TMWWBK - ‘Get off my land’ replay

I posted a game report of this scenario before. We decided to run it again but changed ends, as it were. I took the Mahdists - three Irregulars and three Tribals - whilst Ian had the British - three Regular Infantry and a Machine-Gun.

The scenaro makes the Attackers deploy their range away from any edge, but as my range was an upgraded 24" there was nowhere to deploy them on a 6' x 4' table! So we changed this to 18", the same as in our first game.

By choosing to deploy on the edge he did, Ian was almost on top of three of the objectives right from the start, but as luck would have it the centre of this edge was also the zone I had nominated for two of my Tribal units to pop up in.

This allowed me to place them at 8” from the British. This is almost as good as it gets, but would have been better if I could have placed them in cover. If they survived Ian's next turn and if I could activate them, I could charge home without the risk of failing to double adequately.

Beginning of Turn 2. My Irregulars are the three grey units in the centre (C, A and B) flanked by two of my Tribal units (F and E). The Tribals have been placed so as to be able to charge either of two opposing units. British unit H has been pinned by fire. Mahdist unit E loses four casualties and becomes pinned during this turn, neutralising half of my attacking force. This is a decisive moment.

Beginning of Turn 3: Mahdist unit E recovers from pinning but can only sit there. Mahdist unit F fails to activate and cannot charge. This is the other decisive moment of the game.

Beginning of Turn 4: Mahdist unit A takes the hill, but Mahdist unit E loses more casualties and is pinned again.

Beginning of Turn 5: Mahdist unit E is effectively no more. Unit C manages to charge but is beaten off.

Beginning of Turn 6: All the Mahdist units are now too depleted to be effective.

End of Turn 6: a technical win for the Mahdists at this premature end to the game but their fate is sealed.

Had I made contact I might have overcome one or two of the British units. Failure to do so left me exposed to the cycle of being pinned, attempting to rally and gradual or not so gradual extermination.

Our club AGM curtailed our gaming time. At the point we decided to stop I was technically the winner as the British had by that time taken only two of the objectives. But had the game continued I think I would have been wiped out, so I take no satisfaction in this 'victory'.

We are still trying to work out how best to use Tribals - how to survive and how to make them more than a one shot, one tim e weapon. Perhaps it's too early to admit defeat but I'm inclining to Ian's view they should be reduced in price to 2 points.

We also had some dreaded Line of Sight issues but I'll gloss over that until we've had more time to think about it.

Two games of 'The Men Who Would Be Kings'

Continuing this year's focus on Rampant games, my friend Ian and I played two games of The Men Who Would Be Kings.

North-West Frontier

Our first game featured the 'Run to the Hills!' scenario using my British and Afghan forces. The Brits (me) had to reach the far end of the table while running the gauntlet of the Pathans (Ian) who were on their first tabletop outing.

We used random Leader Values and Leader Traits, but found the latter hard to remember. I wanted to minimise on-table clutter so abandoned the unit cards used in earlier games in favour of off-table rosters but we soon realised it was still necessary to ID the units on-table which we did with temporary pieces of paper. I've since utilised some lettered Scrabble-style tablets.

We initially made a mistake in the Pin Tests, subtracting for casualties in the game rather than casualties just inflicted. The minor differences between different Rampant games are easy to confuse, and I am currently working on a spreadsheet to compare them.

The photos show the course of the game. Owing to the Pinning Test error, the British appear a lot more battered than they should be. Allowing for this rule error, this game was or should have been a British victory.

Sudan

For our second game Ian brought his newly acquired Sudan forces, and we did the 'Get Off My Land' scenario with the British vs Mahdists.

Ian laid out the table with a scattering of hills, some small clumps of vegetation and an area of soft ground. Six markers were distributed as per the scenario rules. The British had to search these by  Standing To when in contact with them.

The Mahdists had three upgraded Irregular Infantry units (@ 5 each) deployed centrally and three Tribal units (@ 3 each) which could pop up in nominated sectors during the game.

