Shanghai Ultimatum

[Ignatieff]

Another splendid scratch build -this time V.I.Blackwood converted a railway shed by imserting a concealed MP3 player and speaker which blasted out revolutionary favourites as his propoganda lorry toured the streets.  However those deadly Austrian gunners soon made short work of his efforts! Brigadier Linn, amidst a sea of broken glass and Guinness, crawls to safety in the background.  The Bund was not for the faint hearted that night!!!


More later.....................

[Ignatieff]

And here's the brief for the eventual winner, Harry 'Boy' Flashman.....


Harry Flashman and the Philosophers Stone                                                                              Flashy’s  brief

...Flashy did feel a slight pang as the corpulent figure in the British mess kit tipped over the side of the ‘Potemkin Princess’ deep into the inky black Yangtze, the splash muffled by the noise of the carousing revellers in the gaming rooms below.

“Christ, they’ve let standards slip since my time” he cursed to his Chinese lover, Szu-Zhan, as the bloated corpse of Major William Crawshay, late of the 17th Lancers, floated silently towards the mouth of the river and the East China Sea beyond.

Crawshay had made the ultimately fatal mistake of running out of credit – and friends – aboard the Princess, Shanghai’s premier gambling and gentlemen’s club, moored off the Bund.  But not before he had let slip to Flashy of the existence and whereabouts of his family fortune: the fabled Ming Emperor’s Philosopher’s Stone, a giant lump of emerald encrusted jade, looted from the sack on the Imperial Summer Palace in 1860.  Since then it had lain in a Shanghai bank vault, “for a rainy day” as the buffoon Crawshay had chuckled, shortly before Szu-Zhan traced a crimson line across his throat.

Objective
Steal the Philosophers stone, and spirit it safely away from Shanghai
You know it is in one of three banks: Honkers and Shankers, Bank of China or in the vaults of those old opium merchants, Jardine Matheson.
To open the vault, you need three keys.  Crawshay always carried one around his neck, which you now have. The other two are in two of the vaults, and the stone in the third.  Without the keys you would need a ton of amatol to blast open the vault.

Forces Available
Flashy: + 2 leader, sniper, ‘lucky’.                        Szu-Zhan: +1 leader, sniper
3 x 8 irregular thugs (M3). Rifles, bombs and +1 to hit at under 4” due to the profusion of personal small arms.  One of these must start on the Princess, one in the port area and the other will be placed by the umpire
3 x lorries (in the port area)

Special Rules
You will be given three poker chips.  These can be used to either bribe local Chinese forces to your bidding (one chip per unit, effect lasts for three moves during which time you control them), or you can buy off any foreign troops by making them ‘turn a blind eye’ to your shenanigans (one chip per move, lasts one move).
Intelligence

Your bones tell you that your old rival, Fu Manchu, is also hot on the trail of the stone.  No doubt he is behind the anarchy on the Shanghai streets at the moment.
Your men tell you that there are Bolshevik agents all over the city trying to stir up Revolution.  Good luck with the chinamen thinks you, he’d rather have a pipe than join the proletariat any day of the week!

The city is also full of more grandees than normal at the moment, adding to the chaos.  Some sort of arms trade fair.  Anyway, the city is getting very hot, too hot in your view, so the sooner you load up the loot and head off the better!

STEVE LANGAN                           06/02/2010

[Poliorketes]

I really enjoy your battle reports (and of course the pics).

[ushistoryprof]

What a fun game.

[thebinmann]

very, Very, VERY nice!

[Traveler Man]

An excellent set-up! Thanks for sharing.

[Axebreaker]

Excellent!

Cheers
Christopher

[twrchtrwyth]

Thanks for sharing. Are you still on V3.5 of your rules?

[tsar1701]

As usual, Ignatieff, simply fantastic ! 

[Ignatieff]

Thanks for sharing. Are you still on V3.5 of your rules?

5.4.2....or thereabouts....

[twrchtrwyth]

5.4.2....or thereabouts....

Any chance of getting a hold of these?

[Ignatieff]

Sure.  Send me a PM with your e-mail address.  Still 'work in progress', but they are getting there.  Can still be played off a two page playsheet, which I'll also send you.

[Hammers]

Sure.  Send me a PM with your e-mail address.  Still 'work in progress', but they are getting there.  Can still be played off a two page playsheet, which I'll also send you.

Ignatieff, would it be forward of me to ask for a copy to?

[Ignatieff]

Not at all.  Send me your e-mail address.  When I do publish them, it wont be for any other reason than for the love of it, so no worries.

[Ignatieff]

The strangely pilotless Brandenburg surveyed the unfolding chaos below, whilst hard core Austrian stormtroopers held the vital Railway station.....(note to self, must get more Copplestone pilots)