Dear Reader,
Terrible news has been announced concerning the deaths of both Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson whilst undertaking the investigation of a case concerning our national secuirty.
You will recall the home sceretary recently mislaid secret plans and maps detailing our strategies in the ongoing war with Prussia. ( It is widely rumoured he lost the plans whilst in the company of the delightful Miss Fanny Fitznizentight, a socialite of dubious ancestry...)And so was set the scene for our annual Christmas game. The scenario involved the recovery of these missing documents somewhere in the Limehouse area of old London.Various groups were attempting to find the plans and either return them to the government or use them for their own nefarious gain.
The players included:-
A group of shadowy government agents; the men in black bowler hats.
Professor Moriarty and followers.
The Harmes gang, a group of Prussian sympathisers.
A band of Prussian agents.
Holmes and Watson aided by the Baker Street irregulars and various Bobbies and civilians.
All the players had a starting base on the table and were given clues as to certain locations on the table to visit to pick up further clues as to the location of the plans.
Each turn the players were also allowed to move a certain number of civilain figures who may, or may not be characters belonging to each player. This allowed each person the opportunity to disguise his own movement and hide his true figures from the other players by pacing decoy figures around the table.
The action played out as follows;
All the players eventually established the location of the plans hidden in the Ten Bells pub. Holmes was disguised as a drunk and trailed Moriarty in a Hanosm cab.
The Government agents the " Men in black bowler hats secured the plans first and then tried desparately to return to government HQ without losing them.
At this point all hell was let lose as The Harmes gang, the Prussian agents and Moriarty all revealed themselves and attempted to steal the documents.
During the action Holmes threw off his disguise and went to the aid of a small group of policemen who were under fire from the Prussian agents. Armed only with whistles and truncheons they were not fairing well. Holmes entered the figting firing his revolver until it unfortunately jammed. He was subsequently charged by the dastardly Prussians and went down under a mass of bayonets!
Watson unaware of the demise of his friend rushed Moriarty's carriage just as he was preparing to exit the table with the captured plans. Fortune favoured Watson with a fluke number of moves with successive movement cards drawn for the card deck. He shot Moriarty's driver and then proceeded to fire his revolver repeatedly into the carriage killing Colonel Sebastian Moran(Moriarty's right hand man) in the process.
Unfortunately his luck eventually ran out as he was killed by the blast from a shotgun fired by one of Moriarty's thugs.
The Harmes gang was defeated as their leader was shot early on and the remaining gang members fled the table.
The Prussians were eventually surrounded by a combined force of police, Men in bowler hats and a unit of guards stationed at the nearly palace.
Moriarty thought victory was in sight as he was one move from the exit point when a government agent shot his remaining thugs one of whoom was carrying the plans. Rather than risk attempting to pick up the fallen documents Moriarty fled.
The Bruiser one of the Harmes Gang members tangles with the Government's Men in Black Bowler Hats.
A combined force of civilians and goverment agents see off the dastardly Prussian agents.