The British had three Regular Infantry units and a well-drilled Gardner Gun (all @ 6 each).

We agreed to drop the Leader Traits. Once again we adopted paper IDs to identufy the units. I also added the LV values to mine as this was the only difference between my infantry units.

My plan was to destroy the Mahdists piecemeal while searching at least some but not necessarily all the objectives, so I deployed on the edge furthest away from the main enemy concentration. It was the Falklands strategy.

My progress was entirely systematic. I moved towards the objectives, shot up any Mahdists encountered and only Stood To over the objectives if all the closest Mahdists had been neutralised by pinning or elimination.

Basically it all went like clockwork and a point came when it was a virtual impossibility for the Mahdists to win.

Ian's chances weren't helped by forgetting to bring on one of his hidden units when it might have made a difference. He did bring it on but late in the day and unsupported, so it just got chewed up in its turn.

IMO it's hard to fight Regulars with Tribals. Tribals will tend to have twice as many units as Regulars and need to attack in that 2:1 ratio, i.e. sending at least a pair of units against each single Regular unit. The latter can, of course, only shoot at one unit at a time.

In this scenario the Tribals also need to 'Go to Ground' to optimise their chance of survival. Even this is tricky. If Gone to Ground the Tribals can't be targeted beyond short range so the Regulars will be obliged to advance to within 12" of them. At that point the Tribals can try to Activate (with a 58%, 72% or 83% chance of success depending on the LV) followed by a 50% chance of Doubling into contact (4+ on 1D6).

If you attack with two units your odds of getting one of them into contact is better than evens and then you will have 16 to 12 dice in the melee. If, however, they are caught in the open they will be subjected to a cycle of being shot at and then having to rally which will have only one outcome.

Ian currently believes that Tribals are overpriced at 3 points. I'm reserving judgement.

All figures are Perry plastics, undercoated but not yet painted.

TMWWBK - Zulus suffer costly rule error!

View at start from Zulu positions. Tiger Terrain hills and 
scratch-built Irish farmhouse which is not bad for Natal.

This was my first ‘proper’ game of The Men Who Would Be Kings, that is as an actual player. We played Scenario C - To the Last Bullet - with my friend Ian as the British defender and myself as the Zulu attacker. The defender begins near the centre but has the option and objective of legging it to a building near his baseline.

The British had an 18-point Field Force (three 6-point units of Regular Infantry). The Zulus had 24 points - three Married Veteran units with better moralle and three Unmarried Fierce units who are better in close combat, all at 6 points each.

Perspective from the flank.

If the defenders can survive 5 turns without casualtues they win. This forces the attacker  to attack.

The Zulus move in. Cetral British section begins
a tactical withdrawal.

The British deployed in line. I deployed the Veterans on my left and the Fierce units on my right. My idea was to use the Vets as cannon-fodder while the Unmarried warriors got as close as possible before charging in.

The British can now see the whites
of their eyes.

At first Ian was unsure whether to stand or flee. When he did decide to withdraw his troops wouldn't move!

View from the Zulu edge. The outcome is uncertain.

I moved all my units forward using ordinary 'free' moves but this wasn't fast enough and I was in danger of losing the game by not inflicting any casualties in five successive turns. I then switched to Doubling.

I did make contact, did inflict casualties and did sweep away first one and then the other
flank unit, At this point it looked as if the Zulus were going to win, but the central British unit holed up in the farmhouse and in order not to lose the game the Zulus had no choice but to hurl themselves at the building.

One British unit (left) is under pressure. The
other flank unit has been swept away.

Unfortunately a couple of units had by then become Leaderless and it was difficult to activate them. Every British volley swept away a few more Zulus.

The central British unit has reached the safety of
the farmhouse but the other unit looks doomed.

The Zulus did attack the building and did inflict casualties but the trade off in each attack was about 3 Zulus for 1 Brit. The Zulu waves smashed against the British rock and became wasted in the effort. A couple of hopelessly depleted Zulu units were withdrawn to take themselves out of harm's way, but then they all found themselves so depleted that it would have been impossible to inflict any casualties. It was looking like Rorke's Drift...I had lost! But the story doesn't quite end there...

