For Vampifan – ATZ - Faith Hope and Charity just hit town.

For Vampifan – ATZ - Faith Hope and Charity just hit town.

Faith Hope and Charity just hit town. Looking like survivors from the lost and found.

A gold star and 5 house points if you can name the singer/guitarist whose song that quotes taken from.

Before you read any further I substituted Sophie Maclure for Hope who was dressed in a torn T shirt that didn’t cover very much, it looked like she’d been dragged through a hedge backwards, forwards and then upside down. That’s the trouble with these cheap T-shirts, they’re no good for a zombie apocalypse.

Or being dragged through a hedge.

These are the girls, and this is the Zombie Apocalypse and this is my homage to Bryan, or Vampifan as he’s known wherever Zombie games are being played. Bryan passed away earlier this year and left a big hole in the Bloggosphere for many of us, and I know that it’s Zomtober and some of the Bloggers are painting figures in honour of Bryan this year, something in the Zombie or Undead line.

I’ve never taken part in this painting fest but I thought I might do for this particular occasion and then I realized “I have a few zombie games I played early on when I returned to playing games with little lead men and women. Anyway they were written but only in a rough form and I never got round to finishing or posting them and so I’ve decided to post as many of these games as I can during the rest of October as my homage to Bryan.

I’ve reworked my original story a bit and re-photographed it to ensure it looks as good as I can make it in his memory. If you’re interested, my opening post relates to Bryan’s influence on this decision to return to War Gaming and the debt I owe him because of that.

They will not be sombre stories, that is unless your favourite character gets eaten by the zombies but will be written in the style that Bryan enjoyed, well at least that’s what he said on the many comments he made here in the past.

OK back to the game, this is the standard fare of a zombie game, the girls are looking for food and any other movable commodities they can lay their little hands on and will try and avoid contact with Zombies if at all possible.

They are quite average characters, above are their statistic cards. Sophie is the leader rep 4, Brains 4 Guts 5 shooting 5 and Hand to hand combat 4. Faith is rep 3, Brains 3 Guts 4 shooting 3 but H to H 5, Charity is rep 5, Brains 3, Guts 5, shooting 2 and H to H 2 and she is obviously the liability in the group, no brains but immensely brave, so is bound to attack the nearest target and then realize that she can’t shoot or fight.

I am using 2Hour Wargame rules the free download of Chain Reaction with various additional rules and some sections completely re-written. I have taken ideas from other peoples games, mainly Bryan’s early games with his character Vampifan and instead of using Rep to check everything against I have various attributes for intelligence, morale etc as you can see, I have used some terms that come from .45 Rules because they are short and fit into my cards better. I didn't buy ATZ until much later and even now only extracted a small amount from it to incorporate into my modified rules.

There are a number of things that I find too simplistic about the rules but in my opinion they give a fast, exciting game that is ideal for solo gaming, especially with zombies as opponents, because their reactions are so simple, “can I see humans, then I will attack them by the most direct route and eat them” simple.

The girls enter the area cautiously and start to move down the street.

There were 3 zombies or Zeds placed randomly on the board and I’m using 3 PEF’s (Possible Enemy Forces) These tokens move around the board according to various dictates and are only resolved once they come into sight. They could be a number of different things, gangsters, other survivors or more likely ZOMBIES!

A general overview of the board, the girls are in the top right hand corner hidden by the large building covered in graffiti. In the lower left hand corner of the board was 1 Zed, this triggered the 1st PEF which turned out to be 4 Zeds.

The PEF in the top left of the board is seen by the girls and resolved as nothing, but there are 2 zeds along the road and they see the girls and start shambling in their direction.

Meanwhile the big group of Zeds mill around, mumbling, admiring the chain link fencing, the poster on the wall of the pizza place, chatting as zombies will, about how they like their brains, the general consensus is raw and still warm.

Zombies will move towards sounds or sight of people but otherwise just mill about on the spot. Once they are activated by something that then disappears I tend to send them in a random direction and at a random speed.

These are the 2 zeds who can see the girls at the far end of the street they are shambling in their direction, mumbling and moaning as Zombies do.

Just a random close up photo as they approach the big truck.

Turn 2 the girls fast move to Guns R Us, Charity tries the door on the Range Rover, it is open but empty. They see the Zombies coming up the road and all open fire, which because they fast moved is not such a good idea.

