The image below may lose me half my intended audience I’m afraid. Can you remember? Did you know? What were you doing when it happened……

The famous Doctor changed from everybody’s favourite time traveller to something strange and mysterious i.e. Tom Baker. I thought the old Doctor was fantastic and I was unsure about the change but I needn’t have worried, Tom Baker was just as good. Why this uncharacteristic foray into Science Fiction I hear you ask? Today I’m in my 1970’s nostalgia mood again I’m afraid.

Ricky Sunak, that little drip of a globalist Libtard, may have suffered as his family went without Sky Tv, all the rich kids in 70s Wales had Tin Can Alley! The game had a toy Winchester and a light sensitive firing range. We soon discovered that a cheap torch could activate the mechanism on the cans, throwing them up in the air, and sleep- over invites subsided. But, what did I care? I had Tank Battle!

A secret number on the back of the model tank decided the winner, unless you were hit by artillery or ran into a minefield. Gary Oakley could stuff his light beams, I was Patton ( God I loved that film!)

The games were fantastic! Sorry youthful ones but they were! Sky Battle had biplanes that shot ball bearings for God’s sake. The model planes had a similar life expectancy to the actual World War One pilot but what a game!

However, one game trumped all the others and try as I might I haven’t been able to find an image of it. Suffice to say you had a pistol that sat in a mound on a moulded battlefield and you actually shot the “ sheriffs or bandits.” I played it til the springs game out and the moulded board was flattened. One particular shot to hit a target required such skill, that there was real kudos in catching the targets Stetson. And to take it to the next level, I painted mine in the uniforms of the American Civil War.

Twenty five years after it was produced the above parcel landed at Ferres Towers. How pleased my current wife was! Does she not understand what I had in my hands; an unopened pre- 2000 copy of the very first Commands and Colors game?

I spent all Sunday afternoon putting the models together. Command and Colors fanatics always bemoan the chore of “ snickering” the requisite blocks but I was in heaven. It was like I was opening one of those prize games all over again!

I went immediately on Facebook to advertise my successful find. I didn’t have the heart to tell avid boardgamers that I was intending to use my miniatures to fight the battles on a hex mat. The community is full of great scenarios- my regular reader will perhaps have seen our reconstruction of Kernstown?

So there you have it, my new old love, Commands and Colors. It’s simple and fast to play but has all that fun which we may be in danger of missing out on. Ancients to World War Two: a ubiquitous system that has proved the test of time!

Until our next battle

Adieu

Douglas