The Zulus close in for the final assault.

When my Zulus were storming the farmhouse, we were converting three hits into a kill. That would have been right for shooting but not for melee. Defending hard cover in hand-to-hand increases the number of hits needed to remove a defending model by one. (Soft cover provides no protection in melee.) Increasing the number by two made the defenders impregnable against overwhelming odds. Had we got this right I think the Zulus might have won. In fact, we were wondering how the Zulus could possibly win this scenario. Now we're wondering how the British can win. We will have to find out.

Successive assaults do some harm to the defenders, but the
attackers suffer more. This is where we went wrong.

I found this game very exciting and it fully met or even exceeded my expectations of the rules.

28mm Pathans for The Men Who Would Be Kings

Pathans with muskets

I thought my 28mm Zulu War (1879) British for The Men Who Would Be Kings might be recycled for two other conflicts around that time - the Urabi Revolt in Egypt (1879-1882) and the Second Afghan War (1878-1880).

I have no doubts that the British regulars will be fine for Egypt, but the North-West Frontier is more problematic.

Pathans with swords

Khaki was adopted earlier for Indian service and this was the normal British dress for the Second Afghan War. However, I’m not too worried for the following reasons:

1. Scarlet coats and blue serge trousers are reported for the beginning of the war.
2. There were earlier actions on the North-West Frontier for which the appearance of red coats is more likely.
3. The British figures could be replaced later.
4. Let's not be pedantic.

A neat looking light gun and crew

So far the only Afghan figures I’ve collected are irregular Pathan types, so I’m not yet actually committed to the Second Afghan War. The figures are a mixture of musketeers and swordsmen. For TMWWBK they can be fielded in predominantly firearm units as Tribesmen (Irregular Infantry) or in predominantly hand-to-hand units as Ghazi fanatics (Tribal Infantry). Having individually-based figures gives you a lot of flexibility.

The figures came from two different eBay sources with rather differing ideas about light and dark finishes, but both sets of figures were well-painted and I'm very pleased to have them.

I just need to paint up (groan) a few more to complete the army, and add some steel paper under the bases for storage/transport. Steel paper now seems unobtainable, having been replaced with ferro sheet, but steel paper is thinner and I should have enough stocks for these figures.

First Game of The Men Who Would Be Kings

Natal Mounted Police and British Regulars.

This was my first game of The Men Who Would Be Kings and the first outing for the Zulu War figures I've recently been accumulating. Please excuse the unfinished bases made from Coins of the Realm. Queen Victoria would not have been amused and I would have been doing hard labour, but times have changed.

I didn't actually play myself but ran the game for two other players who had played it before so I could piggyback on their experience. The table was set up for Scenario A, a sort of ‘passing engagement’ in which each side is aiming to get off the opposite end of the table while picking up additional points for inflicting casualties.

I persuaded the players to throw for Leadership Ratings but not for Leadership Traits as they didn't want to be faced with too much innovation.

First move: the Zulus waste no time.

With faster moving troops the Zulu player (Bernard) had the initiative. Some units bolted for the far end while others concentrated on cutting off the British. This seemed like a good strategy.

The British move out a little but are outpaced.

The British (Chris) were inevitably slow but also handled  cautiously.

Over-confident Zulu attackers are pinned.

The Zulu blocking units advance in the open and suffer badly from British firepower. In this photo they are pinned. They recovered from the pins and managed a couple of charges, but were beaten off. Perhaps they should have stuck to the cover.

The Great Escape, but is it enough?

Three of the Zulu units, followed later by a fourth, make it off the table, but not without suffering some casualties from long-range fire. The damage was minor but was to cost points in the final reckoning.

Two Zulu units are wiped out, but the British haven't got very far.