Bullets spray all over the place and they knock down one zed but the noise generates 2 more, it also attract the group by the Pizza place who start to head towards the noise, not a good start.

The Zeds head off in the direction of the gunfire, still discussing sautéed brains, devilled brains but the favourite still seems to be raw and warm, they are also getting hungry with all this talk about food.

Turn 3 the girls fail to activate, that’s the trouble with rep 4 leaders, to activate the group needs to roll 4 or less on a D6 and I’m using Rep to represent initiative or speed of action. For activation Zombies are also Rep 4.

The zeds started to close on the girls. The last PEF is checked and turns out to be another false alarm.

On turn 4 the Zeds activate 1st and move closer, Faith and Hope both fire, hitting 1 Zed but attracting another, the door to Guns R Us is unlocked and they enter but the ground floor is empty, Charity can only get to the doorway and remains outside.

Turn 5 Sophie and Faith are in the building searching but the Zombies win the initiative again and charge forward, Charity as predicted passes her Guts test and she stands to receive the charging Zeds, firing twice as they shamble in towards her. Of course with shooting 2 she misses both shots.

And with Hand to Hand 2 she gets knocked to the floor by the Zeds and is the 1st of the girls to become Zombie Chow.

Turn 6 Faith and Sophie are stunned (fail to activate) Charity is only a small girl, but a 6 on the dice mean that she will make a 6 turn meal, good news for Faith and Hope if you take the pragmatic view. Drawn by the sounds and probably the smell of fresh blood more zeds start to move towards Guns R Us

Turn 7 The Zeds continue to munch on Charity, as the 2 remaining girls find the back door to Guns R Us is locked but shoot the lock, attracting 1 more zed to the party.

Turn 8 The Zeds must have a bone in the throat (fail to activate) and spend the turn discussing who gets the juicy parts of Charity. Sophie and Faith leave by the back door, and climb over the wall, fortunately the Zeds are so busy eating that they fail to notice them leaving.

Charity is providing a meal for quite a few of the grey faced zombies as the 2 girls continue to make their getaway.

Turn 9 Faith and Sophie hide behind the corrugated iron shed. More zombies converge on the feast.

Turn 10 to 13 F and H either don’t activate or when they do they remain in hiding, Zombies finally consume Charity.

Turn 14 – the Zombies finish supper and move in a random direction, this happens to be along the road and who is there hiding behind the tin shed, yes you can see them and so can the zombies.

I’m not sure why you can still see Charity she should be just a pile of bones. Zombies don’t eat bones do they? I need to have a word with the Continuity Dept.

Oh that’s me!

Just to give an overview of where everyone is and their place in the area, indeed at this point there is just 1 milling group of Survivors (for now) and Zombies.

The Zeds charge, and Faith and Hope have a poor dice roll and so don’t run away but don’t fire either, they are flanked by the Tin shed and the wall so it’s a bit like the Pass at Thermopylae, Faith kills the Zed she is fighting but there is enough room for 2 Zeds to fight Hope, she kills 1 of them but falls to the other. Oh dear 10 zeds 1 Faith.

Turn 15 Faith passes her leader down guts test and then shoots the zombie who had taken down Sophie killing it before it can start to eat her, OK looking a bit better.

Turn 16 Faith looks at all the Zombies and thinks - ‘s**t’, all the zombies look at Sophie and think ‘FOOD’ (both are inactive).

Turn 17 Faith takes a deliberate aim and opens fire on zombies, ‘click, click’ she is out of ammo Zeds start to chew on Sophie.

Turn 18 Zombies finish their Sophie snack while Faith stares aghast at what is happening in front of her. (She is inactive and still out of ammo)

Turn 19 The zombies finished feasting on Sophie but Faith kept failing to activate, must be due to the horror of seeing your friend being eaten in front of you. The fighting starts again and Faith has killed 2 Zeds but now she is surrounded.

Turn 20 Remember Thermopylae, it was good while the Persians were in front of the Greeks but distinctly worrying when they were behind them.

Turn 21 to Turn 24 I was going to try and explain the action but it’s complicated and Faith is doing amazingly well with some stonkingly good dice rolls, I’m not sure how long that can last but she is down to the last 3 zeds.

