Operation Oryx: Turn 5

LAW-equipped Recon Team Alpha has just one task this turn – tackle an inquisitive BMP. It executes its orders, but, for mystifying reasons, chooses to do so in a somewhat perverse way.

LAW-equipped Recon Team Alpha has just one task this turn – tackle an inquisitive BMP. It executes its orders, but, for mystifying reasons, chooses to do so in a somewhat perverse way.

Unlike the formidable Friday foxers, the Monday kind are designed with lone truth sleuths in mind. While Roman, my Chief Foxer Setter, would be very interested to know how long it takes you to defox today’s brainteaser, he requests that the comments section isn’t used to share solutions or drop hints.

To qualify for a ‘Dusty But Trusty’ article, a game must be old enough to vote in Nicaragua, buy tobacco in Djibouti, and make the beast with two backs in Nepal. More importantly, it must be demonstrably super, smashing, great, ace, wizard, bonzer, the knees of the bee, the testicles of the dog, and the whiskers and pyjamas of the cat. You don’t need rose-tinted pince-nez or a cutting-edge pixel pump to enjoy 24 karat golden oldies like… T-72: Balkans on Fire!*

Every Friday at 1300 hours, Tally-Ho Corner’s cleverest clogs come together to solve a ‘foxer’ handcrafted by my sadistic chum and colleague, Roman. A complete ‘defoxing’ sometimes takes several days and usually involves the little grey cells of many readers. Don’t be shy. All are welcome to participate.

In turn number čtyři a panting Major Trajanov plants a metaphorical Trevar (the Zendoran flag) on top of Strupnic’s lofty dovecot, two friendly units come under fire, and, peering through his binoculars, Branko Somlac mutters, with distinct relish, “Something wicked this way comes!”.

Lieutenant Guskov – one of the Podrabian Army’s less diligent representatives – is woken from his slumbers by the THUMP-THUMP-THUMP of an inconsiderate drop hammer. It takes him several seconds to figure out where he is (The bottle-strewn bar of the Traveller’s Rest Hotel in one-horse Zendoran backwater, Strupnic) and several seconds more to realise that the inconsiderate drop hammer isn’t in fact an inconsiderate drop hammer.

Unlike the formidable Friday foxers, the Monday kind are designed with lone truth sleuths in mind. While Roman, my Chief Foxer Setter, would be very interested to know how long it takes you to defox today’s brainteaser, he requests that the comments section isn’t used to share solutions or drop hints.

A is for Alphabetised wargame, sim, and site news. Once a month, assuming I can persuade Austerity’s Blackburn Cirrus Bombardier engine to perform the miracle of internal combustion, I spend a day or two scouring Simulatia and Grognardia for stories with the potential to fascinate, startle, cheer, dismay or amuse. Those stories are then dehydrated, alphabetised and delivered, via articles like this one, to people who’ve got better things to do than plough through puff and platitudes.