Who do you think you are kidding, Mr Xarbleng-Zordworp?

Private Godfrey was tending his garden in the company of his sisters Dolly and Cissy when their peace was disturbed by a whistling sound from above. Glancing up, they saw a large metal object hurtling down towards the field south of their cottage. After hearing a loud impact, Private Godfrey rushed inside to call his commanding officer. Captain Mainwaring and his first platoon soon arrived, still dressed in their work clothes, followed by the second platoon in uniform who had been patrolling the sea front.

As the dust cleared, a rocket ship could be seen embedded in the earth, like something out of the Saturday morning serials that Frank Pike so enjoyed. But then a hatch opened and a bunch of mysterious armed figures starting walking slowly and menacingly towards Godfrey's cottage.

And now our story continues...

This game saw the full Home Guard reporting for duty along with an additional four members in uniform.  The figures were split between Andy and Stuart playing together (mostly!).

They deployed in one corner of the gaming area with Godfrey and his sisters starting in the garden.

In the opposite corner were my Galactic Adventurers and their crashed rocket ship.

Spread roughly along the diagonal between the two casts were half a dozen objective markers, representing parts of the heatshield that had detached from the rocket as it entered the atmosphere.  If the Galactic Adventurers could retrieve four of these, they would have enough to repair their ship and safely go back into orbit.  The Home Guard had to prevent this happening but given the heat emanating from the debris, they could not pick them up themselves.

The Home Guard won initiative and their first script card enabled them to prevent activation of any enemies within a 3" blast template.  Unfortunately for me, the compressed deployment around the rocket ship resulted in 6 of my figures missing their first turn (my actual deployment didn't match the pre-game photo above - I had the Contessa, Inventor and Medic deployed to the left of the ship with the remaining six figures on the other side).

Godfrey briefly considered defending his garden before deciding to escort his sisters to safety, as his companions advanced towards the cottage from one side and the garden from the other.

In my first turn, I could only push forward with the Contessa, Inventor and Medic towards the edge of the garden just clearing the hedge, whilst my remaining figures considered their options for the next turn.

The range on the Home Guards' rifles meant that they could then start taking shots at the Galactic Adventurers (I should have had the dust from the impact still airborne to reduce the range by half!).  Some pretty fine shooting by Andy's men saw the Inventor and Medic taken out of the game.  Stuart's figures pressed on into the garden, sheltering behind the greenhouse.

Now isolated but still very mission-focused, the Contessa boldly grabbed the first objective marker from under the eyes of the Home Guard.

Seeing how devastating the shooting had been, and that the Home Guard had mostly come towards the garden, I moved the six now-awake Adventurers along the edge of the table towards the next most easily accessible objective marker.

But how is the Contessa now in the background of this photo?  She had stolen the scene, deploying a grappling hook to reach a second objective marker, picking it up and then leaping the hedge to move towards the pond.

Shocked by this sudden turn of events and after much discussion, Stuart circled his figures back around the cottage to defend an available objective marker.  Andy pressed on towards the Galactic Adventurers but his shooting didn't have the same impact as previously.

I next used the Contessa to grab the third objective marker next to the pond whilst my bold blade Captain Gamma and his loyal sidekick Jek Killstar pressed on to the side of the cottage.  

After a quick check of their inventories, the Sergeant led his marines towards the garden and launched a devastating grenade attack on the bunched up Home Guard figures, eventually killing Sergeant Wilson and three supporting Home Guards.

However, the remaining Home Guards then unleashed a hail of bullets on the Galactic Marines and they were pretty quickly wiped out, with Pike's sub-machine gun doing the most damage (please don't tell his mum).

Having lost six of my nine figures at this stage, I decided that was likely to be my final turn should see some Captain on Captain action, as Captain Gamma charged Captain Mainwaring for a heroic battle.  

Gamma managed to inflict a wound but it was too little, too late.  Although I had saved a plot point to add a stretch dice to my Spirit Test now that my cast was axed, I failed the roll.  And then to my opponent's understandable glee, I rolled pretty much my first 6 of the game to determine how many figures should be removed.

Despite the tragic loss of Uncle Arthur, the Galactic Adventurers were now axed and completely wiped out, giving Andy and Stuart's Home Guard an Epic Victory!

(Credit to Chris Fairchild on the excellent 7TV Facebook page for the episode title).

The Second Night The Reindeer Died

In the New Year, I repeated my 7TV Christmas game and I got to play as the Nice Listers against David and John playing the Naughty Listers.

Casts, playing area and scenario as previously described here.

After deploying on their respective table edges, the Heroes rushed out to try and intimidate the Villains.

The Villains responded by coming forward, taking a bit more advantage of the sparse cover available.  In their second turn, the Nice Listers nabbed three presents, shot an Evil Elf and wounded Jack Frost.

The Naughty Listers then picked up a present, restored Jack to full health, and killed a Good Elf who had attempted to hold the North Pole on his own.  A ferocious Yeti attack failed to inflict any damage but the Villains gained a point for occupying the North Pole.

On the left flank, a pair of wolves engaged a Nutcracker Soldier.  However, he played his Toy Soldiers prop card and two reinforcements joined him and they saw off the wolves quickly before disappearing back into the woods.

On the other flank, the soldiers were immobilised and weakened by Jack Frost before the Polar Bear came to their rescue.  However, in failing to count the Script Cards, the Heroes missed their chance to take the North Pole and the Villains gained another victory point.

Then Lee Majors got stuck into the action firing his minigun into a gathering of Snowmen, managing to miss every single one of them.  Despite that drawback, Lee decided to Steal the Scene and successfully shot Evil Santa, who had just been revealed when a piece of wobbly scenery he was hiding behind collapsed to the side.

Luckily for the Villains, the next script card saw Lee Majors stunned but despite lying on the ground unconscious, he survived a vicious attack from Evil Santa.

Unluckily for the Villains, the following script card saw Evil Santa captured by the Heroes, who piled all their nearby figures onto the North Pole.  In the last turn, Evil Santa managed to evade his captor and his colleagues rushed the North Pole, outnumbering the Heroes to get one more victory point.

The Heroes had recovered four presents and the Villains only two, but they had managed to hold the North Pole at the end of each of the three acts, the 5-4 result giving them a Minor Victory.

A second win for the Naughty Listers. Fingers crossed the Heroes do better next Christmas!