'Nostalgia' from AlanD - Forgotten Heroes of The Advancing Game

I played my first wargame in the late 1970s, probably when I was about 8 or 9 years old. Every couple of weeks, after some badgering from my brother and me, my dad would move the furniture in the dining room over to the side, get out the 1/32 (54mm) Airfix Napoleonic figures, and we would play The Advancing Game. 

 The imaginatively named Advancing Game involved setting up our boxes of Napoleonic Infantry on one side of the dining room. My box was French Line Infantry, my brother had British, and my dad used the Scots. The goal of the game was to advance as many as possible of our figures across the carpet to the other side of the room, moving our armies a hand span at a time. In between each turn, one of us would be at the other end of the room with our treasured Britains 5.5 inch spring loaded howitzer, firing a certain number of nails to mow down as many of the stoically advancing figures as possible. 

During the next couple of years playing The Advancing Game the three of us competed to devise projectiles to cause as much mayhem as possible, even making chainshot from a couple of nails linked by paper clips. Inaccurate and short range, but it could be devastating as the plastic enemies approached their goal of overrunning the gun.

We grew up, the spring in the gun broke, but playing The Advancing Game remains one of my treasured childhood memories. For the Nostalgia round I went looking for the Airfix figures we used. I couldn't find my French, but I located in a drawer the British and Scots, along with some of the missiles my father made that we once used on the dining room carpet, one of which is featured here.

At last, the heroes of The Advancing Game receive this memorial, in honour of their years of service marching into the jaws of death a hand span at a time.