Crisis Point 2017

I had hoped to blog continuously during Crisis Point using our new iPad but it turns out that Blogspot and the iPad browser are incompatible.  You need to download a specific app and I wasn't going to do that during the event.

However, I did manage to take a load of photographs and here are some of them:

Action started immediately on the Caucasus Front table
with Ian Shaw (left) valiantly defending the Andreivan
trenches against Andy Sangar and Kevin Tingle's Turks.

Setting up the Black Sea Coast table

Bloodbath at the National Museum - Will, Ron and Andy C
 played in Jamie's Pulp Alley game.
The Andreivian Police prevented the theft of an Andreivian
national treasure but did so without subtlety!

SMS Koblenz accidentally pushes aground an
Arab dhow.

A highlight of the afternoon of Day One was Jamie's
refusal to allow Woosterforce to pass down the road to
Tcherbevan until he had (a) checked their paperwork
and (b) spoken personally to Wooster himself. 

Turkish troops reach some of the frontline trenches;
their Andreivian defenders have fled!

Casualties mount up on the Andreivian baseline!

The Australian Light Horse dismount to defend the
Tuzkhur Valley...

... as unidentified Russians enter the area.

Leo's camel train comes under artillery fire killing
one of his pack camels

The Dhow is afloat again and makes off for the Dardanelles.
And look! There in the background is the missing German submarine SMS Haifisch
(one for the Rammstein fans there). 

By the end of Day One the Germans had landed a small force on the Black Sea coast.  it would have been a larger force but the Andreivian Air Force (in the form of a Fokker D.VII) arrived at the crucial moment and bombed SMS Koblenz.  The bomb struck and jammed the Koblenz's steering gear.  Unable to stop or steer out of the way, she ploughed through the string of towed barges taking the first wave (armed Kriegsmarine sailors) to the landing beaches.  The second barge was sunk. All aboard were lost!

However, the Germans did manage to tow off their stranded submarine and so completed one of their aims.

The Turks broke through a lightly-manned section of Andreivian trenches on the Caucasus Front and forced a general withdrawal.

In Eastern Andreivia, Woosterforce reached and occupied the town of Tuzkhur despite a distinct lack of cooperation from the Andreivian commander on the scene.

Two groups of Arab 'merchants' had completed some kind of deal but it was not yet clear what had been exchanged for what.

On day two there would be some adjustments.  There would be some fighting in the capital Tcherbevan as Russian Bolseviks tried to forcibly correct the doctrinal error of Andreivia's Left Social Revolutionary government.

We restructured the Black Sea Coast table to accommodate a fighting withdrawal by Ian's Andreivians and a hasty attack by Kevin's Turks.

Andy S and Arthur took charge of more Turks pursuing Woosterforce from the south.  The Eastern Andreivia table saw fierce fighting along the Tuzkhur Road.

The Bolsheviks advance past the grain warehouse in industrial Tcherbevan

A random event saw the ammunition carrier of the British MG team panic and flee.
That's him, top right above.  Doubtless he'll be shot at dawn. 

Woosterforce comes under artillery fire from the pursuing Turks. The also suffered mysterious gas attacks from an unknown attacker.

A gunnery duel between the Andreivian armoured train and SMS Koblenz
went on for much of the day.
In the end German troops took the train by close assault.

In all I was reasonably pleased with the event. We ended up with 11 players including myself whereas at a relatively late stage in the planning it had looked like we might have as many as 16. For this reason some of the events and forces I'd originally planned for, The Spanish university archaeologists for example, found themselves on the cutting room floor.

Arc of Fire stood up pretty well under the strain of handling larger-than-designed-for forces.  I was pleased with the variant card activation process.

I'll reveal more about the inner workings of the plot in future postings.