Battle in Darkest Africa!

Colonial game 24/4/2010
Situation:
The game is set in darkest Africa in about 1880. A small British force is attempting to find and destroy a native raiding force allied to Arab slavers, thought to be guarding a river ford.

Forces:
The African force was generated randomly by a ‘2-hour wargame’ system being used as a test. The British force consisted of 20 regular Sikh infantry,

and 40 mixed Askaris.

The game:
The 3 players each took a force of 20 infantry, Andy, a new player to this period decided to take the Sikhs, while the experienced players took the Askaris. Andy decided to lead his Sikhs in a skirmish line to sweep over a large hill, then through some woods,

while the Askaris were directed to move in the open across the river and engage any natives they met.

The Sikhs moved confidently into the wood while their officer and a few men skirted the wood to their right.

The Sikhs first sight of the enemy was when a shower of arrows fell amongst the Sikhs in the wood, wounding 2 of them. The Sikhs fired back forcing the enemy archers to withdraw.

The Sikhs British officer and his escorts were shot at with arrows at the same time, but took no damage. The Sikhs fired into the wood hitting some of the archers which caused them to fall back into the wood. Seeing their targets flee the Sikhs officer led his men toward the wood in pursuit, only for the archers, who were returning to the wood edge after their momentary panic, to shoot a volley of arrows at their pursuers. Over half the Sikhs in this party were killed or wounded, and their officer fell with 3 arrows in him.

Relieved of their less than inspiring officer, the Sikhs NCOs began to extricate themselves from their sticky situation. The Sikhs in the wood, having seen a large body of spearmen behind the archers, began to fall back through the wood, while the remaining Sikhs in the open fired at the archers, making them hide deeper in the wood.

The enemy spearmen in the wood, seeing the Sikhs facing them withdrawing, charged after them, and despite taking several casualties from fire managed to engage them. In short order numbers told and the Sikhs fell back through the wood, leaving several casualties behind.

The Sikhs in the open tried to come to their aid but were overwhelmed by the natives.

Soon all the Sikhs were fleeing toward a hill to their rear, but the natives, satisfied with their victory, remained in the wood.

Meanwhile, the Askaris, moving in a rough line encountered a large body of natives lurking in some rough ground on the far side of the river. The natives failed to charge, rightly fearful of the fire of the Imperial troops. One of the Askari groups impetuously charged toward the rough ground, firing, but were driven back with a couple of dead by a native countercharge.




Fortunately other Askaris charged the natives in flank as they followed up, while other Askaris fired at them.

The natives fell back to the rough ground licking their wounds. Once the Askaris got a proper firing line close to the rough ground, this group of natives, after standing bravely under fire for a time, disintegrated and fled.

However, another large party of natives appeared from further back in the rough ground, and, motivated by their chief tried to charge the Askaris.

The Imperial troops stood calmly and fired at the attacking natives, in one fearsome volley the chief, his second and half his bodyguard fell.

The natives, dismayed by their chiefs loss withdrew into the woods leaving the Imperial force victorious. In many ways this battle showed how inexperienced and impetuous officers, no matter how good their men can throw away certain victory by failing to use their massive fire! At least the officer in question had the decency to die in action rather than face the inevitable board of enquiry!

(Figures provided by Lawrence, Pictures by Lawrence and Richard, Rules -My own!)

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Report on French and Indian wars game 06/03/10

Report on French and Indian game 06/03/10
Situation:
The battle took place along a road running through a small settlement.

The English force consisted of a company of the 22nd foot, supported by a group of a dozen militiamen, and small parties of Delaware and Mohawk Indians. Facing them were a company of Metropolitan regiment Baern, a compagnie Franche, and several dozen Huron allies.

The English force started the game marching up the rough road toward a settlement, they had the militia scouting ahead, and Mohawks guarding the left and Delawares the right of the 22nd.

‘Les Francaises’ were deployed hidden, apart from the French regulars, who were advancing down the road towards the settlement from the opposite direction.

The Battle:
First contact was made when a small band of Hurons opened fire from a stand of trees into the Militia, killing one militiaman.

The militia naturally dived for cover and then began moving forward to outflank the enemy.

The Delawares on that wing advanced rapidly over a small rise to shoot in support, the first group fired their rifles killing one, and wounding another Huron, but were hit by the return fire, one of their number being killed, causing his companions to drag his body back to safety.

The rest of the Delawares moved up and fired ineffectively at the ambushers.

