SPRING BIG GAME 2022 - LAST TRAIN FROM LEOMINSTER (PART FOUR)

 Within the eastern suburbs of Leominster, Captain Giles' WYRD Force took up defensive positions:

The sailors and marines of the Wyvern River Defence Force

while, on the right flank, Councillor Dribblesnot's forces begin the ruthless execution of their battleplan. Refusing to repeat the tactical mistake that lead to his original imprisonment by the forces of Communism, Sir Alan McGuffin's "Big Gun" (christened "Tophole 2" in honoured recollection of his original, and now destroyed, SPG) hung back in some convenient woods and began an area bombardment of the unfortunate Government telegraphists.

Meanwhile the Bromyard Armoured Brigade advanced smartly towards the Government Ammo Dump, supported by some of Bromyard's finest infantry elements, including a renegade section of the Kings Shropshire Light Infantry ("KSLI") and many fierce Afghans. Quite how the Bromyard Republic came to be supported by these warriors from the Empire's distant North West Frontier will have to be the subject of a separate Fleet Street special, for Sir Alan McGuffin rapidly discovered that, today, he was rolling hot:

Sir Alan's immensely accurate artillery strikes immediately destroyed a Public Schoolboy's
 Anti-Tank Gun, forcing the second to flee to hard cover and accept a restricted field of fire.
Here, the Telegraphists only heavy weapon, a Steam Powered Assault Gun,
receives a direct hit from Sir Alan's "Tophole 2". The plumes of steam
escaping from its ruptured boilers lead almost immediately
to its annihilating self-explosion

The immense reach of the Bromyard artillery graphically illustrated.
As the Telegraphists desperately seek cover, "Bromyard luck" is
demonstrated - with Aces High and Jokers Wild, Sir Alan proudly
displays his hand of cards.

But not quite everything goes the Bromyardistas' way - their Armoured Brigade
runs into an unexpected minefield....

with the loss of a tank and some confusion amongst the remainder.
Nevertheless, the "Big Gun" keeps firing, and the infantry will push on..

as does "El Seed"'s Platoon on the left. The farmhands take casualties from
Wyrd Force's rifle fire, but their self sacrificing manoeuvre protects the Cultists...

The Bromyard battle plan called for El Seed's untried and undergunned forces simply to "distract and tie down" Wyrd Force, thereby preventing reinforcement of the Telegraphists around the Ammo Dump. As the AWV began to bombard the Government defenders, however, it quickly became apparent that something very strange was happening...

Some witnesses reported "strange lights" surrounding the AWV, even "gobbets of ethereal fire" shooting skywards. Others, more sanguine, noticed nothing more than the sights and sounds of an ordinary tank bombardment. Some of the Government recipients of this "AWV incoming" took cover believing themselves subject to 'a usual barrage', while others swear blind that they were the subject of various plagues - flies, boils, pustules and worse. Government morale began to plummet as the red robed Cultists, still at full strength, swerved into the eastern suburbs of Leominster and straight into melee with Wyrd Force's finest:

Untested Republican Cultists v Veteran HMG Sailors.
No-one gave the lightly armed Cultists much of a chance..

..but the increasingly bloody Cultist knives rise and fall relentlessly...

...and the maniacal assault utterly devestates the Wyrd Force defenders...

Such is the power of the assault, it has even taken the roof off one of the nearby buildings.
The triumphant Cultists take the eastern suburbs, blowing an immense (and very bloody)
hole in the Government lines. WYRD Force, at long last, has been comprehensively
 out-wyrded....

ON TO PART FIVE....