TABLETOP gaming is popular and older men need an evening activity to keep them red-faced and angry. So why not take on small boats with the Navy as Reform intends?
Instructions: Roll a six-sided die as many times as is required. Dice with larger numbers of sides are available, but came along after 1979 so are suspect. For miniatures, use an Airfix destroyer and ‘dinghies’ snipped from a rubber glove.
Roll 4-6 to launch
Let battle commence! Except Royal Navy destroyers can’t be launched as rapidly as small rubber boats, so a lengthy series of systems tests must be completed. Twiddle your thumbs for five hours.
Engage the enemy
You have visual contact with the dinghies but the Admiralty, because they’re woke, are reluctant to authorise war crimes so you must roll four sixes for permission to engage. If you succeed, jump to ‘Begin attack!’. If you fail, continue to:
Boring humanitarian mission
You send out a launch to collect the migrants. Roll 1-3 to help each one on board your destroyer, 5-6 to attempt to take their name, 1-6 to give them a blanket, and 4-6 to send them to the sick bay if necessary. Repeat this 37 times for each migrant. Tabletop gaming has never been so realistic.
Begin attack!
Roll 1-5 to launch torpedoes
Spearfish torpedoes with 300kg warheads are unleashed. Unfortunately they’re not designed for attacking flimsy rubber boats, so roll three sixes for them to detonate. Otherwise they just bump the dinghies and disappear into the North Sea. That cost you 24 million quid.
Open fire with your main gun
This is more like it. Roll 1-6 to fire your 4.5 inch Mark 8 gun loaded with high explosive shells. Now roll more dice to calculate the damage to each dinghy. A score of 1-6 indicates they’ve been atomised. Naval combat doesn’t get more exciting than this!
Machine-gun survivors
A frequently expressed right-wing fantasy. However it’s pretty chilling even as a tabletop gaming move, so roll four sixes to confirm you have the unusual level of psychopathy required to give this order.
Be charged with crimes against humanity
On returning to port you are immediately suspended and told you’re being charged with crimes against humanity by the Hague. Will prime minister Farage intervene and get you off the hook? Only if you roll nine sixes every day for a year. Good luck!
