Chapter 7 A tale in the telling

                              NICKEL & DIME PRODUCTION'S 
                                    proudly present's 
               CONNEMARA FEENEY & TAYLOR DAVIES 
                                             in
                       THE HEART STONE OF AFRICA
The next afternoon Connie & Taylor had a meeting with the Belgium Ambassador Hans Von Baston , a report for all that had happened had already been sent to the Embassy.

They were meet by his Secretary, a nice young lady named Elsie Wier.

Elsie" The Ambassador is expecting you, may I take your coats ?"
After taking their coats Elsie lead them into a room were the Ambassador was waiting, after shaking hands & as Elsie was leaving the room.
Hans"Please take a seat, may I get you anything to drink ?"
They both set-down  & replied thankfully but refused the drink.

Hans" I've had my people look into the matter & have some news for you,
Soon after Stanley returned from the Congo, King Leopold tried to recruit him. Stanley, still hopeful for British backing, brushed him off, however, Leopold persisted and eventually Stanley gave in"

"Stanley, much more familiar with the rigors of the African climate and the complexities of local politics than Leopold, persuaded his patron that the first step should be the construction of a wagon trail and a series of way-stations. Leopold agreed and Stanley set off to Zanibar. To avoid discovery, materials and workers were shipped in by various roundabout routes, and communications between Stanley and Leopold were entrusted to Colonel Maximilian Strauch"

"Stanley lead a successful expedition & our records show that Claude Peeters was a member of the expedition & that one night he, a native guide & four other men stole some pack animals & supplies & took off into the night never to be heard of again, that is until you found his remains, that's about as much as I can tell you about Peeters as our records don't show of anyone ever reporting him missing, but given the kind of man he seemed to have been I think it would be safe to bet that Claude Peeters was not his real name, its not uncommon for a man with problems to come to Africa under a false name to escape from whatever his problems might be"

Taylor & Connie thanked the Ambassador for his time & help & headed back to the hotel to meet with Boswel & Defour.

Taylor & Connie were sitting outside when their two friends arrived.

After a drink the group headed inside for dinner, over dinner Taylor & Connie them about the diamond she'd found on the remains of Peeters & how it was intended to sell it & give the two of them along with Jim Browns family back in England an equal cut of the money, Taylor also told them what they learned from the Belgium Ambassador & what his plans where & asked them if they like to take part.

Both men agreed that Connie had done the right thing to keep the find to herself & thanked her for her kindness in giving them a share, Defour refused the offer from Taylor to join him saying that he was more at home in the air then tracking Africa on foot, but Boswel was interested & wanted to hear more,so after dinner they went back outside to the cool of the evening, after saying goodbye to Defour the other three seat-down to start making plans.

Marco Boswel had spent most of his life leading expeditions & safari's in Africa & Taylor knew he couldn't have found a better man for the job, but while interested Boswel hadn't agreed to join in yet.

Marco"Before we start let me ask you Taylor, this isn't some fool hearty search for the fable King Solomon's mines your taking on is it ?"

Laughing Taylor replied "No Marco its nothing as romantic as that, this is a very serous business exploration I'm under taking, that diamond came from somewhere & its my experience that where there's one there's more"
"I'm hoping that we can use the point where Peeters left Stanley's expedition & the point where we found his remains to triangulate where he might have gone to find that diamond"

Marco"That's good to hear & I agree that where he took off is a good starting point, but I'm afraid to say that where we found him is of less use as for all we know he might have been lost or had jungle fever & been wondering aimlessly"
"Stanley as we know carried on more or less due West from that point, so I think it would to say that Peeters didn't head that way, nor is it I think likely that he doubled back but that still leaves a lot of ways he could have gone & as its so many years ago were not going to be able to pick up any trail"

Taylor" That's a very good point you make Marco & is why I'd like to have you along, I don't know if you know this but diamonds are formed by volcano's so I'd guess were looking for a mountainous area, so what I'd like to do is make to where Peeters took off & then giving the lay of the land let you decide which is the most likely way he would have gone"

Marco" Well to be honest Taylor I think you might be looking for a needle in a haystack but I've grown fond of you pair so count me in, tell me will Miss Connie be coming along ?"

Taylor "Absolutely not Connie will be heading back to the US as there is n...
Connie "Stop right there Taylor, if you think I'm going to go back to the US & spend the next God knows how long worrying day & night about you you have another think coming, either I'm coming along or I'm resigning & heading back to Ireland"

Taylor "But Con...
Connie her temper now rising "No buts Taylor the choice is yours, either I come along or you never see me again"
Taylor knew Connie well enough to know she meant what she said & as there was no way he was going to let her leave (as he intend to ask her to marry him when all this was over) he relented.

