If you’ve read and can remember the backstory to this caper then it still won’t make much sense but I’ll try my best, but this report is more to showcase The Mad Lord Snapcase’s work, building the city of Venice….Italy…. in Devon….England, and my determination to post on the Blog at least once a month during 2024. This post will, I hope achieve both aims.
During my brief trip down south to take in the delights of Snapcase Hall for a few days we played 3 games in 3 days. A wild fantastic game of Carnivalle, a dour and gritty game searching for Ruth Marrot and the Missing Millions, and finally a VBCW game where my Communists under the leadership of Bessie Bradock a most fearsome woman, attempted to repel an incursion by a mad group of Mounties, Posties, Boy Scouts, and the Household Cavalry. I was aided in having a secret weapon, the Diddy Men of Knotty Ash and a circus cannon to fire them from but for reasons that I can’t remember there was some sort of fog limiting visibility and I only got to fire one of these interesting missiles.
If I can get hold of some of the game photos it would be a tale worth telling.
Anyway…..
Venice, Jewel of the Adriatic.
In the early morning it looks a quiet and peaceful place.
But the famed canals provide plenty of places to dump a dead body should you so desire.
Its beautiful bridges also allow you to throw a dead body into the water, creating a bit of a splash if you have that sort of flamboyant nature.
Of course if you have a more retiring nature you could just roll the body straight off a calle into the canal.
This morning there was a bit of a buzz in the air, more of a buzz than usual and as you know, Venice is always buzzing.
The unusual extra bit of pizzazz might have been due to the sleek white launch moored along side the Spanish Steps, her crew bustling around cleaning and polishing the elegant vessel, so she shines in the early morning sunlight.
Late in the evening of the first day, a magnanimous Mad Lord Snapcase looks benevolently over his Venetian creation. He is reflecting that having allowed me to achieve a marginal win in the Carnivalle race, held earlier in the day, thinking that I’m open for the sucker punch on the morrow.
The morrow dawns and he does not look so confident!
I, however, am full of bacon and egg sarnie, who could not look forward to a days gaming that starts with bacon and egg, especially as it’s my game, my rules, my glorious victory must be writ large in the Devon sky.
As I intimated in the previous post I was unsure of how to combine my objectives of searching and detecting to find and solve clues to the whereabouts of Ruth Marrot. So after some discussion over a glass or two of fine wine from the well stocked cellars in Snapcase Hall we decided to do everything.
After reading Charles Grants book years ago, especially the chapter on hidden campaign movement with only 2 players I started to collect matchboxes. It’s not quite as exciting as collecting stamps, or train spotting but very close and does have the added benefit that I can create a series of hidden locations.
We used the 22b Baker Street game, there are 14 locations in the game and each one holds a clue or information about a specific crime. You go round the locations, collect this information and rush back to Scotland Yard and announce your theory and solve the crime.
To add some wargaming spice to this, when entering a building there were additional clues in the form of a dissected painting with Ruth Marrots address written on the back. You need to search for and find these painting fragments and need all 6 that make up the complete picture with the address. The idea was that the searching would provide a random time element, changing the normal Baker Street game. In addition there would be perils to overcome adding another imponderable element to an already complex game.
I did try this once before, the game is on here somewhere and was well pleased with the idea.
Anyway to continue the tour, the chap in the background is obviously one of the flamboyant disposers of bodies. Intending to throw his, off the bridge and make a splash, he’s already notified one of the local reporters obviously to ensure his splash is…..splashed on the front page of the paper.
The early tourists are just taking to the calle, strolling along the quay’s and preparing for an edifying days sightseeing.
At this point I really should apologise for the picture quality. It’s quite dark in the servant’s kitchen and even though there’s been a recent upgrade from candlelight to gaslight it doesn’t compare with the new electric lighting installed in the main living quarters of Snapcase Hall.
I believe a Mr Bertram Wooster is on the Grand Tour with his Aunt’s Agatha and Dahlia. They both like to get an early start and young Wooster has no say in the matter.
Of course Venice wouldn’t be Venice without its fair share of Gondolas on display and I’m rather impressed with the curves on this one made of MDF.
Well, on with the story, you may remember that the infamous Mabel Street Mob was coming to town led by the tall, willowy figure of Lian Su Smith. She’d brought along some of her most trusted Lieutenants and Soldiers and they’d split into two groups to cover the ground faster. She has the steady Barbara Vasseur, carrying her trusty pump action shotgun, how she got that through customs is anyone’s guess and Mad Bad Patsie Jones. She’d decided to keep Patsie close, mainly to ensure she didn’t go off with a bang like the loaded gun she carries.
The other group led by Nicolle Bousier the beautiful, seductive French woman had run into some trouble in the first 2 buildings they’d entered. First up was a swarm of rats, this is Venice and so rats might be expected but then they’d stepped into a knot of serpents. Nicole had been immobilised by their venom, leaving Isabelle DeForret and Loretta Salerno to carry on alone. From her name you would think Salerno was Italian and you’d be right but she’d grown up in Sicily and hated the northern Italians with a Sicilian passion, so Isabelle was doing all the negotiating and searching, rather than start an Italian civil war.
The other protagonists in this race against time was the bad apple Rudolf Valentino an Italian street cop, here trying to intimidate a local citizen into blubbing, which I think is American parlance for spilling the beanz. Guiseppe Garibaldi waves his rod in her direction but she’s seen bigger things in a Christmas cracker. Dino di Laurentis just tries, and fails, to look cool and hot at the same time.
