Sharp Practice: Rescue Mission From Changezimurgh!

Game two of 2025 saw a return to the Indian Mutiny, Phil devising a Sharp Practice scenario that saw the Rough-Diamonds trying to hold off revolting natives (run by Andy and David) whilst a British force (led by Phil and myself) from Changezimurgh marches to their rescue...

Badmashes! The bally bounders are on the march and making an awful din!

Talking of dins, the not awful, and very loyal, Gunga Din (and his family) get ready for the Badmashes - will the sahibs arrive in time and save them and the Rough-Diamonds?

Ayo Gorkhali! The Gurkhas are coming! Lieutenant Flynt-Ston advances his brave men towards the beleaguered Ruff-Diamonds.

Ah, jolly good show! It's Lieutenant de Poncenay-Bout and the South Gloucestershire Light Horse, we'll soon have the rebellious wallahs on the run eh what?

And more stout chaps arrive to rescue the Rough-Diamonds - Lieutenant Moore-Bacon commanding two groups of skirmishers from the North Somersetshire Regiment, the safety of old Rough-Diamond and the Memsahib must be a mere formality now...

Gad! Pandies, thousands of them! Out of the shimmering heat the dastardly Subedar Poosh Dittin led his rebellious Sepoys arrives and charges towards the poor Din family...

The gallant Gunga and his boys put up a brave fight, but with Mrs Din shockingly killed by the rebels first volley, and the old servant wounded it looks like his time is up. Never mind the Rough-Diamonds are still ok, Gunga would be happy knowing that as he took his last breath.

Deen! Deen! Deen! The Pandies rush down the road...

The Badmashes following on both flanks.

Top hole, Captain Turner-Round and the regulars of the North Somersets arrive, a few rounds paid fire and the Pandies will be bowled out! Spiffing.

Bole So Nihal, Sat Sri Akal! The Piffers (Punjabi Field Force) led by Captain Oulde-Duffer steal a march on the North Somersets and charge down the road into Poosh Dittin's rebellious sepoys! 

Whilst they send the rebels reeling back, Oulde-Duffer is knocked over in the excitement and half the first group of Sikhs are killed. Still good show chaps, that'll teach the bounders!

Tally Ho! The South Gloucestershire Lights go charging into Badmash leader Argi Bargi and his smelly followers...

The charge was fairly effective but the cavalry failed to wipe out the Badmashes and found themselves surrounded by other nasty native types, eyeing up the South Gloucestershires on their blown horses.

Unfortunately at this point your correspondent has some problems with his photographic equipment and failed to capture some of the excitement, which of course had nothing to do with a very bad turn of events for the Brits which saw Andi Pandi and his fanatical Ghazis rout the Sikhs, the South Gloucestershire take a battering from the Badmashes and Memsahib Rough-Diamond struck dead by a Pandy bullet (perhaps it is just as well such shocking images were not captured by photography and the constitutions of delicate readers like yourself upset...

Once your correspondent had cleaned the dust out of his lens (or whatever rubbish excuse he came up with) he did capture the Ghazis failing to charge in on the North Somersets...

And get a volley for their troubles!

Sadly it was too little too late, British Force Morale was in dire straits and Colonel Rough-Diamond butchered, his underpants removed and used as a flag by the Badmash bounders. And no, do not ask what happened to the Gurkhas...

A fun game, the luck being with the rebellious Andy and David. Personally I out all the blame for the British defeat on Phil sending the Gurkhas off on a sight seeing expedition and then getting overly enthusiastic with the Sikhs. On the plus side though, he so enjoyed playing with them so much, he went off and bought himself a new Punjabi Field Force army for future games!

Sharp Practice: Il ponte verso il nulla...

My first game of 2025 last month was fought down a very busy Bristol Independent Gaming with Andy and Phil taking on the role of the dastardly Austrians against my brave men of the Kingdom of Italy in a Napoleonic bash with the Italians trying to capture a bridge before the Austrians blew it up!

The Italians soon came under fire from the pesky Austrian Grenzers!

And before the main Italian force could turn up, a column of Austrian Fusiliers arrived saying "Arbeitet härter, ihr nutzlosen Narren!" to the pioneers fixing explosive charges to the bridge.

The infantry were followed by some cavalry, Chevaulegers I think..

The Austrian side of the field was beginning to look very crowded with Landwehr appearing as well. It was going to be something of a task for the Italians to get through that, especially the the force commander and his Fucilieri were nowhere to be seen...