Taylor "Ok Connie ok, what do you think Marco is Connie up to this trip ?" he asked hoping Marco might side with him.
With a grin on his face Marcol "From what I've seen of Miss Connie I's say her more then up to it Taylor & I'm glad to have her along"
Taylor "It looks like I'm been railroaded here, ok Connie your in"

The three talked for awhile longer making plans, Marco would start the next day on organizing the man power while Taylor & Connie set about securing the supplies.

Two days later just after breakfast Taylor & Connie had a visitor.

Stranger "Pardon the interruption but would be Mr Taylor Davies & Miss Connemara Feeney ?"
Taylor "We are, but have us at a disadvantage Sir"
Stranger "My humble apologizes, allow me to introduce myself I'm Akmid  Khan"
Taylor "Pleased to meet you, now what can we do for you ?"

Sitting down uninvited Akmid "Word has come to me that you are getting ready to depart on an expedition & as you are a businessman I have a business, how do you say it, a proposition for you, would you be interested in a partner ? I've a good knowledge of Africa & have men & supplies ready to go"

Taking a disliking to the man Taylor"I don't know what you've heard sir but my business is my own, but if you must know we are setting off on a safari, not to hunt animals but to take some pictures, its a little vacation before heading back to the US"

Akmid "Come now Mr Davies you can not expect me to believe such a story"
Starting to lose his temper Taylor "Believe what you will sir, now I wish you a good-day"

Akmid rising to his feet "Do not brush aside the hand of friendship so easily Mr Davies, Africa can be a very dangerous place & I pray it is not your intention to take such a lovely flower of the world as Miss Connemara in to such danger"

Connie noticing how Taylor's anger was reaching breaking point "I welcome your concern for my health but worry not I'm sure I shall come to no harm, now I really do think its time you left"

Bowing slight Akim Khan turned & walked away, after he was gone.
Taylor "I don't like this Connie I've a feeling Mr Khan is a nasty piece of work, would you not reconsider staying behind ?" seen the thunderous look on Connie's face Taylor continued with a smile "No I guess you won't"

That's a rap for this post, as always my thanks for dropping in & if you like to be a film critic & leave a comment it would be welcomed :) 


 



   

Movie Tone News June 2018

Not a lot to report this month in the news as the studio seems to have gone football mad, with people going around singing about 3 loins on their shirt & so many years of hurt.

Well I would imagine that 3 loins would lead to a lot of hurt & if it was me & the loins wanted the shirt that badly I'd just give it to them :)

So what is happen I hear you ask ? well work is still going on building Congo terrain, as I said in another post making films  in the Congo  calls for lots of props but were nearing the end for now.

Before the end of this month the next chapter in The Heart Stone of Africa should be released & then it will be time for the studios annual vacation, so all in all there won't be to much happening around here for the next while but on the plus side things for the next big project are starting to be put in place, so here's a little clue.

No I haven't foreseen my own death :)
Well that's it for this months news, so its a goodnight from me & its a goodnight from him, as always my thanks for dropping in & if you'd care to leave a comment it would be welcomed :)

Dress Rehearsals Congo

So after a long wait I was finally ready to give Congo a try out, the first thing I'd like to say is how elegant the whole thing feels as your transported back in time to what was a very different world.

Now the first thing I'd like to point out about Congo is there are no rules for solo play & because of how the game works is going to suffer by playing solo, just as with Pulp Alley or I'd guess any other game that card driven, half of the fun is in not known what the other guy might or might not be able to do.

Anyway I had the set ready & the cast assembled & wanted to give it a try out & see if I could work out away of going solo as I really like the idea of going off to explore the unknown of the heart of darkness, in other words the Congo.

The set above is for The Clearing of MBE scenario & pitches 70pts of the White Mans Expedition against 70pts  of the Sultanate of Zanzibar, there's a buried treasure in center of the table there are also 4 clues which are in some of the lager pieces of terrain, these give the corner of the table that any side that have then can leave by if they have the treasure.
The two columns enter the table from diagonally opposite corners, in this case the WME will enter from the bottom left & the SOZ will enter from the top right.

At the start of each turn both sides  pick 3 of 7 cards from their deck, these like the ones above are called action cards & are meant to be taken looked at & placed face down secretly, these cards allow players to do different things, like move of shoot with different units, also on these cards is a number at the top this number decides which side act first when the cards are played.

Also taken is a Totem card (first card on the left above) these give you bonus's & may be played at the start or end of when you use an action card, now I'm sure you see the problem in trying to play Congo solo, to try & over come this problem after the first turn I changed the way this works & what I did was instead of taking 3 action cards for each side I took 4 without looking at them & placed them face down so the cards were played blind, but to try & balance that a bit either side could replace one of the cards once, so each side still only got to use the 3 action cards that make up a turn, but if say in the second round of cards you got a card that only let you shoot but had no enemy to shoot at you could play another card in the hope of getting one that might suit you better.

