"Oh... THAT IED! "

Bit of a SitRep and miscellany here.
Now that the cadet training year has kicked off it's been a blur with something every weekend.
Two weekends ago it was gliding. Beautiful weather and they all got up.

Free range organic Air Cadets in their natural habitat

Last weekend I took them to the London International Air Show to watch jets zoom around and risk sun burn and heat stroke. Not a lot of vintage aircraft; a P-51, a DeHavilland Vampire, a replica MiG-15. But the USAF was there with lots, including about 6 of the new F-35s. One of which went up and was very fast. Here are some crappy pictures from my cell phone. I took a lot more of empty sky.

DeHavilland Vampire

Brace of A-10s

Two of my cadets mugging in front of the Canada 150 CF-18 Hornet. It later did some very impressive flying to show off in front of the USAF pilots.

I've also been doing some more characters for my SF project. This time people not in space suits.

People with guns; angry colonists, gangsters, pirates

People without guns; stripper, courier/warehouse worker, crewperson

I put some signage on the workshop too. New Frontier Tools which is a pun on where I work.

This weekend, if I hadn't already committed to running a game at KEGSCON, I would've been watching cadets go gliding again or supervising cadets getting lost in the woods on an orienteering competition (the first time the Squadron has sent a team to the Regional Orienteering Comp, so we win just by being there). But I was in darkest Kent County, enjoying KEGSCON while keeping in touch with doings via cell phone.

KEGSCON is a fun little games event in Chatham organized by a pair of friends, Keith and Brian. They had just over 60 people including about 20 for a Hobbit Strategy Battle Game tournament which featured some knock dead boards.

Rivendell

Brian moderates a 15mm ACW game using Carnage and Glory.

I ran my modern Afghanistan game. The Canadians were to enter the village, set up a perimeter, have a shura and sweep for weapons caches. Of course it all went pear shaped as the Taliban launched ambushes from the grape and pot fields to protect their local HQ and weapons caches.

Village centre

Social hour at the well

Overall table view. Canadians entered top left

Suspicious Landrover which backed up away from the approaching LAV. If the player had rolled right  (and had his attached ANA soldier with him he would've found a Taliban commander)

Canadians roll in

Trying to stop the Landrover. Fellow under the tree is a dicker waiting for someone to stop near an IED

Establishing a perimeter

Fire team gets ambushed and takes 2 KIAs and 1 wounded.

The mission changed radically as one fire team got hammered pretty badly from their rear arc, taking 3 casualties. They dragged themselves into the courtyard of the local Taliban HQ but the lone soldier was busy patching wounds so he didn't look in any doors to see Afghans hurriedly burning papers and bundling up gear to escape.
The players had fun and my free kriegspiel Dungeon Master approach helped keep the tension on. But the 25mm cannon on the LAVs did the job and hammered the Taliban pretty badly. I also rolled poorly when I launched RPGs at the LAVs which didn't help.