En Garde! The Bladé and the Camp Ambassador

The Bladé and the Camp Ambassador

The Flashing Blade has learned of the Papal Nuncio's top secret peace negotiations with the Spanish Ambassador, at a house somewhere in Savoy.  The Chevalier invades the grounds, sets off a battle between the Papal guards and the Savoyards, and generally ruins the proceedings.

Having re-watched the Flashing Blade TV series as "research" I was quite amazed at how much it differed from my childhood memories of the show.  Yes the Flashing Blade is still a glorious heroic idiot, but it seems to me that the "peace talks" take up a huge quantity of screen time.  The participants are all camp, some to a huge degree, and the "love story" is also, I`m sorry to say, high camp.  From a lot of sword fighting in the first few shows we gradually fall into a series of long winded and very camp Ambassadorial negotiations.  I think its all meant to be a French homage to Cardinal Mazarin, who is the Papal Nuncio.  Very strange... still it had a great theme tune!


There is also the fact that in the later episodes the Blade himself hides from the Spanish by joining a travelling theatre group, and dons stripy tights to play Scaramouche.   The writers had no shame!  A masterful disguise though since he neglects to wear the mask!  It doesn't get much more camp than stripy tights on a man with that sixties hairdo, especially if he calls himself the Flashing Bladé.


If you intended to re-watch the Flashing Blade and I`ve spoiled the plot for you I can only point out, in my defence, that it makes no sense anyway, and I`ve saved you a fiver for the DVD.

The Game

The negotiations in full flow.

My Papal Nuncio is the Cardial Richelieu figure from Old Glory, most of my En Garde! figures are from this source.

The French Musketeers have an uneasy truce with the Savoyards guarding the Ambassador.

 The arrival of the Bladé sparks an argument.  Swords are drawn.

...and a huge melee breaks out.

Please note that the Chevalier is still rolling abysmal dice whilst faithful Lurkio hops over the wall and drives his way forward.

 Good parrying from the Bladé, but he should over match this Savoyard Musketeer easily.

Lurkio breaks into the peace negotiations, and delivers some exposition, "Castle... under siege... Spanish are the baddies..."

We know that the Nuncio has a thing for Lurkio from previous games.  He rolls 2 x 6 and gets a 12.  Lurkio is in luck!  "Put your chocolate balls away, you are trying to spoil us..." he tells the Ambassador in a heavilly dubbed Italian accent.

The fighting is dying down.  really difficult to keep track of but the French still have four Musketeers standing, and the remaining Savoy boys surrender.  Amazingly the Bladé  is still alive.

Four Musketeers?  Surely not.

The Papal Nuncio asks the Bladé to travel to the French frontier and bring back a signed order from the double dealing Duke of Savoy that will allow him to break the siege.

He warns the Bladé that the Spanish will try to stop him, and that means Diego Vigo Alatriste, from whom our hero only escaped last time by ending the episode, cheating and stretching the TV viewers credulity.  He may need to seek out those travelling players and the stripy tights pretty quickly!