The Men Who Would Be Kings: They Marched to Death...

Amongst my numerous attempts to liberate the Thirteen Colonies from the oppression of the dastardly George III we managed a brief foray down BIG back to the baking deserts of the Sudan, sadly once again stained by Imperial blood...

George suggested we play the 'It's Awfully Quiet Out There...' scenario from The Men Who Would Be Kings,  me forgetting that it was not a scenario I've managed to do very well in! The Madhists had 36 points (including a cannon),  the Imperials 27 points, strung out in column of march, surprised by the appearance of loads of screaming natives on their flanks!



Who promptly surged forward towards the thin khaki line...



...into the crashing fire of the 66th Line who pinned two Beja units!



Mad Mullah George then opened fire with his (rather lovely Perry Miniatures) cannon with its captured Egyptian crew (wearing manacles)...



... killing five of the Bazingers and Pinning them! :-(



Suddenly things started to look a bit tense for the Imperials with Beja charging in from one flank and River Arabs from the other.



Steady rifle fire inflicted a number of casualties on the Mahdists, Pinning two units of Beja and one of the River Arabs!



However one of the other Beja charged through their reticent comrades into the 1/66th...



...and whilst a number fell to the polished bayonets of the brave Brits, they cut down a number of them forcing the Imperials back.



The 2/66th suddenly found itself alone facing three units of Beja!



Who charged in, in turn, Pinning and reducing the noble Berks...



...before a final assault...

...wiped them out!



The River Arabs then charged into the 1/66th...



...and with the help of the Beja destroyed a second unit of British regulars!



The Madhists scented victory on the blood soaked battlefield and followed up...



...smashing into the 3/66th, killing four and Pinning them!




Under attack by Fierce Beja and River Arabs, the pluck Brits tried to fight back, but failed their Morale role and remained Pinned reducing their melee dice by half...

The result was inevitable, leaving the 15th Sikhs to face the Mahdists. Unfortunately they failed a Morale check caused by the destruction of the 3/66th and whilst there were a lot of dead natives scattered across the desert sands, there were still enough live ones armed with stabby spears to guarantee a Native victory!

A sad tale to report to GHQ... I've yet managed to win this scenario (3 defeats out of 3) and to be honest I'm not 100% sure it is winnable for the defender when the attacker has more units than they are able to target with rifle fire. Sure a lot of casualties were inflicted on the Mahdists but they always seemed to have one more unit to charge through into hand to hand combat were they excel. Perhaps the scenario might work better if the attackers entered via the short table sides, or the forces were balanced? That all said it was still an enjoyable game.

Rebels and Patriots: The Battle of Guilford Barn

I've been a bit remiss in updating the blog with battle reports over the last month due to work etc, but hopefully normal service will be resumed now...

In October Andy introduced us to the delights of Sharp Practice so we thought it only fair to return the complement and introduce him to Rebels and Patriots...

With George in command of the nefarious British oppressors, Andy took command of my brave Patriots whilst I acted as his French military advisor (not that he really needed much help!). We decided to play a similar game to that we played with Steve and Matt, with the British attempting to capture the road junction, though this time we restricted the forces to 36 points a side.

Andy set up his brave Patriots with Militia and a cannon forming the front line with two units of Continental Line...



Meanwhile George loaded his left flank, keeping the bulk of his force away from the enemy artillery.



Initially he sent his Light Infantry forward on the right, Andy's artillery opening fire and inflicting one casualty...



Then another...



Then, with the assistance of a Continental Line unit, even more, inflicting a permanent Disorder marker on them!

The other Continental unit with the Army commander attached positioned itself to support the Militia and Rifles faced by the bulk of the British army...



Where battle commenced, the Patriot Rifles engaging a British Line unit in close order.



Having forced the Rifles back and inflicted casualties on the Militia, the Queen's Rangers charged forward to try and rout the Disordered Rifles, but came up fractionally short...



The Rifles and Militia wiping them out in two subsequent rounds of musket fire!



Things were looking really good for Andy, but not everything went his way as an attempt to order a Militia unit forward on the right saw them roll a double on and then roll a double move retreat!



The right flank saw the two forces engage in a couple of rounds of musketry...

The Rifles inflicting a number of casualties on the British. Matters were looking grim for the forces of the Crown...

But perhaps fortune favours the brave. In a desperate move George charged his Shock infantry into the central Continental line unit...



Causing a large number of casualties...



And then routing them in the follow up, killing the American commander as well!

In a flash, fortunes had turned, the British punching a big whole in the American line and even more surprisingly the Disordered remnants of the Light infantry on the right inflicted casualties on the artillery, Disordering them!



The British Shock infantry charged into the nearby American militia...

Wiping them out in one turn of melee combat!

They then switched targets, taking out the enemy artillery before advancing on Andy's remaining Continental line unit...

Smashing into their flank and defeating them in turn.



Wow, what a battle!

For a long time it seemed victory was destined for the Americans, but George's desperate charge with his Shock infantry turned things completely on their head and the loss of the American general saw the remaining troops start to fail rolls they had previously been passing with the +1 modifier when he was present.

