“Cor Blimey Annie, is that it? It’s a dump. Are you sure this is the right place?”
“There’s a sign over there, you whingeing git. Have a nosey.”
“It says ‘Welcome to the doomed village of Dunlivin. Population zero.’”
“That’ll be it then. Apparently, the treasure is in the central hall.”
“Which one would that be?”
“It’s probably the ruin in the centre.”
“Oh yeah, is there anything else we need to know?”
“Yes, you’ve been volunteered to go first owing to your keen wits and winning personality.”
Throwing caution to the wind, Annie led her angels without mercy into the nearest cover and formed a firing line.
“Right then, here’s the cunning plan”, said Lestrade of the Yard, “we’ll rush through this wood and then rush out and rush into hall. They’ll never expect that.”
“No indeed, Lestrade”, replied Holmes, “very few people would expect that. Might I suggest that a few men are left to shoot from that grassy knoll? They might give us covering fire.”
“Trust you to come up with an overly clever and complicated plan that’ll never last five minutes of real combat, Mr Holmes. Still I suppose we’ll have to indulge you.”
“What we’re going to do then, chaps, is circle the hill to the North unobserved and then come down like the wolf on the fold. Alright chaps?”
“I think they prefer it if you just give them orders, Deacon Doings.”
“Really? Why’s that?”
“Independent thought isn’t a requirement for your normal fanatic.”
“Jolly good. Just follow me then chaps and the Devil take the hindmost….Why are they looking behind them, Brother Barking?”
“You are a Magus of the Hellfire Club, sir.”
“Oh, yes. Just my little joke chaps, don’t you know. Ha ha, eh? Everybody laughing? Good show!”
DIamond Annie looked across the thin strip of mouldering road separating her from her prize.
“Alright gels, here we go.”
“Err, hang on Annie.”
Annie and the sisters with no pity watched as five representatives of law and order launched themselves out of cover and into the central hall.
“I do not believe this! What have they been putting in the Old Bill’s Tea? They came across there like they’ve got three legs apiece.”
“Either that or rocket assisted f…”
“Do you mind!”
“Err, sorry Annie. What now then.?”
“Send Little Miss Blue out on the left to cover the filth shooting from the grassy knoll and then we’ll wait until we’ve got them on the back foot. They got the jump on us this time but two can play at that game.”
“There you are, Mr Holmes, I told you it would work.”
“To the extent that we are in current possession of the hall, that is correct, Lestrade. However, have you observed our observers?”
“Eh?”
“Well, either that’s the chorus line from My Fair Lady watching us from across the way or we are in imminent danger of a severe handbagging.”
“‘Struth! That’s Diamond Annie that is. “
“Most perspicacious, Lestrade.”
“Eh, really? Well, you know me, Mr Holmes, I wasn’t born yesterday.”
“You do surprise me, Lestrade.”
Deacon Doings looked up in surprise at the sound of volleys being exchanged.
“I don’t like the sound of that, Brother Barking.”
“Oh I don’t know, sir, ‘Brother Barking’ seems to have quite a ring to it to me.”
“I meant the shots man! Heavens above!”
“And Hell below, sir?|
“Shut up you gibbering fool. Right then, what we’re going to do then, chaps, is circle the hill to the South unobserved and then come down like the wolf on the fold. Alright chaps?”
The assembled escapees from the asylum sheepishly made circles with their toes and looked embarrassed .
“I think that the permanently bewildered would prefer it if you just shouted at them, sir.”
“And the Devil will take the hindmost!”
Deacon Doings strode forward and his men shuffled after him in a remarkably tight, orb formation.
The police exchanged round after round of fire with the sisters of indulgence. The ruins looked a little bit more ruined and everybody reloaded.
Hell’s Bells, Brother Barking, it’ll all be over before we arrive. Right then, what we’re going to do then, chaps, is climb over the hill unobserved and then come down on them like the wolf on the fold. Alright chaps? Chaps….? Oh dear, perhaps I ought to mention that, incidentally, those hanging back will be hanged.”