In the actual game she was flanked tightly by the walls and so only 2 zeds were able to fight her each turn, one in front and one in the rear. As she’s a good fighter and as I interpreted Bryans games wrongly the zeds are very poor fighters so she fared better than if she had been more in the open as these pictures suggest.

Blimey she kills all 3 of them.

This is the situation at the end of turn 24, lots of dead zeds and what should be the bones of Sophie.

Turn 25 The last woman standing loads her gun, and picks up Sophies 2 guns and holsters and prepares to leave the blood bath.

Turn 26 Faith moves towards the large corrugated building on our left. All the zombies are dead and so unless she starts to make noise she should be OK.

Turn 27 Faith is poised outside the building.

She enters the building and finds 1 zed, surprised she halts and thinks about the situation, failed to react. I forgot to mention the check to see if there was anything or anyone in a building.

Turn 28 The zed does not think about the situation he thinks FOOOOOD and attacks. Faith shouts “bring it on” and waits for the zed to get close enough for her to turn it into mince meat. After killing 10 zeds in single combat she is feeling very confident. She does kill the zed and then searches the building but finds nothing else.

Turn 29 to 31 She goes to the Deli, enters and finds nothing, the building has been looted and there is no food, looks like being a bad day.

Turn 32 She enters the fish and chip shop and finds Jane a low grade looter with a pistol, they both go for their guns, Faith gets there 1st and fires twice, but misses with the 1st shot and runs out of ammo on the 2nd shot.

Jane fails the being shot at test and surrenders, too confused to realize that Faith is out of ammo, she failed both Brains and Guts tests.

Turn 33 Jane hands her gun over to Faith, there is nothing else in the dingy lock up food shop.

Turn 34 Faith leaves Jane in the chip shop and moves on to the next building in the town, muttering under her breath about bad luck and zombies and being hungry.

Turn 35 Pay dirt, well not really, she finds enough food for 1 meal and eats it there and then, this has been a total failure so far.

Turn 36 She decides to go back and enlist the aid of Jane Delmont the looter because Faith is going to need help if she is to survive the holocaust, and some gun or zombie fodder in the shape of Jane will help her achieve that.

Synopsis

The game started off badly when Charity was killed and eaten early on, she was never going to be too much help against any strong opponent but the zombie just chewed her up so easily. When Hope went down and Faith was left surrounded by 10 zombies I thought this was going to be a very short game but then with some amazing dice throwing she survived and moved on and the game lasted twice as long as I expected, it was a bit of an anticlimax after the blood bath with the zombies but recruiting Jane means that she has some chance next time around.

This game was played nearly 8 years ago and the salient text was written around then and re-reading and re-writing it now I’ve noticed how influenced I was by the style of writing of Whiteface the other Blogger who got me back into gaming. I retook the photos for this write up because my previous table was pretty sparse, and just for interest this is what it looked like back then.

The figures are still the same but the scenery has come on a bit.

The mysterious Hope with the torn T shirt.

This was the actual situation in the fight, Hope/Sophie was in front of Faith and 2 zeds could get to her. Faith was further back and so only 1 could get at her initially.

Until this happened.

I’ve not played games like this for a few years but re-writing this has reminded me how much I enjoyed them.

Well if you are still here I’ll propose a toast, - To Bryan and Zombie Gamers everywhere.

Cheers and all the best.

Pirates of the South China Seas - Not a Naval Game ;)

Everyone has heard of the famous Jack Sparrow and the fictional Pirates of the Caribbean, but how many have heard of Calico Jack Rackham and the real Pirates of the South China Seas. In their day Jack and his crew were renowned for infamous acts of daring, utter disregard for danger and complete contempt for authority and any form of law and order.

Their exploits in the South China Sea made the Caribbean sound like a stroll through Regents Park, of course in the mid 1750’s that was a stroll in daylight and with a bodyguard but even so!

They came to my attention when I was researching Ching Shih who was born Shih Yang 石陽 in 1775 in Guangdong province. She was originally a Cantonese prostitute nicknamed Shih Heang Koo (石香姑) who worked in a floating brothel in Guangzhou and then moved up in the world becoming the most successful pirate of all time. She terrorized the China Seas during the Jiaquing period of the Quing dynasty in the early 19th century and commanded over 300 junks manned by 20,000 to 40,000 pirates. She fought with many of the major nations, such as the British and Portuguese as well as the Quing dynasty itself.