Movement is done using the short makers, you can use just one or pick up the pace & use both but there are restrictions on when you can pick up the pace, in the pictures above a unit from the WME is entering the table & picks up the pace so I lay down the two short markers & place a model at the end of the second one, I then place the rest of the unit around him in base to base making sure non of them move beyond the first model I placed.

Again in the pictures above the unit picks up the pace but have to do so in away to move around the foliage of the terrain piece.

Shooting is very straight forward, in the pictures above a unit from the WME which has been joined by the expeditions leader wants to shoot at the Fanatical warriors who are the guardians of the treasure, so I check that there in range & have line of sight, I then get the dice for that units shooting, in this case its D8 & there are 5 of them, to this I add the a dice for the leader if he has a shooting skill which in this case is a D10, anyone from what we'll call the leaders list will always count as having the same weapon as the unit he joined, in this case muskets.
I then roll the dice, in Congo you always need a 5+ for any roll to be a success, I get two hits the 8 & the 10.

The guardians are in terrain which gives them a cover save of D8, I roll 3 D8's getting two success's so one model is removed.

 

 To get into combat all one has to do is end a movement with you picked to be the lead model to move with making base to base with an enemy model, now I want to show a few more of the game mechanics while I'm doing this, so in the first picture above I place one of the movement markers as I have to go around the blocking terrain, I'm going to pick up the pace, now as I said above there are some restrictions on when you can do this & one of them is if an enemy unit is with in the range of the movement marker after you've placed the first one.

Now as I'm going to end in combat this restriction wouldn't come into effect but I wanted to show how it works, so in the second picture I remove the bit of terrain & use the other small marker to make sure their not stopping me from picking up the pace, in the third picture you can see I now have both makers placed to take me around the terrain but I'm still not in combat.

So I play one of the totem cards which give me extra movement, forth picture to bring me into base to base.

The attacking side has 5 models in the unit & is combat D8 the defend unit has 3 models at combat D6 plus the leader who is also a D6 in combat picture two, but the defenders also have a stress token of the combat kind so are -1D in combat,picture three shows the dice both sides will roll, picture shows the result & shows the attackers have scored one hit to the defender none, remember only 5+ counts as a hit.

The chart above show me what the result means, which in this case see both sides take a stress token, the defenders lose a model & fall back,I should also point out that a unit can only ever be in combat with one unit at any time.

The last thing I'll cover is terror which you can see on the card above that has drums on it, with this card you can either remove stress tokens from you own units or make the other players unit take a terror test, to do this you pick a unit & that unit rolls a bravery test, roll the bravery D given for the unit, if you roll a 5+ nothing happens if you fail the unit takes a stress token.

That is just the basic of the game there are a lot of other thing to it but to cover it all would need a very word heavy post, so sorry if your disappointed :)

If anyone reading this has tried playing Congo solo & has come up with a good way of working the cards or has read a report of how someone done so or even has any idea's of away of doing so if you'd be so kind as to leave a comment I'd be very grateful.


That's a rap for this post, as always my thanks for dropping in & if you'd care to leave a comment it would be welcomed :)

Props, behind the scenes jungle

Director Max Rolf is over at the props department meeting with the head of the props team Bill Smith to see how the work is progressing for the coming dress rehearsals for Congo & we've set the camera crew along.

Max"How is the work coming along on the jungle scenery Bill ?"

Bill" The latest delivery is just arriving  now Max so the team will be getting cracking on it right away"
Max" I'm please to hear that as we need to starting getting in some dress rehearsals, by the way I've bought a camera craw along do you mind if they film the work in progress Bill?"
Bill" Not at all Max, sounds like an excellent idea"

Bill will talk us through the process, here at N&D Productions we us sheets of cork for our bases, I know other studio's like to go with hardboard but here it cork.

We mark out a rough shape, you got to keep in mind is in nature at work we're try to reproduce not something man made so no straight lines.

When it cut we sand the edges before

painting it green.

Then its gluing & flocking

we always mix in some static grass with the flock, the last think we do is go over it with a spay glue
While part of the team were getting the bases ready others were set to work on the foliage.

Some of the type of things used, from pet-shops & Ikea, tree-bark is used for rocks.

Also of use can be artificial house plants.

The plastic plants are giving awash using different colour washes on different ones,I've herd of other studio's using a spay mat varnish instead of washes.

This is one of the washes used, here at N&D we use three different ones two are brown's & one is yellow.

 With both foliage & bases ready it time to start putting them together, first a hole is drilled in the base,

Then the join end is cut off & a dab of pva glue put on the end & stuck in the hole.

the underside of the bark is sanded flat & then its glued to the base.

Little bits of foliage is glued next to the rock in places.

All that's left  is a little track to be added.

The piece is finished & ready to be moved to the set.

The set as you can see is nearing completion & that's how we do it here at N&D Productions 

 That's a rap, a big thanks to Bill for walking us through the process & as always my thanks to you for dropping in & if you'd care to leave a comment it would be welcomed :)