The Brothers without Brains surged up the hill whistling a merry tune.
“The Grand Old Duke of York, he had ten thousand men….”
“If whoever that is does not shut up this instant, I shall insert a demon’s pitchfork in his nether regions!”
“…..”
“That’s better!”
“He marched them up to the top of the hill…YAROO!!”
The ruins were acquiring a pock marked look as if suffering from the pox.
“A pox on the coppers! Are we ever going to get the drop on them?”
“Hard to say. I can barely see them through the smoke. ‘Ere, you don’t suppose the smoke is some cunning plan of Holmes’ do you. Like he’s got an enormous pipe and is laying down a screen or something’?”
Annie looked hard at Miss Blue Pants. The trouble was that good Mauser shots were hard to find otherwise the dog food factory could have been in luck.
“We’ve got them licked, Holmes. You see? They’ve lost their bottle. What’s the matter girlies? Past your bed time?”
“I don’t believe that was wise, Lestrade.”
“Rubbish, Mr Holmes. We’ve got this one sewn up.”
A fusillade of shots came from the Bedlam on the hill.
“We appear to be surrounded on three sides, Lestrade.”
“Not a problem, Mr Holmes, not a problem. Now let’s see… what we should do is….”
“Hmmm, what do you think our next move should be, Brother Barking?”
“How about coming down like a wolf on the fold, sir?”
“Do you think the men are up to that level of sophistication?”
“‘As a general rule, rushing forward and carving things up is what they are particularly skilled at, sir.”
“Charge!”
The Brothers of Beelzebub surged down the hill; the Sisters of Sin crashed into the blue ranks and the snipers on the grassy knoll charged forward in support. Gosh, this is exciting stuff. PC Blenkinsop, holding the rear of the hall, was trampled under the rush of Brotherly love allowing the bearers of glad tidings to smash into the right of the blue square already trying to desperately avoid the embrace of the sort of women their mothers had warned them about.
“You’ll never take me alive, copper.”
“I have no intention of doing so, madam.”
“Then why are you giving me the eye?”
“I am not giving you the eye, now put that knife down before you have mine out.”
Oh alright, blue eyes, you’ve persuaded me.”
“I said put the knife down, not in my arm.”
“You men, you’re never satisfied are you? How about there? Or here? Or that bit?”
“I think I have a headache.”
“Typical.”
The ladies you don’t want to meet in the night already had their own problems as their hidey hole was being overrun by the sort of men their mothers had taught them to shoot first without question. Miss White, Tentpole Trish and Miss Pick fell before the cowled hordes so Annie and Miss Blue Pants rushed out to aid Miss Blondie in beating back the barbarians.
“What I particularly hate about this job is wiping the froth off. That’s the problem with your basic lunatic in a hoodie. You’d think their commander would give them a bit of a clean and tidy before letting them out the bin.”
Sergeant Tough got cocky after knocking Miss Velvet for six and lead Special Branch in the sort of counterattack the Met prefers to forget. Pretty soon, the position of the thin blue line was like unto our forces retreating from Kabul. Up the Khyber Pass without a paddle.
“Bit of tight corner this, Mr Holmes.”
“I may have to shoot you later, Lestrade.”
And so, as the light fades and the little birdies pack up their bags and flit back to the nest, we leave this struggling mass of inhumanity pasting seven shades of sugar out of each other. No doubt, they’ll be back. Mostly.
**************************************************************************************
The battle was fought using some amendments to speed play:
1/ Instead of moving one figure or making one attack when it is your turn, throw a D10, divide by 2 and round up and move that many figures or make that many attacks instead before play passes to the next player.
2/ There is an additional -1 pluck modifier if hit by a volley (cuts down the number of shooting rolls).
3/ There is an additional -1 pluck modifier if hit by a mob (cuts down the number of fighting rolls).
4/ Like the tough talent, inspirational only affects pluck rolls due to fighting or shooting hits (cuts down on the number of figures getting back up again).
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April 23, 2024, 08:24:12 PM