All of this is historical record, as is the fact that she married Cheng I who was from a family of notorious pirates and their roots could be traced back to the mid-17th century. What is not so well known is that she was the daughter of Calico Jack Rackham and another Chinese Prostitute Ah Toy.

John (Jack) Rackham was born in December 1682 and reputedly hung November 1720, commonly known as Calico Jack, he was an English pirate captain operating in the Bahamas and Cuba during the early 18th century. His nickname was derived from the Calico clothing that he habitually wore back then, calico is a mainly unbleached cotton and has as pale green, grey, buff colour. You may have heard his name because he is most remembered for having two female crew members: Mary Reed and his lover, Anne Bonny. The story goes that Rackham was captured by a Royal Navy pirate hunter Jonathan Barnet in 1720, put on trial by Sir Nicholas Lawes, Governor of Jamaica, and was hanged in November of that year in Port Royal, Jamaica. Of course that is pure fantasy Lawes and Rackham were in business together and they shared the proceeds of Jacks nefarious doings, Lawes would have hanged Jack without a second thought but he didn’t know where Jacks treasure was hidden, and Jack was smart enough not to tell him.

Now if you have been looking at my time line closely enough you would be thinking “Jack, born 1682, Ching Shih born 1775”, that makes Jack 94 years old when he conceived her.

Well you didn’t think I would be researching any ordinary man did you?

Jack went west, well south around Cape Horn and then west, after his “hanging”, it seemed like the smart move, after all the Royal Navy was clamping down on Piracy in the Caribbean and a Pirate needed plenty of shelter for his ship as well as unlimited targets to prey upon, he had heard of the Philippines and the islands of Indonesia but they were poor areas compared to the fabled wealth of China, and in the South China Sea were islands, harbours and anchorages in abundance. Enough to hide a fleet let alone Jacks small sloop the Kingston, and so that’s where he sailed.

I have a small hand drawn map, of a section of what appears to be modern day Cambodia, this is quite a long way from the sea but there is a notation on the map that indicates it is dated 1750. There is a diary of Johan Fernandez that has a section dated 12th June 1750 to 29th July 1750, this seems to tell the story of an expedition of some English adventurers led by Rackham. I have also read the financial accounts of a Spanish Merchant that relate to financing an expedition into the interior of Cambodia and the thousand fold return on his investment. Many years later there is a book written by someone called Arthur Conan-Doyle entitled the Lost World, it is set in South America but in reality much of his inspiration for fauna and flora was derived from this long forgotten tale in South East Asia. The specifics of that will become apparent as my tale unfolds.

My story begins in mid 1750, Calico Jack has discarded his famous calico clothing and has disguised himself in a rich red coat with a large hood to hide his features. Why he would want to do this, thousands of miles from the place where he is a well known freebooter no one knows. The information I have is sparse and only relates to the current story. I am hoping to track down more information in the near future but it may be dangerous. For some reason a person out there is trying to hide the trail to Jack Rackhams story and I don’t know why.

Yet.

Jack had left his sloop Kingston anchored in a remote bay and travelled inland with 5 other companions. There was the black witch Annie Duck, of course she was no witch but a hardened criminal from London, her speciality was beating up and robbing men, they rarely called in the authorities, well you wouldn’t would you. Please Sir I have been beaten up and robbed, she was a girl, maybe 19 or 20, that’s not going to do your credibility much good the next time you are having a snifter in the Dog and Sprocket Tavern on a Saturday night. She purported to have a magic dust that she would blow into her adversary’s faces and this would confuse and disorientate them. Powdered hashish will do that. Her blue spotted red bandana had been her trademark head gear for 20 of her 24 years so far and she was armed with a brace of pistols and a small but very sharp knife.

When they arrived at a small and derelict bridge Jack wanted Fishbait to go first. Not on your life was his response as he failed his guts test, he didn’t like the look of the crocodile eyeing him up and down. We should let the lightest go first to test the bridge will take our weight and before the words were fully out of his mouth all three women stepped forwards having passed their guts tests.

Leading the group over the bridge on the way to the treasure, did I mention the treasure, I can’t remember now but there is a lass with purple hair and she is called Thropett. There is no record if this is her first, or last name. She is just known as Thropett and she seems to distain hand to hand combat because she is also armed with a brace of pistols and a knife.