The rest of Valentino’s crew are seen here entering the Dimera di Signora Passaggio Posteriore, just before a falling beam, well…..fell on them. It’s just one of the random perils to be found when walking round a gradually crumbling city.
Guccio Gucci in his very smart Italian shoes nimbly sidestepped the beam as Ferruccio Lamborghini and Garpare Campari look on in awe at his tap dancing.
Before the Complaints Departments gets snowed under with letters of complaint, the Italians and Venetian buildings were not named by me. Also if you’re thinking of writing in I should tell you that my Complaints Departments have a slogan, taken from one of the Mad Lords T-shirts. “I have selective hearing……and you’re not selected.
Shaken by the beam but not stirred, Gucci and his men move on to Il Palazzo di Ammiraglio Perricomo da Scattocase. Where disappointingly, they find nothing of significant interest.
I think in the movies they call these shots ‘B’ roll, they don’t add anything to the storyline but are usually quite pretty scene setters.
Although in this case, in the distance Lian has just crossed the green bridge, but it’s still a pretty shot of a well populated Venice.
Disaster for the lead copper, Rudolph Valentino. When questioning the proprietor of the Gelato Santo he made some unsavoury remarks about the big chaps red clothing, white beard and penchant for having small children sitting on his knee. Donner and Blitzen he remarked as Santo’s dog Dasher was ordered to KILL the man with the red nose.
“Wadda you wanta” grunted Mad Patsie as a Toff in a top hat approached. “I was looking for the Palazzo Della Disciplina” he replied. “It’s right here” she responded and fetched him a slap behind his left ear with her pistol.
“You fool” Barbara said, “the Palazzo Della Disciplina it the building right behind you” Patsie just shrugged and they moved on.
Closing with the establishment of Alfonso Soffiatore di Corno Construttore de Barche, Gucci had the misfortune to run into Aunt Agatha…..or it may be Aunt Dahlia. Either way, she gave him apiece of her mind on Italian fashion sense. The very idea of a Gentleman going out in his shirt sleeves, wearing just a waistcoat is appalling. No wonder the Romans lost their Empire if they dressed in such a cavalier manner she remarked to no one in particular. Gucci also has selective hearing.
Still having Aunt Agatha…..or it may be Aunt Dahlia’s words of admonition ringing in his ears Gucci crossed the bridge with a sigh and came face to face with Barbara Vasseur. Well it was really Campari who was staring down the barrel of her shot gun but the result was the same.
Both groups halted.
“Lets plug em” muttered Mad Patsie, Barbera nodded agreement, she knew she would never take to Campari, with or without a mixer, although she liked the look of Lamborghini, he looked fast….fast, sleek and mean, something she liked in her men.
“Let them pass” commanded Lian. Patsie looked sour but did as she was told.
Lian had seen what the other two had failed to notice, di Laurentiis and Garibaldi were just going into La Casa di Padrona Sculacciatoro the next building along the street, and so in a fight they would have been outnumbered.
Pick the fights you can win and avoid the ones you can’t her father had instilled into her, but never walk away from either. He’s served his time as a Marine in the Pacific and she took notice of most of what he’d told her. Not all of course, or she wouldn’t be the up and coming gangster she was, but most of his advice was sound she knew.
The clock is ticking and in spite of the fact that Loretta and Isabelle didn’t have the advantage of Nichole’s sage council the girls had made good time searching the buildings they’d been allocated and they were going to be the first back to the white launch waiting by the Spanish steps.
Close behind Lian refuses to run, it’s unbecoming in a lady, another piece of advice from her father, but sometimes her mother was right. Never run in high heals, you’ll break an ankle was her advice.
First back, the Mabel Street Mob started assembling all the information they’d gathered.
But the Bent Italian coppers were not far behind.
I smiled a wicked smile because I would get first turn at solving the mystery.
Lord Snapcase has had what some might call an interesting past, what he failed to mention until later was that his family had fairly close ties with the Financier Herbert Leon. The current Lord Snapcase had also visited the ancestral home of Leon, something to do with some arcane research he’d been involved in prior to the Jamjharristan Incident.
The Baker Street game clues require a modicum of lateral thinking, puzzle solving and attention to detail as well as reading the original brief very carefully. I forgot the later part of this.
After much head rubbing, the Mad Lord raised his head and with a gleam in his gimlet sharp eyes asked “Have you got it yet”
My wicked smile of satisfaction faded when I had to admit I could only resolve 2 out of the 4 answers, I could make a stab at the 3rd but was completely in the dark as to the 4th clue.
“Well my chaps will get on the launch and I’ll have a crack at answering the puzzle” he grinned, good humouredly.
Then he mentioned the name of Leon’s house, the one the current Lord Snapcase had visited, the one he’d used the facilities to aid his research, it was Bletchley Park. I reflected and was pleased we didn’t have money riding on the game outcome.
“There’s some old family story that Papa co-built Colossus” he said, “but while Papa could be relied on to drop a charging Rhino at 50 paces he could never be relied on to tell the whole truth about anything”. “Anyway the answer to the question is 42” he continued getting all 4 parts correct in his explanation.
“I think I win” he finished with a “Pip Pip” “Let’s open the Lafitte next”
So I’d just like to say a thank you to Snappers for a jolly good game and for the sterling work he put into building Venice, I particularly like the grey stippling on the paving slabs, to my mind it brings the whole thing together extremely well. It’s not the most spectacular part but it’s my favourite bit, well apart from the central tower that’s featured particularly nicely in the 3rd picture up from here.
The tower is called La Torre di Santo Vagabondini and is the largest erection in Venice.
Well if anyone should read this, I hope you have a great New Year.
Cheers