Whilst I still awaited the rest of the Fucilieri to arrive, I was able to deploy the Volteggiatori of the 1° Reggimento Fanteria Leggera who moved swiftly through the trees attempting to outflank the Austrian columns...

...who marched resolutely forward...

Their way barred by two groups of line Volteggiatori who were screening two advance groups of Fucilieri.

The Grenzers to the right of the Austrian column started firing at the Line Volteggiatori...

Whilst the light infantry Volteggiatori tried to stop the Austrian cavalry from seizing their secondary deployment point - and failing, one dead Austrian short of causing the Chevauleger to fall back. This meant that when (if) the main Italian unit arrived, they would have a long walk to the battle.

Fortune favours the brave - well sometimes! Having flanked the Austrian Fusilier column, the Italian Line Volteggiatori charged into the side of the Austrians! And were beaten off, despite causing a number of casualties...

The Italian Cacciatore a Cavallo charged into the Austrian cavalry and broke them - one turn too late.

Unfortunately I didn't take any more photos of the battle and so you will have to take my word for it that the light infantry Volteggiatori caught the Austrian mina column in the flank, breaking them and routing the Austrian force commander, last seen running into the forest! However it was too little too late and when the bulk of the Fucilieri turned up, the Austrians had the bridge ready for destruction and the Italian Force Morale on the ropes.

Not the best start to 2025!

French & Indian Wars: Gorham's Rangers

The other day Lance at Galloping Major kindly asked for permission to include one of my photos of my Gorham's Rangers unit in an updated Rangers Guide he is preparing for his website. I offered to take some 'clean' non-game photos for him, which I did, subsequently realising I had not posted pictures of the unit here when I painted them (nor the 1st Virginia which I'll dig out).

The main reason I went with Gorham's Rangers rather than Rogers' more famous compatriots was mainly because everyone and their Aunt Nelly seems to have Rogers Rangers in their French & Indian Wars armies, but also because I liked the uniform colour (green is soooo 1758 you know...)

The miniatures are Galloping Major and are an absolute joy to paint. I recently picked up some more following a recent sale with a view to adding some Native Americans to my force, and to convert some to North Carolina provincials who on the Forbes Expedition of 1758 were noted to be wearing native dress.

Panzerfäuste: Orc Infantry Command

Following on from the Orc Infantry Sections I've painted up for Panzerfäuste, I thought they needed some command so painted up the Command set...

Rupert (officer) and Buzzhead (radio operator)

Cha Wallah (bringing tea to the frontline) and Senior NCO.

Sawbones (medic).

Cracker (sniper team).

Orc Boffins with Enigma Machine.

Panzerfäuste: Orc Infantry sections

With Big Jim Prints making the Panzerfäuste line available once more, and being roped into running a participation game late last year at the Bristol Independent Gaming Open Day, I painted up a section of the  Orc infantry (which as you can see wear WW2 British kit...)

Having enjoyed getting back in the Panzerfäuste vibe painting them up, I wondered how easy it would be to mix and match the arms and bodies to create variants - the answer was very easy with minimal Green Stuff filling needed on just a couple of figures...

I have now converted a third section to give me a full platoon of Orcs, just need to grab some painting time!

A Cunning Plan (or two...) for 2025!

Well that was 2024, a year of mixed emotions, the worst being the passing of my gaming mate George at the start of the year. As regular readers will know we played a lot of Rampant games together down Bristol Independent Gaming and had started working our way through 6mm modern rules, looking for the perfect set (not WRG Moderns which he is trying to work out below!) He is missed and it was not for nothing that he was known as 'Gentleman George' down BIG. 

Games wise I've played a lot more than I've managed to blog about including a lot of Lardy games with Andy, Phil and Jenny, got a bit of AirWar 1918 in with Jim, some Force on Force with Andy, Battlegroup Northag with Jimmy and Andy and (though I still have to post about it) participated in a great Billhooks multi-player game refighting Barnet and Tewkesbury over a weekend. A fantastic event organised by Mike (you can read about it on his blog here and here).

So how well did I do with A Cunning Plan (or two,,,) for 2024!? Well not very well if truth be told, the 20mm Japanese are started and half painted but nowhere near ready to hit the table, whilst the First Afghan War and Crete '41 are still sat in Really Useful Boxes... I'll roll them over to 2025 and add a couple more.

