Momos? Good Oh!

I took Snorkers! (Good Oh!) down to Chatham for KEGSCon this year, naval games being very light on the logistical burden and I wanted to promote it a little. I stayed Friday night at the Comfort Inn and while doing a route recce noticed that The Gurkha Restaurant was very close by. I didn't want to dine alone and Keith and his wife Tam volunteered to join me. It's tucked away in a rental hall on a small industrial road and needs better signage, but it's worth the adventure to find it. Service was very friendly and we shared a platter of steamed momos as an appetizer and then I had a positively gianormous bowl of shrimp biryani, which I took half of it back to my hotel for next day's lunch. The hostess was very nice and packed me some plum sauce to go with it, I guess that is a traditional way to eat it cold.

Saturday arrived bright and early and I set out a scenario from the Rising Sun Over Java far east early war supplement. I modified it for my Mediterranean fleets and used the standard card deck so new comers would have a better sense of the rules, but pointed out that modifying the card mix was a useful scenario building tool.

In the morning I ran it with 4 players. The Italians were trying to intercept a Malta convoy.

Italians moving from left. RN is pushing forward with destroyer flotillas.

Italian and British destroyers clash

First kill. HMS Kipling is lost to torpedoes.

HMS Kashmir from the same flotilla is limping off table with flooding damage, lower right corner. I had the player do some damage control checks and she eventually sank.

After getting heavily embroiled in the center and drawing off the RN Covering Force, but losing the Zara (she ate three torpedoes!), and a Condotierri CL, the Italian DE flotillas dash forward on either flank.

Convoy successfully attacked. All four targets sunk. 

So that was a rather pyrrhic RM victory. They lost the Zara (CA), the Luigi Cardorna (Condotierri class CL), and two DEs (Lupo and Sagittario). The RN lost two destroyers.

After my lunch of left over shrimp biryani I reset the table and had the RN attacking a convoy running from Sicily to North Africa.

RN advancing from the left. The RM still arriving from the upper right, although the Zara has pushed ahead to engage the British. She's going to keep all four RN cruisers busy until she goes down flaming.

RN destroyer flotillas breaking left and right to try and get to the convoy. RM units trying to cut them off.

Bottom of photo flotilla of J class DDs getting intercepted by the Condotierri CLs and some Navigatori DDs.

Js dieing bloody but putting a bit of hurt on the Italian CLs.

RN player remembers his objective and pushes forward on his left flank, eventually sinking all four transport ships.

A bitter victory for the RN. They successfully attacked the convoy but lost three DDs doing it. Although killing an Italian CA and seriously damaging a CL was perhaps a fair trade.

In both games the RN didn't lose a single CL.

I managed to do a quick survey of some other games. There was quite a variety.

Pillage

Midgard. I think the skulls are Keith's measuring sticks.1 spear throw x 2 spear throws. 

General d'Armee in 15mm

Xenos Rampant

The Full Nelson

something with pirates

Sharp Practice

I didn't get a pictures of some Check Your 6!, Chain of Command, and more Xenos Rampant. In total there were 15 games and 50 or so people.

After I packed up,  I headed home, giving Big Dave and Son a lift to London. Big Dave offered to buy me dinner and while talking food, and how much I enjoyed the momos the night before, he mentioned there was a place near his that he went to all the time. Fortunately, I was still full of shrimp biryani, so we eschewed highway rest stop burgers and pushed on to Hakka Momo House. I let Big Dave guide me and had a sumptuous meal of Malai Momos, Hakka Chow Mein Noodles washed down with Massala Lemonade. He insisted I take the large quantity of leftovers home to share with Mrs. Rabbitman for Sunday (and Monday's!) dinner.

Another picture of the really lovely 1:700 scale ships in The Full Nelson game.

A pretty good adventure all told. Hakka is my new favorite ethnic cuisine.