It was only when a section of regulars formed line and fired a volley into them that they fled! Suddenly, another party of Hurons jumped out from the left flank of the advancing militia, immediately killing their leader, and beginning a savage extended melee.

On the English left, the Mohawks had found another ambushing party of Hurons, stumbling into their flank. The Hurons bravely counter-attacked, but were no match for the Mohawks.

More Hurons appeared, baiting the Mohawks deeper into the woods, and soon they were isolated from the regulars.

The regulars, having paused to clear the frontal ambush, advanced past the militia’s melee towards the settlement, their objective.

The Mohawks were ambushed by another party of Hurons on top of a small hill, a sudden volley scattered a few of the Mohawks, but the remaining Mohawks outflanked the Huron’s position, forcing them to fall back from the hill.

The reason for them retreating became obvious, however, as behind them were several groups of Hurons massed behind the hill!

The Mohawks then understandably hastily retraced their steps, back to the regulars, before they could be attacked and overrun!

This mass of Hurons however had bigger fish to fry, and advanced to fire into the flank of the advancing 22nd!

The 22nd remorselessly continued towards the settlement, only to find the French regulars there first! – deployed in line in open ground by the settlement.

The English captain considered trying to outflank them, but their Indian allies finally persuaded them to fall back.

The Delawares covering the retreat .

The French regulars did not fire at the retreating English, preferring to leave them to the Hurons! (A few quotes from Monty Python and the Holy Grail about blowing noses seemed appropriate at this point!)

The game showed us, perhaps, why Braddock’s expedition failed, though thankfully on a smaller scale!

(Regulars by Crusader miniatures, Irregulars by Perry and Conquest miniatures)

(Pictures by Lawrence and Richard)

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Pirate game!

Steve Spence has some very nice pirate figures and ships, and so it was felt right to give them an outing. The game was a treasure hunt. On the island were hostile opponents, and Steve commanded one ship of raiders, seen the far side of this photograph approaching the island, and and Lloyd another, seen in the foreground. The enemy had cannons, a ship docked for repairs, and various cabins etc. There was also a small town on the corner of the table (not shown).

A boy was recruited to bury the treasure. This consisted of a large number of small squares of paper, most of which were blank, to be placed under terrain features of the map. A few of these little pieces of paper had numbers on them, indicating their treasure value. The boy hid the papers while Steve and Lloyd looked the other way.

Steve's ship sailed between two islands, and exchanged gunnery fire with those gunners on the island who had woken up to the danger. A number of his pirates jumped overboard to swim to the central island, where booty was expected to be. We were using the Lord of the Rings system pirate rules, which are very harsh with swimmers, and a few drowned before reaching the island, and those that waded ashore found themselves out-numbered, and a short while later, defeated.

Meanwhile Lloyd's hearties landed and did battle with some of the islanders, and managed to find some booty. Steve's instincts then became competitive along a different line, and rather than contenting himself with a race to find the most booty (Lloyd's original plan), he decided that it would be much better to fight Lloyd's forces as well. Unfortunately for him, he had already taken some damage from the guns on the islands, and Lloyd twigged his hostile intentions early enough to leave enough men on his ship to defend her. The result was that Steve's ship became a wreck.

I would continue this write-up with more details, but the blogging software is proving to be astonishingly difficult to use. Lloyd's seadogs made away with a fair bit of booty, and suffered very light losses.

Figures: Steve Spence, ships: Steve Spence (and ex-Graeme Atkinson), scenery: Lloyd and club.

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Home guard Crossfire game.

I'm not going to write much now, just upload some pictures, because previous attempts at fabulously well-written accounts of games have just become lost in the system, and I'm not that much of a glutton for frustration and loss.

Oh god, I don't believe it. After an hour of wrestling with this bloody software, it's just gone and lost most of the pictures again. What is the bloody point? I did manage to upload about seven pictures of this game, but only two have survived the whims of the blogging software. When I had them all on the page, they were in random order, and all over the place, and all attempts at sorting them out proved worse than futile.

This is 31st March - a month or so later, and I've just spent another while trying again to update this and add more pictures etc. Nothing works for pictures. That these words are here shows that the text editor works to some degree, but adding pictures seems to be completely impossible.

Stuff this.





Steve Spence knocked out my 38t first shot with a double-six from his Vickers light tank. He then went on and on about how lucky I apparently am.

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Meeting CANCELLED - Saturday 13th March 2010

There will be no club meeting on Saturday 13th March 2010 as the hall is in use by another organisation.

Cheers

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