Where Seagulls Dare!

On our latest Friday games day, Tim took us on an adventure of extreme silliness, Where Seagulls Dare, modelled on a popular war film from the 1970s. It bore some similarity to its predecessor, the magnificent Guns of Toblerone, which I've played a few times. 

The basic premise is that the players are a team of "elite" Commandos, tasked with foiling some dastardly Nazi plot, so once we've sorted ourselves out, off we go and biff the Hun, in the manner of an Alistair Maclean novel. 

In this case, we were off to find out what the Germans were up to on an island off the south coast of France. 

I very cleverly forgot to take a photo of the entire island, here are various key features marked out with index  cards, including the town, hospital, church, various villages etc. Consider it an area movement type system. 

And the mighty fortress perched on top of a huge mountain/box covered in a cloth. It can only be approached by a precipitous track or cable car.... This also has verious key locations marked in and around it was including something ominously marked as "Secret Base". 

The German garrison in the town included the inevitable M60 daubed in big German Crosses, as well as halftracks and a Kubelwagen or two. All Tim's 54mm stuff. 

This fine figure was in the SS HQ on top of the mountain. 

Each player had an individual figure. As I was assigned the role of Fifi, the Swiss/Dutch female SIS spy and "blonde bombshell", I got this charming figure. We were all to be parachuted into the island disguised as Germans, and before the mission, we had to sort out our equipment, much of which went into five cannisters, Although I was able to carry a pistol, knife and 50 feet of para cord. 

We wisely packed two radios, a flare pistol as backup, and lots of explosives and climbing gear, split across the loads. 

We also had individual objectives, some of which may have conflicted with other players. 

There were reports of flames and explosions, and for our LZ (disguised as German Paras), we dropped on some "mysterious scorched fields". Sadly we didnt find any obvious clues as to what was going on, and even sadder, a cannister went missing and poor Fifi died in the drop! 

Tim had a spare character, and I took over as Marcel the Corsican, leader of the local (communist) resistance, who liaised with the British agents. 

After much wandering around the island, the British finally worked out the delivery schedule of the airlanded secret supplies being delivered to the castle, and they managed to hijack a truck up to the top of the mountain, making it as far as the secret base. 

I'm amazed they even managed that, as before making it up the mountain, the team arrested one of their own men, and then another one murdered the Major in his sleep! Evidently there was some sort of treachery afoot. The (surviving) OSS Lt took over. 

Then they had a curious change of heart, and decided to head back down the mountain having had a good look around. 

Sadly Marcel and the Maquis chose this moment to Ambush the "German truck" coming down the road, and blew it apart with explosives looted from the "missing" supply cannister. 

A terrible misunderstanding? Or special orders from Stalin? Who can say, suffice to say I achieved all my characters objectives. In fact some of the team did survive, John (as the OSS Lt) infiltrated the investigating German patrols, and Pete (as  a war weary but irrepressible Cockney sergeant), managed to steal  a boat and escape to Spain! 

What was all the fuss about? Wunderwaffen of course. Tim had even made four of these magnificent rockets specially. 

That was rollicking good fun, even if it turned out to be more  grim and dirty John Frankenheimer type WW2 movie than Ealing Studios.