Despite defeat Andy seemed to enjoy the game and a different experience to Sharp Practice which was good.

Rebels and Patriots: The Battle of Guilford Mill

With Steve and Matt having broken their AWI cherry with Sharp Practice, George and I decided to rope them into a game of Rebels and Patriots, ambitiously hosting a 48 point a side game loosely based on the Battle of Guilford Courthouse. As with our earlier games of TMWWBK we are painting up forces as we play games, but as you can see we are getting there!

As per the historical battle we lined up the American forces in three lines, of increasingly better quality troops. Unlike the historical battle half the British army was made up of Hessian mercenaries and the Patriots had some Indians hiding in the wood!

The American plan was to wear down the advancing Loyalist army before unleashing their Continental line on the weary survivors. This would mean that the front line of the North Carolina Militia would need to inflict a number of casualties before inevitably breaking. Well they achieved one of those things...

A couple of turns in and one unit of the North Carolina Militia run away after being shot at by the Hessians leaving a huge gap in the Patriot line!

However as the 1st Maryland Continentals moved up they rolled a double 6 on their activation roll.  This means something good happens and rolling another 6 I consulted the table on page 22 of the rules - huzzah!, another 4 points of troops! Having a spare unit of Virginia Militia I brought them onto the table.

Elsewhere George's Highlanders rolled a double 1, meaning something bad happens! He rolls a D6 and gets another 1 (I kid you not) meaning the Highlanders mistake the nearest friendly unit for the enemy and fire at them. With the first round of fire giving a +1 on dice rolls this looked bad for George but fortunately for him the nearest unit was one of Light Infantry which take 3 hits to kill not 2 so only 2 redcoats fell to the friendly fire!

With the gap in the line,  I decided to move the new militia up into the second line and move one in the second line up to the face the Hessians...

Unfortunately the newly arrived Virginia Militia where clearly confused by the smoke of battle, rolled a double 1 and then a 1 on the table, firing their first volley into the 1st Maryland in front of them killing four! This was probably my best firing roll of the game! 

Elsewhere the first line of Militia were beginning to wobble as the Loyalist army poured fire into them...

...and soon they broke with two units routing and one barely holding out despite Matt's leader falling to British Light Infantry fire!

The 2nd Maryland move up and the Virginian Rifle Corp move into the light woods to engage the British, but the sudden collapse of the North Carolina Militia had a negative effect on the next line of troops with the Virginia Militia failing Morale tests and becoming Broken.

Having spent many hours painting up his Militia, it was a sad sight for Matt to see them all hiding in his carry box and not being on the table!

That said, despite not having inflicted a large number of casualties on the Loyalists as planned, they had considerably slowed their advance and as time ran out for us, the battle looked like this...

Despite us running out of time, Matt and Steve enjoyed the game. I would have liked to see the Indians get into hand to hand combat with the Hessians but they failed an order roll in the last turn, so we'll have to wait another day for that... 

Whilst only a learning game, in retrospect, we probably should have put a turn limit on the game to encourage the Loyalists to advance up the table quicker and not stand around trading shots with the North Carolina Militia. That said it was still fun and hopefully next time Matt will have some better dice rolls and his Militia stand around and get some more shots off!

Stuart Asquith RIP

Earlier today I read on Battlegames of the sad passing of Stuart Asquith. Whilst his name may not be spoken of in quite the same terms of Featherstone or Grant, his contribution to the hobby is no less important and for me, personally, the encouragement to write for wargames magazines, starting with Practical Wargamer and my Glasnost and the Modern Wargamer article many moons ago when Stuart was editor.

Uniquely at the time Stuart was prepared to include fantasy and SF wargaming articles in his magazine, unlike the editors of Miniature Wargames and Wargames Illustrated, unlike them Stuart regarded it as just another period played with toy soldiers, a sentiment I whole heartedly agreed with and Stuart kindly published a couple of Lord of the Rings themed articles I write for Practical Wargamer.

I only spoke to him on the phone a couple of times when he was editor, but he was always polite and helpful and his wisdom freely given. He has written copious books and articles and I shall be digging some out to re-read over the next few days...

Haunted House!

SWMBO is a big fan of Hallowe'en, more so than Christmas, and the other week she had the bright idea of building up a Hallowe'en village, rather like those Christmas ones the Americans love. I recalled I had a cheap plaster building I'd bought from Hobbycraft many moons ago to see if it would be any good for gaming so dug it out and said if she liked it she could have it.

She did but insisted I painted it for her! :-)

A quick paint job by drybrushing over a black undercoat, it has come up nicely...

The hollow interior is painted orange so when you put a tealight inside it glows in a suitabley spooky fashion!

Sadly Hobbycraft have stopped producing these models and I can't find a UK source for any more (even Xmas ones I could convert), so it might be a case of scratch building the rest of the village with DAS type modelling clay.