First off is painting up the Mutineers for Winter Wonder Lard V on 1st Feb. I've already more than enough British for the game but need to paint up some oppositionr. Today I've sorted out nine groups of infantry and six groups of skirmishers from the Mutineer RUB and started basing them up.

Secondly I do want to do some fantasy and/or science fiction sometime next year and top of the list are the Quar! I've not managed to get around to adding to my Crusader Squad painted earlier this year, but Jim has printed me some tractors (Quar tanks) and they are as lovely as the infantry...

Finally Andy shocked the known universe by expressing an interest in Footsore's Baron's War (history for Andy pretty much starts around 1750) and ordering a set of the rules. I do have a hankering to do something earlier medieval than the Burgundian Wars so might be tempted by a box of the Wargames Atlantic plastics and I've always been fascinated by The Anarchy (1138-53) so might scratch that itch.

Whether these plans will be as successful as 2023, or as bad as 2024 we shall see. I will resolve however to try and remember to blog a bit more regularly in 2025! Happy New Year everyone.

Chariots Rampant: Between the Hammer and Anvil at Millawanda...

Despite the usual pre-Christmas chaos engulfing the home front on the Saturday before Xmas, I managed to sneak out for a quick game of Chariots Rampant down Bristol Independent Gaming with Jim...

We decided to play the Hammer and Anvil scenario from the Lion Rampant rulebook, with the Warriors of the Green, a raiding Sea Peoples warband having been cornered by the Hittite Warriors of Tarḫunna... (a slight FUBAR occurred in my mis-reading the Hittite deployment so we ended up playing a scenario similar to one in The Men Who Would Be Kings with the retreating raiders having to punch through defenders - all anvil and no hammer!)

Having seen Hittite spear in their line of retreat, the Warriors of the Green were initially not that keen on advancing which allowed the Hittite warband leader Muwatalli the Merciless to bring up his reinforcements...

The Sea Peoples advance was extremely disjointed with the right flank pushing forward, with the left standing around admiring the desert panorama.

The Mighty Death-Bringers (Lukka warrior infantry) were keen to get home and pushed up with The Thundering Hooves (ox-carts) moving remorselessly forward behind...

On the right The Death Rainers (archers) advanced, supported by The Wind Runners (Tjekker light infantry.

The Mighty Death-Bringers soon came under arrow fire from Muwatalli's The Eye of the Storm (light chariots), three warriors falling dead to the desert floor.

On the Sea Peoples left, The Anvil of Heaven, a Hittite light chariot unit tries to outflank the raiders...

As the bulk of The Warriors of Tarḫunna form a defensive line in the centre.

I'm not sure what Hittite is for "went tits up" but that's what happened next. Muwatalli the Merciless commanding The Eye of the Storm from the front found themselves just within Wild Charge distance of The Mighty Death-Bringers, who charge the chariots, destroying one and causing Muwatalli to flee the battlefield following a failed Courage test!

The units of the Warriors of Tarḫunna all pass their mandatory Courage test following the rout of their general, and prepared for the Sea People onslaught!

The Warriors of the Green pour forward towards the Hittites.

The Thundering Hooves (ox-carts) (the King Tigers of the Biblical Age ;-) ) trundle into The Stalwart Wall (veteran heavy infantry)...

Followed in by The Lightning of the Sand Sea (light chariots) who wipe them out!

The Sea Peoples continue their attack, The Death Rainers (archers) firing into the Hittite spear who are gradually whittled down...

The Anvil of Heaven charge into The Lightning Legs (Tjekker light infantry) forcing them back, but this was a last hurrah for the Hittites as the Sea Peoples archers picked off spear and a chariot, and the leaderless Warriors of Tarḫunna disintegrated.

A bloody victory for Kubaba the Conqueror and his Warriors of the Green, though many were left for dead on the battlefield, and another good game of Chariots Rampant!

Futbowel: On Christmas Day...

With Christmas on the horizon last week I ref'd a game of Futbowel for Andy, Jack and Phil with a slight twist - the Orcs and Dwarves were replaced with their historical counterparts, converted from Wargames Atlantic WWI plastics...

The rules we played were pretty much 'as is' in the rulebook, though bad 'fowls' were not punished by a firing squad, but the offender made to sit it out until the next time a Joker was pulled out the card deck.

I think the lads enjoyed the game, the score was 1-1 at full time so we played extra-time were, in an uncanny preview of events in 1966, the English team scored the winner! Futbowels coming home...

Hope everyone had a great Christmas, and one of my New Year's resolutions will be to update the blog a bit more often!