Following closely behind, is a wild and brash woman, McLeish, she must be of Scottish or maybe Irish decent. She is fearless, the sort of person you don’t want to meet in a dark alley, or indeed anywhere, unless you have the Grenadier Guards at your back, and I don’t mean a platoon of them I mean the whole battalion. In full battle order, bayonet’s fixed, and with a full complement of bullets and cartridges as well, but you probably know women like that so I don’t need to explain.

The other 2 members of the party are the afore mentioned Fishbait, again no first or last name, not even a proper name, he is in the blue coat with the wooden leg and at the rear of the party is Brigstock Jenkins, a well known bully boy around his home town of Bristol, the taverns around the docks still resound to stories about him. None usually showing him in a good light but that is probably a bit unfair and maybe detrimental to the teller’s health if any of the Jenkins family hear of the stories. The docks are deep at high tide and even at low tide a person is likely to drown with a heavy weight tied around one leg.

Thropett crosses the bridge and sees movement, if the account is to be believed it is a small group of half human, half apes. They howl and start to dance, a terrible ferocious stamping of their feet, they shake their weapons, clubs, sticks and large bones. BONES!!! They do not advance to attack the pirates but stand their ground shrieking and chanting. Imagine a football crowd on a Saturday afternoon and you just about have it.

As the rest of the pirates cross the bridge the monkey people stand their ground but don’t move forward to intercept them.

Thropett has passed her guts test on seeing the danger but also passed her Brains test and decided to carry on quietly rather than shoot at and antagonise them.

The pirates continue to advance towards the statues in the distance, they keep a sharp eye on the Monkey Men or maybe that should be Monkey people because the females seem as aggressive as the males.

The only Pirate not concentrating on the Monkey People is Fishbait, he is watching the Crocodile and trying to remember if Crocodiles are fish or not. If not he is safe, but it’s not something he wants to chance his other leg on.

The Monkey Men failed their Guts test 3 times and so didn’t attack, well not yet anyway.

The pirates enter an open space, it has a cobblestone floor and is surrounded by jungle, there is a small and large statue at either end of the space. Off to one side is a small overgrown and ruined tower, Jack recorded that he recognises Nipponese, Chinese and local Cambodian influences in the architecture and ornamentation. Where this place is I’m not sure but there are a number of clues in Jacks account to be able to track and trace the location, I shall endeavour to do so as soon as I can find the time.

I don’t think I mentioned Jack’s account before and maybe I shouldn’t now, so forget I mentioned it in case it comes to the wrong ears, the ones that want to keep Jacks history quiet.

At this point the party appeared to split into two. Jack and Thropett were moving to an arch they had discerned in the thickest part of the jungle but the rest of the crew followed the intrepid McLeish who headed directly to the small temple and the first place that she thought might hold any valuables.

Once the party was out of sight of the Monkey Men they returned to their random wandering the same as all the other encounter markers on the table. Strangely and providentially for the game this was in a roughly parallel course to the one Jack was taking.

Why Jack didn’t go to the temple first is unclear, maybe his instincts directed him away from the obvious and towards something more lucrative we will never know. These instincts, precision honed by years of staying alive in difficult situations were indeed true on this occasion as in the past, for as soon as McLeish moved to enter the temple two of the most fearsome creatures emerged out of the darkness. If I can believe the journal, the creatures were 6 to 7 foot high, hairless, with large green eyes but worst of all they had ivory tusks, short, curved and very sharp, they moved with alarming speed and attacked McLeish’s group without hesitation.

These creatures are Horrific and the group responds in their own individual way. McLeish had her knife in one hand and a pistol in the other but it was on her before she could fire. You don’t grow up in the backstreets of Glasgow by running away and as the creature closed she grew more determined than ever not to run. She stabbed it with her knife but sharp as it was she did no damage but as the creature slashed out at her she felt blood start to flow, her blood and the next minute it closed it’s jaws on her arm inflicting a terrible wound.

The other one made the mistake of attacking young Annie Duck, she is as cools as a cucumber and with a slow sardonic smile shoots it dead. There is a hole the size of a bullet in it’s forehead but a hole the size of a dinner plate in the back of its head.

Out of the corner of her eye she can see Fishbait visibly shaking from the horror but Brigstock is on his knees praying for deliverance. She didn’t know he prayed!