With four Zulu units off the table and two annihilated, the British were left unopposed but still had to make it off by the end of the scenario (turn 15). One didn't, resulting in a draw. With my godlike impartiality and benefit of hindsight I'd say the British were too cautious and the Zulus not cautious enough.

Both players seemed to enjoy the game though Chris is more of a fan of Lion Rampant. Both players have played both games before. I look forward to taking command myself.

Unit cards for The Men Who Would Be Kings

While playing the Samurai skirmish game, Test of Honour, I was struck by how discrete unit cards are much better than rosters for reading and absorbing unit data.

I had also seen the excellent unit cards for The Men Who Would Be Kings on the Shed Wars blog. After struggling with Excel and Word, I once again decided to create an Access database. The cards (a 'labels' report) were much easier to configure and I can quickly add new unit types to the underlying table.

The cards aren't as nice as the Shed Wars ones, but I could improve on them later by adding images. I'm indebted to Shed Wars for showing me the way.

Rebasing 28mm figures for The Men Who Would Be Kings

Based and ready to go

So here I am with a growing collection of second-hand Zulu War figures from different sources, all based individually but not in the same way. Rebasing is a priority, mainly so they can be safely stored, transported and used, but also to give the figures a more common look (once textured and grassed).

First step is to remove the existing bases. Card bases are easily weakened by standing them in water, but other bases have been an absolute pain to get off.

The new bases are simply 2p coins. These cost, well, 2p, and are cheaper than steel discs or even MDF. 'Copper' coins were originally bronze but since 1992 they have been copper-coated steel and are attracted to the magnetic plastic sheets which I use to line my storage containers - A4 Really Useful Boxes. 

At some point, of course, I will be adding filler, sand and foliage, but the figures are ready to use. All I need now is more of them.

28mm Zulu War figures for TMWWBK

Playing  the Colonial skirmish game The Men Who Would Be Kings has been on my wish list since the beginning of the year. Other members of my wargames club have tried it out and liked it, so I am encouraged that it will see some play.

Zulus

I had originally favoured doing the Boxer Rebellion or the North-West Frontier, but I recently accumulated some Zulu War figures when a friend was sadly obliged to retire from wargaming. These have since been supplemented with a couple of eBay purchases.

British Regulars and dismounted Natal Mounted Police

Some of the British figures could also be used for the Second Afghan War or the Urabi Revolt. I don't have enough for a game but it's a good start. The figures are 28mm. I'd be very interested to know the manufacturer(s) and will update this post accordingly.

More Zulus

The picture immediately above shows the figures from eBay. These will need to be rebased and could benefit from a stain.

UPDATE

The figures have been identified as Redoubt Enterprises and very nice they are too. Redoubt is another company which Is underselling itself because of lack of photos in its online shop. 

Battles of Napoleon

Battles of Napoleon is a hex board game with miniatures which was published in 2010 and is no longer in print. Despite a superficial similarity in appearance to the Command & Colors series of games, it plays quite differently.

Board games with miniatures are said to be the wave of the future, and I would say that miniatures games with hexes or squares are effectively converging from the other direction. This was thus a game I was keen to try.

My friend Ian, who owns the game, chose the Salamanca scenario and gave me the French with the warning that I was unlikely to win, but fate decided otherwise. The British were stronger, particularly in cavalry, but I had more artillery and a good position on a ridge line defending the three objectives which start in French hands.

The aim of this scenario is to take a majority of the objectives, but you can also win the  game by destroying a certain number of units or killing the enemy c-in-c.

The initial French deployment. The British are yet to set up.

The British made a frontal assault in column and uphill which gave me two  bonuses in firepower. Coupled with a  run of skillful dice throwing (!), the British attack shattered on the French rock. The British may have suffered from bad luck but I believe they would have needed an equally exceptional run of good luck to have succeeded in their strategy.

The French hold firm while the British begin to suffer.

I'd certainly be interested in replaying this game from the British side. My strategy would be...well, you'll have to wait for that!

I really enjoyed the game and I think Napoleonic buffs would prefer this game to the more abstract approach of C&C Napoleonics.