of combat engineers including a metal detector, flame thrower and some other troops doing stuff that I don't recognise. I have also put together and painted a Hanomag and a 221(?) from Warlord games.  Both were quite nice to put together, especially the Hanomag as it reminded me of the early Rhino from Games Workshop. 

All the infantry were from Crusader and are lovely miniatures, let down by some bloomin' awful casting. There were some terrible mould lines on these, some of which I have elected to just leave, rather than try and remove with a craft knife.

That pretty much concludes my Germans for the foreseeable future. There are still a few things that I would like to add, mainly a PAK40, PAK36 and and lelg38(?), and perhaps one of the lighter tanks.  

The only other thing that I really need is a Panzerschrek team, but I cannot find one that I like. Warlord do one but I really don't like the poses and Artizan do one but they are in camouflage so would not fit in with existing models. I am also after some of the other support choices that are available, including mine fields, barbed wire, tanks traps and emplacements. I will keep my eye out at Claymore as these are the kinds of things that could be added without too much effort.

Next up I am going back to the Dark Ages.  I have got a pile of livestock from Warbases to paint and base, some wattle fences from Renedra and I took advantage of the Grand Manner summer sale (25% off, great stuff) and bought another three small buildings, so plenty to keep me busy.

May Gallery

More Progress on my Chain of Command Germans.

THis tim it is infantry support that is completed.
A MAchine Gun team, Snipe and Mortar Spotter are now added to the mix.

In addition to this I have made some markers for general use.

I saw John use them a wee while ago and thought that they had lots of potential uses. I saw them on sale at the Pendraken stand at Carronade and decided to get some. I think I went a little bit to small and opted for the 5mm option, but I will see what happens when I get a a chance to use them.

Assault on Baincthun

Monday night saw the continuation of our Chain of Command campaign, "48 Hours in May". In the opening games of the campaign both Marco and myself as the Germans had broken through the French lines, commanded by Ian and Barry.  These early games were fairly bloodless and we decided to press out advantage and attack the town of Baincthun.

Marco kicked off the assault along the main road against Allan's French, as Ian has a new job offshore and was going to be away for a while.  He had a disastrous game and the German assault was soundly repulsed, with no French casualties, so there was a bit of pressure on my Platoon, who would be attacking along the dirt track that  ran into the village.

The view down the road into Baincthun

 I rolled a 7 for support and opted to give the sniper and a HMG team a try for this game, figuring that as armoured cars had featured heavily in the opening of the campaign that Barry would take some kind of Anti Tank options, which he duly did.

Looking at the board I decided that the only real option I had was to push down my right, as the left hand side of the board was looking rather empty.

My initial probes involved deploying one squad and the light mortar on my right and seeing what Barry would do to counter this.  He deployed two french squads against my right and put his anti tank gun in the centre.  At this point he also deployed his platoon commander, all by himself with no support.  I could not resist the temptation and in my phase deployed my sniper who managed to kill the unfortunate officer with his first shot of the game!  Barry was none to pleased with this and en exchange of fire ensued on my left, with my Germans coming off slightly worse, with four sixes resulting in four casualties to one French salvo. Not good.

Initial German probe.

 Emboldened by this success Barry started to advance on the German positions. He used one squad to give covering fire, while advancing with the other.  I decided that I would sit tight for now and deal with the advancing French, which I started to do.  I poured a lot of fire into them, and then deployed my Machine Gun and and additional squad into the centre. The additional squad was to provide suppressing fire onto the French that were in the ruined building, while the HMG team added their considerable firepower to those already firing at the advancing French. The German machine guns took their toll and I managed to Kill the junior officer, wipe out the machine gun section and then rout the remaining few rifle men.  In addition to this I had managed to wound and then kill another of Barry's junior officers, leaving him with a command problem and a Force Morale of 1!

He decided to call it a night at this point, having suffered 9 casualties and three dead officers. Thanks to the difference in Force Morals scores I was able to recover all my casualties and came through the game relatively unscathed.

French start to deploy onto the field.

Germans fall back under heavy fire.

The French retreat in disarray.

Another interesting and entertaining game, but in truth Barry had some very bad luck with officers getting killed, and I think my dice rolling was about average. One thing to be said is never advance over open ground into the teeth of German Machine Gun fire, as it was surely Barry's undoing on the night. Also never deploy officers on their own.  For myself this was my first time using the sniper and HMG team and one thing it did throw up was the additional strain on Command dice all these extra elements add.  I had an additional two units that both required 1's to activate, and I think I only managed to get my sniper to fire three times in the whole evening.  This can of course be mitigated by the canny use of senior officers but they are sometimes needed for other things.  Snipers and HMG teams are useful, but can tie you down to quite a static style of play, although the psychological effect of snipers is going to interesting.  

