AUTUMN BIG GAME 2023 - PART EIGHT

And so, in clockwise fashion, back to the private battle raging in the Wild West between Alan's Criminal Entrepreneurs (prop. Frank Richardson) and Jon's Independent Labour Party:

Farmer Green - West's farm bathed in sunlight.
Alan advances from the bottom of the picture;
Jon from the top.

A long view of the entire table. Alan's formidable "Shoddy Tank" at the very bottom
of the photograph, closing in on the Farm.

In truth, Jon's Independent Labour Party was always going to be "up against it" in a fight with the Criminal Entrepreneurs, for Alan had rolled extremely high when the forces' Experience Ratings were determined at the beginning of the day, and the fight was one of men against boys (or rather Raw Troops vs. Veterans). Slowly and bloodily, Alan's advantage told....

The final situation in the Far West - the Independent Labour Party's
motorised attack column lies disordered and burning on the road,
while the Criminal Entrepreneurs, after a hard fight, manage to occupy
the disputed Farm.

And so, after so much "Big Trouble in Little Hereford", who actually won ? In such chaotic circumstances, "winning" might be regarded less as a straightforward matter and more as a philosophical concept, but at the end of the day, the players' returns revealed:

Jon (Independent Labour Party) : No farm, 0 agricultural animals

LAF Moriarty (Irish League of Lilliputian Leprechauns) : No farm, 0 agricultural animals

Gentleman Jim : Captured 1 Farm, 5 agricultural animals

Terrain Tsar Roo : Captured 1 Farm, 6 agricultural animals

BUF JP : Captured 1 Farm, 6 agricultural animals

Alan (Criminal Entrepreneurs) Captured 1 Farm, 6 agricultural animals

Bolshevik Rob (Bolsheviks) : Captured 1 Farm, 9 agricultural animals

Pete J : Captured 1 Farm and Convent of St. Mary Magdalene, 5 agricultural animals

and so Bolshevik Rob and Pete J. were declared to be the Joint Winners of the Day (clearly there was something in that "Satanic League" pact after all) and invited to cook the celebratory barbecue....

IMPORTANT NOTE : Yes, yes, this is all very well, some might say : but on to the truly important matter - what was the Great Treasure of St. Mary Magdalene ? Was it really the Ark of the Covenant ? Gold perhaps ? A Holy Relic ? Well, upon entering the study of the (recently deceased) Mother Superior Firepower, Pete J. discovered, in her safe, the greatest treasure of the (now extinct) Order of Psycho-Nuns, nothing less than:

An original daguerreotype of "The Blessed Alfred Nobel"
inventor of dynamite and an object of veneration for the Sisters !

History draws a discreet veil over Peter J.'s reaction.....

And so on to THE SPRING BIG GAME 2024 ("His Majesty's Massive Counter-Offensive") !