Tuesday 30 July 2019

The Men Who Would Be Kings: Wherever The Bugles Are Blown...

A bit of a delayed battle report for a The Men Who Would Be Kings game we played at BIG for which  I offered to come up with a scenario not drawn from the rulebook! Santa brought me a copy of Stuart Asquith's Warfare in Egypt and the Sudan for Xmas, so I loosely based the scenario on the Battle of Kirbekan from the Gordon Relief Expedition which is detailed in the book...


I confess it was done a bit on the fly so some things worked better than others... The original battle saw the General Earle split his force, pinning the Mahdists on the Kirkbean heights whilst sending troops to outflank and attack the enemy from the rear. Trying to replicate this was not that easy with a gamer like George who identified the battle from the set up! :-)



Opening attempts to distract the Mahdists with my Indian units and artillery did not start well with the Bengal Lancers getting shot up and Pinned...


...and the 15th Sikhs getting depleted by unerring Mahdist artillery fire!


The bulk of the Imperial force made a forced march off table and turned up on turn 3 on a D6 roll. In retrospect it would probably have been better to refight the battle lengthways down the table to allow the outflanking force to enter far enough away from the Mahdists to deploy together...


This battle saw George employ his Mahdist artillery for the first time, a lovely Perry's model with enslaved Egyptian army crew in chains!


With the appearance of the British behind their positions, the Beja turned to face the threat!


The 1/66th and 2/66th engage the Mahdists behind the heights, whilst the Sikhs seize the opportunity to advance on the remaining enemy in the hills under cover of their own artillery...


The 3/66th and 92nd (Gordon) Highlanders opened fire on their flank Pinning a unit of Beja and Mahdist rifles!


On the other flank though matters took a turn for the worse as the stabby stick guys crashed into the 1/66th and 2/66th...


A couple of turns of melee combat later it was all over...


Meanwhile on the heights the Sikhs, despite suffering 75% casualties, defeat a unit of Mahdist riflemen...


...and take out the enemy cannon! Bole So Nihal, Sat Sri Akal!


Having wiped out two units of the 66th, the Beja turn their attention to the Imperial forces in front of the heights, the British artillery protected by a solitary unit of Bazingers...


The Bazingers though surprise the Beja with an unerringly accurate blast of rifle fire! (6's needed to hit).


The nearest Beja unit was almost wiped out!


However there were two more units of fanatical stabby spear armed natives behind them...


By this stage the battlefield had a distinctly lop-sided look, with the Imperial force having secured control of the heights, but with their artillery dangerously exposed and unsupported...


Despite delaying the native hordes for a turn or two, the Bazingers were unable to hold the Beja off...


...and eventually they were defeated. The artillery desperately tried to stop the native advance...



But could not resist the spears of the Beja and were eventually Pinned and then overrun...


Given the lack of scenario preparation the game was quite enjoyable although I would do things differently if we played it again - I think having the table set up length ways would have made for a better game, allowing for the outflanking force to arrive as one and outside of Mahdist charge range. I would also want to replace the cavalry with another unit of infantry, as Bengal Lancers are not really the best troop type to take on native rifles in the hills! :-)

Thursday 25 July 2019

American War of Independence: North Carolina Militia

Finished my second Rebels & Patriots unit for service down BIG last night - they started well enough before rolling a double one on an activation and then rolling to retreat double move on the 'bad things' table which saw them bugger off from the field of play!


The unit are a Militia unit made of up Perry metals and plastics with a Maverick Models flag. With a  change (or removal) of standard they can be used as Militia for either side of the conflict.


As previously the miniatures were block painted, "dipped" and a few highlights picked out to give that grubby campaign unit that I am looking to achieve...



Thursday 4 July 2019

American War of Independence: 1st Maryland Continentals

Apologies for the lack of updates, gaming has been going on that I haven't had time to sit down and properly report back on, with the last month seeing us delve into the American Revolution using Rebels and Patriots, which is proving fun.

I'll try and get the reports written and uploaded as soon as I can, but as it is the 4th July I thought I better post a couple of photos of my first fully painted American unit, the 1st Maryland (who were victorious last night).


The miniatures are all Perry plastics and were block painted, dipped and then had some details picked out. You may recall I wanted them to look like they were on campaign not parade, so I have gone for quite a grubby look. I need to add a bit of grub to the flag which I picked up from Maverick Models (well worth checking out).


The unit is currently sixteen strong the idea being to use 12 for R&P and 16 for Sharp Practice (which is popular in Bristol). I have however slightly cocked up the 16 as the command figures should be separate for Sharp, so the plan now is to take them up to 24 (with an eye on Black Powder) so I can split in two for Rebels and have enough for other games.