Sharp Practice: The Culpeper Conspiracy

Too Fat Lardies' Sharp Practice is pretty popular down BIG, with regular French and Indian War events held on weekends. Whilst George and I have been happily testing out and tweaking Rebels and Patriots AWI games, we are open minded souls and when Andy said he was up for running a game for newbies, we jumped at the chance and roped in Steve with his newly painted Hessians... As I was trying to pay attention to Andy teaching us the rules I didn't take lots of photos.

George swapped his Tory sensibilities to side with the brave Whig rebels taking command of three units of State troops and one skirmish unit, whilst I had two units of Continentals and one of skirmishers. Steve had two units of Musketeers, two Guards and two Jaegers, both sides have one level 3 leader, one level 2 and two level 1. Both sides were given secret missions to complete, the Americans to rescue and escort a brave spy across the table.

My first deployment was the Contintentals, who started marching up the road, similarly Steve's Hessian Musketeers started up from the opposite side. Our next deployments brought on Skirmish units and second deployment points further up the table.

This allowed George to deploy his State troops close to the road junction and await the oncoming Hessian Musketeers...

Against who he launched a series of devastating volleys!

Inflicting casualties and Shock points on the cabbage chomping mercenaries, forcing them back. 

Off camera, George's skirmishers found the spy, we now had to escort him down the table - through the Hessians!

Meanwhile one of Steve's Jaeger units, whose heritage would one day clearly include the Brandenburg Kommando, rushed up the table using the building for cover and started pumping lead into the flank of the State troopers inflicting a casualty and some Shock.

My skirmishers tried to engage them and in a flurry of rifle fire both sides took Shock and my leader was knocked to the ground! 

Falling back the Kommandos, sorry Jaegers, chased the heroic American riflemen...

...and in a round of hand to hand combat, both units were badly mauled. After another round only the American leader remained but he managed to force the last few Jaegers to fall back into the arc of the (slowly advancing) Continentals who wiped them out.

At that point we had to call it a night but concluded that if we had played on the Americans would have likely won as Steve's Grenadiers had ended up with low ammo (so half firing effectiveness) and his Musketeers were badly mauled. With the Continentals and State troops still in good heart, they would most likely be able to protect George's skirmishers whilst they escorted the spy off the table.

This was a very different game to Rebels and Patriots, the most noticeable differences being the (much) longer weapons range and the lower number of casualties. As it was out first game I'm not sure if it would be as appreciably slower as this game was, given the learning curve, but there are more modifiers to consider on dice rolls. It was very helpful having Andy take us through the rules, as we'd all been a tad confused reading the rulebook!

Overall an enjoyable experience, we all enjoyed the game and have picked up sets of poker chips and tokens from Lardies for future games...

American War of Independence: 1st Continental Artillery

The last in my current painting batch for my American Rebels and Patriots army for Guildford Courthouse is this Perry Miniatures 3 pounder with crew...

Unfortunately this was case of the usual wargamer 'ooh shiny' disease hitting as I saw the model on Perry's website and just had to have it, forgetting the 1st Continental Artillery at Guildford Courthouse had 6 pounders. Oh well, I'll just have to buy one of those too! :-)

In the background you can see 'Molly Parker' who comes with the Warlord AWI artillery set and kindly donated to the rebel cause by Steve Weekes.

American War of Independence: Virginia Rifle Corps

Another eighteen infantry painted for Rebels and Patriots, though 2/3 of them saw their first action in a game of Sharp Practice earlier this week. From a Rebels and Patriots perspective they will be classed a Light Infantry, in a few test games we've played neither George or I felt that the Skirmish classification rules worked in a suitable fashion for the C18th and the one time we had a Sharpshooter unit on the table it was like facing an MG42! :-)

As to what unit at Guildford Courthouse these guys are I'm not 100% sure. Initially the idea was to have some units of Virginian Rifle Corp Skirmishers but I need to have a think about it, perhaps they could be split into Light Infantry small units. Something to ponder...

As previous the figures are a mix of Perry plastics and metals and some Foundry metals, block painted and dipped...

American War of Independence: 2nd Maryland Continentals

Having painted three units of Militia for Rebels and Patriots, I decided to concentrate on a second Continental Army unit to go with the 1st Maryland which I painted back in the July - the 2nd Maryland!

By 1781 Continental Army units were supposed to wear blue coats (and when I get around to the Virginia regiments they will be in blue like the 1st Maryland), but following the destruction of Gates' army at Camden in 1780 the remnants of the seven Maryland line regiments which fought there were reconstituted, just before Guildford Courthouse, as the 1st Maryland Regiment and a new 2nd Maryland Regiment was raised, unusually for the time in brown coats (and unlike their namesakes from a year earlier at Camden who wore blue!).

I have read that the drummer should be painted in a blue coat with red facings but I am not 100% sure of that so went with the traditional reversed colours...

As previously I have block painted then dipped the figures in Army Painter Strong Tone dip, picking out the "white" straps in pale grey and adding some flesh highlights afterwards. It's not the neatest look, but suits my idea of troops on campaign in the field in the spring of 1781. The miniatures are all Perry plastics with a couple of Foundry metals and the flag is again is from Maverick Models.