A much delayed debut

As I've reported previously, it's the Joy of Six show this weekend and the Cold War Commanders group are putting on a game. Operation Vijay (or Sample Appreciations of Tactics, the Wargame), represents a slightly fictionalised version of the Indian seizure of Portuguese Goa in the early 1960s.

The game will offer a chance for what I believe is the first serious deployment of some of the oldest models in my collection:

Portuguese EBR armoured cars

At some point in the late 1970s I acquired this book:

Up to then, the only set of wargames rules I'd managed to understand well enough to play with was the same author's Airfix Guide to WW2 Wargaming. 

Keen to try another set of rules I determined to spend some of my limited pocket money on some white metal micro-tanks from Games of Liverpool. Unfortunately, my knowledge of French-manufactured armoured cars was limited and I accidentally purchased EBRs instead of AMLs.

As such, the EBRs never got used other than in a couple of practice sessions to learn the rules. They were based for Cold War Commander and repainted in olive green about two decades ago but Sunday will see them used in a "proper game" for the first time ever. Just goes to show; you never know when your time to shine will arrive!