Tuesday 29 May 2012

What I did on my Holidays.

It was my own fault, I should have known better. I should simply have put down my whisky glass, risen from the leather chair and walked from the roaring log fire at Asquith Towers into the deep Cotswold snow.

But when the present Mr Asquith, leaned forwards and confidentially asked me if I had heard of the Gottstein Flats I simply responded brightly, " Oh yes, Drag Racing?"



The Exchange
 With a  resigned sigh he explained to me one of the great legends of the wargaming world. How in 1937 the master flat maker Otto Gottstein collaborated with a young Oxford scholar to produce a range of 30mm solid figures for a proposed series of fantasy novels.  The novels eventually appeared but the moulds were lost forever.  


Safe at Last

The Great Man leaned closer, " but what if I told you I have been offered a chance to buy them? They have turned up in the effects of a warlord in the Carpathian Mountains. Why don't you come along, I could do with someone to drive the Bugatti and you could do with a little holiday."

He neglected to mention that the Russian Mafia and a Major Wargames Manufacturer were also in the market for the moulds. So it was that several weeks later I found myself wresting with the wheel of the roadster on a high mountain pass in the dead of night, while beside me grim faced and steely jawed sat Mr Asquith cradling a sub machine gun in his lap. On the back seat a bloodstained case of master figures and  far below us twinkled the lights of pursuing cars full of G**** *******P copyright enforcers.

And that is why I have been too busy to write my Blog recently.

All of which was a picnic compared to working out this new Blogger system. Google permitting, more posts to follow soon.


The Asquith Wheels


11 comments:

Bluebear Jeff said...

So where are the photos of the figures? Or at least a list of them . . . salivating gamers want to know.


-- Jeff

WSTKS-FM Worldwide said...

Were you wearing fedoras and trench coats at least as you raced through the Carpathian night?

Best Regards,

Stokes

Fitz-Badger said...

Intriguing...

PaintPig said...

I hear the Carpathian mountains are lovely this time of the year.

I would have thought Asquith capable of operating a fully fledged proppa sized machine gun, none of this 'sub' stuff?

Peeler said...

Haha, that was an excellent read, thanks. I'm glad to see that you are back posting,like yourself I have struggled with the new Blog Chrome whatever thing it is. I was happy with the old one. Darned new fangled modernists. I have recently recieved some S/S Prussians, and they are a joy of a figure.
Best Wishes,
Peeler

Gallia said...

Welcome back John the Flanderkin Man. YO brought smiles to my day as usual. Thank you,
Bill
---
And 1 - 2 - 3

Who can take a miniature, sprinkle it with primer.

Cover it with lovely paint and a miracle or two

The Flanderkin Man, oh the Flanderkin Man can.

The Flanderkin Man can 'cause he mixes it with skill and makes the world look good.

Bloggerator said...

I'm awaiting the arrival of a suitable dame.

Gallia said...

There are two sets of interesting "dangerous dames" here:

http://www.pulpfigures.com/cat.php?range=Personalities&catalog=PHP&custID=653051031305155441

Cheerio,
Bill

johnpreece said...

Thank you for your comments:

For the sartorially inquisitive I can confirm that the dress code was Fedoras and trench coat with heavy brogues. Though A usually wore a heavy camel overcoat in the mountains.

A HMG would have been handy, though I was stunned emough when A produced a uzi from the picnic basket.

Naturally there is usually an exotic foreign agent or damsel in distress on our jaunts, but Mrs A and my own wife are both formidable ladies. I say no more.

The figures, ah yes, well that is another story. For the moment all I can say is that the Russian Don chappy turned out to quite a decent fellow, and he and A got on like a house on fire, once certain unpleasantnesses were dealt with.

He told us quite an interesting yarn about the wargames army of cCar Nicholas, Rasputin and the soldier maker Faberge. A is keen to check it out next trip but the wife has booked a cottage in Eastbourne, difficult.

AND FOR PEELER ..
who wants to talk figures. I really like this range but I find that I need to paint them in small batches as they demand rather more concentration than the exagerated detail figures that are normal fare.

John

AlFront said...

First rate! Just the sort of post we've been waiting for!

peedeel said...

Beware the untrammeled desires of Sir Stuart. In his quest for the military collector’s equivalent of the Holy Grail, it’s my belief he’ll stop at nothing...the faintest sniff of something as rare as Gottstein Flats and he will go crazy as a clown on crack cocaine!

Nothing will stop him, nothing. Confrontation with mad-eyed killers who never blink, and Ukrainian lawmen more dangerous than the bad guys they pursue, none of this will divert him from the hunt.

Be warned.

I remember a time when, as a guest at the first Asquith Towers with its little red sign above the frontdoor reading: NO QUARTER GIVEN, Sir Stuart explained he’d ‘modified’ his ECW rules in order to ‘iron out’ some ‘trifling’ difficulties. And in my stupefying innocence I simply shrugged and said, ‘Great.’

It was only as I attacked Sir Stuart’s unit of Hesilrige’s lobsters (Early Warrior figures I believe) with my royalist cavalry, hitting the Cuirassiers in front, rear and on both flanks simultaneously, that I realised the Asquithian rule modifications had turned this unit into something equivalent to Von Hesilrige’s 95th Panzer Army. Despite being surrounded and outnumbered five to one, Von Hesilrige’s troopers / Panther tanks broke out without loss!

While most of Sir Stuart’s roundhead army stood around paring their nails, praying, or indulging in the odd bit of iconoclastic behaviour, Von Hesilrige’s Panzers rolled up the royalist army single-handedly – like some robot centipede scaling the side of a nightmare. Panic spread through the Royalist forces. King Charles, gripped by hysteria, ran from the field of battle. Those Royalists not being ground underfoot by Von Hesilrige’s lobsters, silently took their own lives...

All the best.
Peter