He didn't know either.

Things are not looking good for our band of cutthroats, McLeish is badly hurt, she is still battling and will do so to the last but the two men are in shock and will not lend a hand in the fight, Brigstock is going to continue to pray for a little while longer and Fishbait has lost his nerve altogether.

Jack and Thropett see the danger and run to help, Jack is slowed by his bad leg, an old wound that causes him to be slow to run in to a fight, but is not such an impediment when he has to run from one.

Incapacity from these old wounds comes and goes he maintains stoutly whenever he is asked about it.

Thropett was younger and more nimble and had outdistanced Jack, but once she could see the creatures and how awful they were she looses all her courage and legs it as fast as her little legs will go. She aims to get as far away as possible and is almost at the jungles edge and will continue running until she recovers her nerve.

Annie is not scared at all, she’s seen much worse in the East End of London on a Saturday night and she charges in to help McLeish. She is too late and with a groan McLeish falls to the floor but Annie’s intervention prevents the creature finishing the job and it turns on Annie.

Weakened a little from its fight with McLeish the creature’s attacks are ineffective and Annie is able to stick it with her knife, this weakens it further.

Jack might be a little slow into a fight but once there he doesn’t back down and with a bull like roar he charges in, bad leg or not. Claws and fangs are no match for Sheffield steel and Jack’s cutlass causes severe wounds to his enemy but it is still on it’s feet and fighting.

Attracted by the noise the Monkey Men emerge from the Jungle and start their incessant howling and brandishing again but fortunately don’t attack.

Brigstock finally realises that the power of prayer will not help him and so he must help himself and his comrades, he rises to his feet just as Jack slices the creature almost in half and it collapses in a pool of blood. This enrages the Monkey Men and they charge forward to be met with a hail of lead. That’s if two bullets can be called a hail, maybe a drop of lead, anyway it is enough to stop them in their tracks even though both shots missed. I imagine the loud noise and ensuing smoke discharge was enough to cause them to fall back. Annie has now discharged both of her pistols and there are still six Monkey Men to deal with.

In the distance Thropett can be heard floundering through the jungle still in a blind panic.

With the Horrific Creatures gone Fishbait recovers his nerve sufficiently and he and Brigstock move forward to join Jack and Annie who are facing down the Monkey Men, well Annie is loading her pistols as fast as she can but even though she is especially dextrous this is going to take a little while, so it’s Jack who is actually facing them down. Strangely in his past wanderings he came upon a Peruvian bear who taught him how to do a “Hard Stare” and that seems to be doing the trick at the moment.

Well in reality the Monkey Men failed to activate but I prefer the Hard Stare explanation.

Then Jack instructs Brigstock and Fishbait to fire at the Monkey Men and Fishbait hits his target but Brigstock doesn’t, the wounded Monkey Man falls to the floor howling, well like a Monkey Man I guess. This doesn’t cause the rest of them to back away but again they don’t attack.

Annie finished loading one of her pistols and starts on the 2nd one.

A small troop of 3 Baboons break from the jungle and seeing the tableau in front of them charge straight at the Monkey Men who break and run from these slavering beasts.

1,2,3 attack Monkey Men, 4,5,6 attack pirates.

The Baboons were chasing the Monkey Men but now an inexplicable thing happened. The Monkey Men whose morale had been suspect all through the story suddenly grew bold and stopped running, turning to their attackers and started their howling and foot stamping. This totally disconcerted the Baboons, usually ferocious and knowing no fear they stopped in their tracks and it looked like there was going to be a fight or at least a standoff between them. By now Jacks crew had all loaded their discharged pistols and were quietly confident that once the fight between the animals was concluded they would have no problem dealing with the survivors.

Well that is the game almost over or should I say the story told. Each turn as the randomly moving encounter tokens emerged into sight of the Pirates I checked to see what, if anything it would be and there was only 1 token unaccounted for and only a 1 in 4 chance that it would be something at all.

And then it was a 1 in 52 turn up, the Ace of Spades.

With a crashing and bashing through the Jungle came a Dinosaur. The biggest scariest animal any of the crew had ever seen, but fortunately not Horrific.

