Grand Austri Hotel

Excellent boardgames just keep on coming.  This one played quickly, and we got in two games.

That's my hotel with ten paying guests and six staff.

Second game and my hotel with another tend guests and six staff.

Getting the staff seemed to be a winning strategy,

but the points and skills for them are extremely varied. 

The Siege Museum in Toledo

An excellent place for such a museum and finding the place was a bit of a fun adventure in of itself.  The building it was in was interesting but my time would have been better spent in the army museum. Never mind.

The replicas looked good, but really needed some indication of scale.  There also could have been a few dioramas, rather than the posters.

Arab Heavy Cavalry and more

I was thinking this is the last of the figures I have to paint for my Arab armies, but no, there are still more.

My interpretation of Naffatun throwers, although I think now maybe they were more like slingers.

Note cavalry keeping a respectable distance.

These figures are not Old Glory.  I have converted them a bit,  

The one in the dark red robe is close to the original pose.

Junta

Classic game from the 1980s.  

The state of the board tells you nothing.

What you need to see is the final tallies of the player's Swiss bank accounts.

And that's in millions of pesos!

What can I remember of the game?

Richard started as President, and I was the Minister of Security.  All was going well till Stefan launched a coup and became the new President.  I remained Minister of Security and in a dastardly deed tricked Russell into going to the bank when he thought it was safe.  It wasn't.  However my success was short lived and another coup, that President Stefan survived, saw me executed.

But I bounced back and a subsequent coup gave me the Presidency.  But it was a bit of a token office as I had no influence except in distributing the foreign aid money.

More coups followed and there might have been a President Jeff, but the last President was Simon.  

Again I skillfully assassinated Russell on his way to the bank only to be shot again and see Richard make off with both my and Russell's cash in hand, which was substantial, and can be seen in his final tally.

The following were provided by Richard.  There was even a song.

The Junta meets...

Last played 40 years ago, the cult game Junta finally made a fun packed

re-appearance.

A game like no other. Junta is a roller coaster ride of opportunism

which can be morally internally conflicting in terms decisions that

need to be taken.

Richard was elected as the inaugural President and after assigning

cabinet positions a statistically unlikely horror budget was drawn

consisting of 7 1s and a 3. (He swears that's what it was...)

The budget was waived through the chamber and there were no

assassinations attempted, with Mark as Minister of Internal Security

holding off taking a crack at anyone at the bank. Everyone with money

chose bank as their location and their funds were promptly deposited.

The second and third budgets followed a similar pattern. The fourth

budget was also passed, but there was a coup excuse and Stefan was the

First Rebel. A closely fought coup with the Minister (Mark) undeclared

until the final moment siding with the rebels. Stefan's Bank guards

fought off waves of Loyalist forces ably supported by air strikes.

Richard was sent to the firing squad.

This brought Stefan to the Presidency and a string of abortive coups

being launched by Richard, the first of which was bombed out of

existence by the air force held by Stefan under the "President's Brother

in law rule". The other coups failed to gain any traction. Mark was

(un)fortunate to be sitting on a pile of cash after successfully

assassinating Russell (thus giving control of the air force to Stefan)

and was sent to the firing squad despite siding with the loyalists. The

stress of dealing with the threat of constant coups brought on a

presidential resignation and Jeff took the helm as President for a brief

moment before being assassinated, Mark also briefly took on the

Presidential mantle and proposed the most generous budget ever seen

handing out 9 million (How much did he draw to be able to afford that

largesse?)

As assassination attempts started to catch on and fly thick and fast

(the misses were as important as the hits) some people ended up sitting

on very big piles of cash and became big targets.

This series of short Presidential terms coincided with the string of

successful assassinations. Richard managed to be on the end of a chain

of assassination attempts in a couple of turns, including the last which

involved the use of the Psychotic assassin which has a risk to the

person playing it.

Poor Mark was successfully assassinated twice and dodged a bullet along

the way as well as being sent to the firing squad. Despite being killed

so many times, if he'd just managed to dodge that Psychotic Assassin on

the last turn he would have won.

All in all, it was a very close game with everyone managing to squirrel

away funds by one means or another. The main difference coming down to

being on the right end of a chain of assassinations as people lined up

at the bank.

A hugely entertaining game. Thanks to everyone for participating.

Museum of the Army Toledo Spain

I should have listened to the man at the information centre.  I had seen the poster for the Siege Museum and hoped that it would give me some inspiration for the siege rules.  I needed directions to find the place and while I received them, they were convoluted given the nature of the layout of the medieval streets in Toledo.  However, he also recommended the army museum, but it didn't quite register.  Pity.

There will be a post on the Siege Museum, but the real treat was the Army Museum which sadly I was very short on time to enjoy when I got there.

Visigoth

Moor

So, I thought the large-scale figures were impressive, but I was not prepared for what I found next.

Sadly, that was all I had time for, and it was just basically a rush to snap off some photos to see what I was missing.  It seemed to be an exhibition specially about toy soldiers. 

The building that houses the museum, the Alcazar of Toledo,

was destroyed in the civil war and the above model shows the ruined state.

It has been restored as can be seen in the photo below of the city,

Museo Naval

It took two goes to get to see this museum in Madrid.  It is based in the Spanish Naval HQ building, and the first time we walked all the way around trying to find the museum entrance.  At the end I thought it must have been closed for construction work, but I think it was just a well-hidden entrance and that it might have been closed on that day.  Second attempt was much more successful.  Better still, the museum was effectively free to enter.  

Well worth it just to see the building in which it is housed.  It is also laid out following the historical time frame which saw Spain become the dominant naval power in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries before its decline.  The navy was a major expense but required to maintain their colonies. 

The collection included various artifacts, models and dioramas as well as paintings.

Magnificent model.

As it was in a glass cabinet 

I had to be careful of reflections

and use of flash.

What is that gorgeous woman doing in the background?

She is doing her own reading so she doesn't need mansplaining.

Combate Naval Entre Espanoles Y Turcos

by Juan De La Corte 1597-1660

The Pope looking at the Battle of Lepanto

Unfortunately, I can't read the descriptive plaque in this photo.

Don Juan of Austria

daring you to comment on his fashion sense,

so he can stick you with his stiletto.

More stirring paintings now moving to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Not just ship models (of which there were a lot)

but also some interesting dioramas of various Spanish naval bases.

Spanish navy bombarding a Peruvian city 2 May 1866

during the Chincha Island Wars.