As we play more and more Chain of Command and each element of support is tried on the table there is a certain amount of paranoia about facing them. First was the off-table mortar barrage as they can be very devastating, then armoured cars became a bit of an issue but people are now adapting to them. Now we are onto exploring the snipers and additional firepower. I can't wait until I get to try a Flamethrower!  This is a good way of exploring the game and keeping everyone on their toes, as we widen the rage of support elements that we can potentially use in a game, so you have to think careful about potential strategies to counter them.  It all makes for a more interesting and balanced game, in my opinion.

As this was the first outing on the table of my own painted Germans I expected it to be a disaster, as the first outing for newly painted toys usually is, but this could not have gone much better to be honest.

Assault on La Quesnoye

This Monday we kicked of our WW2 Chain of Command campaign, "48 Hours in May."

John has kindly agreed to referee a short campaign with six players. There are three a side and it is set in France in 1940.  

Marco, Pete and myself opted to play the Germans, while Barry, Ian and Allan were the French.

We were going to play a ladder campaign, with a possible three points of Assault. After some discussion we decided to attack at two points, keeping a third platoon in reserve just in case of heavy casualties.

I was given the task of assaulting the small village of La Quesnoye, which was on the German right, next to the main target of La Mahon.  Ian would be commanding the French defenders, and as such was allowed to use the terrain maps provided to set up the board.

The scenario was number 2 from the Chain Reaction rulebook, "The Probe".  The German objective was to get a single section or team into contact with the French table edge, while all the French had to do was stop them. A difficult one for the Germans to win, especially given the time constraints of a Monday night.

I rolled a five for support, which by the time you factored in the bonus the French allowed to even up the forces allowed Ian to choose the almost obligatory Off table mortar and spotter, and a few minefields. The scenario also allowed for him to have a couple of emplacements. I opted for an adjutant, as I wanted to get all my commanders on to the board and not have to worry about whether or not the rest of my troops would deploy without a senior officer behind the lines egging things on.  For the other four points of support I opted for an armoured car.  It was very lightly armoured but had a decent main gun, plus I warned my opponent before hand that I was going to bring one.

The patrol phase kicked off and I managed to get two jump points on the outskirts of the small village on my right flank, while I ended up with one on the left, back in the wood lining my edge of the board. 

Early game I deployed a squad of Germans on my right flank and started to try and get into the town. Ian deployed very quickly and in two phases had virtually his whole force deployed, heavily weighted towards the German right flank. After he had deployed Ian pretty much went to ground as his entire force was deployed in hard cover.  I quickly brought on my 5cm mortar and my armoured car and tried to push up the board.  

There was some exchange of fire, with my single deployed squad starting to come off second best against the weight of French fire against it. I managed to get a second squad deployed nd advanced into one of the central buildings, which put some pressure on the French, basically cutting their forces in two.  I managed to bring the armoured car up the centre and between that and the central squad they inflicted heavy casualties on the French squad that was guarding their right flank, pretty much leaving it wide open.   At this point Ian had finished thumbing through the book tried to find a solution to the armoured car but the best he could managed was to drive it off, so he decided to withdraw before his casualties were too great, leaving the Germans in control of the field. First combat of the campaign and victory to the Germans.

Patrol Phase

Germans start to probe the French defences

The French deploy in numbers to deflect the German probe

The French line is looking pretty strong.

A fairly bloodless game, with only three Germans felled during the game, and 4 French. 

We are both complete novices at Chain of Command and it showed. We both spent a lot of time looking through the book to check rules and make sure we were doing thing correctly. This was my 5th game of Chain of Command, while it was only Ian's third. 

Ian never managed to get a mortar barrage off during the game as he just could not get his spotter into the right position, which was telling.  He also did not bring my anti-tank ability so was on the back foot right from the start.  I also was a bit nervous about the mortar barrage and the effect they could have on the game, so I opted not to take one and see what sort of things could be achieved without relying on it.

The first game I played of Chain of Command John talked about the "four f's."   Find, Fix, Flank and Finish.  It is easy to dismiss this kind of thing while getting buried in the game and all its rules, but I am beginning to realise that it is in fact the key to success.  If you hunker down and not move you will be outmanoeuvred and eventually you will lose. You cannot rely on just your firepower to do the job. 

I also think that having a good range of support options is essential to get the most out of the game. The threat or coming up against some kind of armoured vehicle, even just a small armoured car is enough to make your opponent think carefully about what he takes as support. While I am not advocating taking a Tiger2 at every opportunity it is still a good thing to have the threat.

The fact that this was a campaign also altered the dynamic a lot. Under normal circumstances I am sure Ian would have fought on a lot longer and tried to hold my Germans off until the end of the evening, regardless of casualties, but as he was going to have to use the same force again in the follow to this he decided to give ground and preserve his forces. A pretty good decision in the end.

I really need to get a move on and get my Germans finished, so that I can stop pestering John to borrow his toys. I onyl have ten to do and then I will have the basic Platoon painted. Then I jst need to select what support options I would like to have access to.

So the Germans are off to a good start, and it is up to Marco to repeat the success next week on the road to Fort Mahon.  I am away on Holiday next week so will need to wait until I get back to find out the results.