I know this will sound incredible, but re-reading Jacks Journal I am convinced he at least believed in the creature, it is possible he had been at Annie’s stash but I don’t think so and neither did Conan Doyle many years later when he used Jacks account for his own book The Lost Worlds.

They turn to face the beast, McLeish lying on the cobbles can see it as well, she urges Jack to help her to safety before the Dino decides who to eat first. Looking at their faces she realises this is going to be a forlorn request, only Brigstock looks in the slightest bit compassionate.

Panning back, these are the options for Jack, try and crowd into the small temple, but it looks pretty small and they might not all get inside, it is closest though. There is a ruined stone tower directly away from the Dino and they might make it there before it chases them down, or there is another option, at the far side of the cobbled area is the much larger temple, they should all be able to get inside, if they make it there. Of course with the final option one of the pirates has a wooden leg and McLeish can’t walk and will have to be carried.

In Jacks journal he recounts his conflicting thoughts but quick as a snake he issues his commands, that’s why they follow him, when the chips are down he knows whether to put salt or tomato ketchup on them first.

He recounts that he knew Brigstock carried a torch for McLeish and so with a quick command to Brigstock to get her inside the nearest temple, and a quick “follow me” to Annie and Fishbait he set off for the larger temple.

Strangely his old leg wound didn’t slow him down at all and he made it to the Temple entrance first, that’s also why they follow him, Annie Duck though was close on his heels.

Fishbait, knew enough about animals to know that if they had 2 long legs and walked on land they were not fish. It was a long way for a one legged man to run but he did his best, he didn’t want to end his days being known as Dinobait. He knew he would be slowest (Jack might have known that too) so he edged a little away from the straight route to the temple and made it to the temporary but illusory shelter of a lion statue.

Brigstock bent down to lift McLeish onto his shoulder, she is only a slip of a woman but she must have had something heavy in her pockets because he couldn’t raise her off the floor. Oh Bugger!

It had been going so well, the Pirates activated first, the Monkey Men and Baboons didn’t activate at all so just shrieked at each other, and the Dino was a little confused by what he saw on entering the clearing and activated last.

FOOD was about all it thought, but which food to take first, sometimes life is so full of choices, his choice was 1,2 3 the nearest 4,5 the fastest, 6 the slowest.

He rolled a 1 and went straight for Brigstock who rolled a pair of 6’s for his guts test, high is bad, low is good, he set off like a scalded cat directly away from the Dino.

The Dino would have caught him but his route, directly away from the Dino went straight between the two groups of animals that were shrieking and growling at each other. 

When the Dino arrived at the Baboons and Monkey Men they tested for their Guts, both groups passed, and then tested for their Brains and both groups failed, brave and stupid is usually a bad combination.

They attacked it, 5 Monkey Men and 3 Baboons against 1 Dinosaur, but it had a huge mouth, full of teeth and one by one it killed the small creatures.

Eventually the survivors ran away.

Leaving it to feast to its heart’s content.

Sorry I just couldn’t resist this picture.

Jack, Annie and Fishbait, watch and wait as the Dino eats its fill, McLeish lays quietly, calculating how big a stomach the Dino has and how much food there is available to it before it reaches her, will the beast be filled first.

Let’s hope so, for her sake.

Well - Jack Racham’s Journal is yielding more unbelievable stories with every section I read, hopefully anyone following my account of this first episode will be agog to hear what happens next, or then again, maybe not.

As the credits roll I should like to thank Frank from Nickel and Dime Studios for sending me some lovely pieces of jungle terrain as well as plenty of plant life for me to create more. Thanks Frank and just send the advertising money to the usual offshore account.

Cheers

Additional thanks are due to my two internet wargaming buddies who helped me out with the decisions made by Jack when the Dino appeared. As is usually with many of my games I create a cast of potential extras who may or may not make it into the final film or book or story. I do this by the simple expedient of going through the boxes of figures and pulling out likely ones for the general idea and feel of the game I’m trying to create. In this case the Dino came to mind as I don’t think he’s ever been on the table. When the Ace of Spades came up I realized I hadn’t created a character card for it and it seemed to me that knowing it’s potential would influence Jacks/my decisions and so I asked them for a plan, which worked perfectly, (unlike most of their plans)

Cheers

I’m afraid my word and picture count is going back up again, I must keep it under control so if anyone made it this far, well done you deserve a reward, not sure where you will get it from though.

Take care.