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Sunday 1 March 2015

More Colonial Fun...

So, a couple of weeks ago, Andy MacTaggart and I reconvened chez moi to have another bash at 'The Men Who Would Be Kings'. As per the previous game, the scenario was set on India's NW Frontier at the end of the 19th Century.

Since the previous game, I had managed to paint some extra troops, so the Anglo Indians were joined by a unit of Gurkhas and the Pathans had extra riflemen.

This time, we tried some upgrades, so the British troops had an upgrade to enable them to hit on 4+ in shooting (to represent the magazine rifles they had in the 1897 conflict), the Sikhs had an upgrade to enable them to fight better and the Gurkhas an experimental rule to allow them to ignore difficult ground.

The Pathans had a unit of Ghazis who also were upgraded so they fought better and one riflemen unit was upgraded to shoot better as well.

The scenario saw the Anglo Indian force patrolling the hills and the Pathans trying to prevent them doing it. The Pathans had some clever hidden deployment rules for all bar one riflemen unit.

The leadership rolls saw all the Pathans with ridiculously good leadership and the British with average leadership. This was to make a big difference in the game, as the Pathans resolutely refused to become pinned under British fire, while the constant trickle of casualties from Pathan rifle fire whittled the Anglo-Indians away. Eventually, the Anglo-Indians did manage to patrol 3 out of 6 areas of the board, but were forced into a dramatic last stand, where the British unit, although cut down to the last man, inflicted such casualties on the Pathans that the game result was a draw!!

It was a great game and, although Dan has since tweaked the rules, there were no massive issues. In fact, the tweaks he has made will make the rules even better.

Poor lighting in my kitchen-diner makes the pics a bit rubbish, but here are a few...

Set-up...Pathan riflemen left centre. Cattle and small rocky outcrops are the 'patrol areas' the Brits need to check out...

View from behind the Pathan riflemen...

Pathan hidden deployment brings the Ghazis on behind the Sikhs! That cannot be good (if one is a Sikh!)

Pathan riflemen deploy skulking in the rocks overlooking one of the patrol areas...sneaky blighters!

View of the table after a couple of turns...

The Sikhs activate and give the Ghazis a taste of Martini Henry medicine... 

View of the table as the Sikhs force the Ghazis back, losing many men in the process. Bottom right, The Gurkhas claim an objective and top right, The Brits do likewise...

...Success is short-lived, as Pathan reinforcements arrive and put severe pressure on the Gurkhas a Sikhs as they strive for the fourth objective... Two or three turns later, both Indian units were cut down.

The Suffolk Regt face the inevitable, but their Lee Metford volleys cause fearful execution  amongst the enemy...

The end is now moments away...another valiant last-stand and more posthumous Victoria Crosses...

Shortly after the game, the weather cleared, allowing photography outside, so I took several pics of the collection as it stands, minus one unit of Pathans who needed highlights and the final touches to basing, although they had played in the game in their unfinished state...












I'm really pleased with the way the scenery worked out - a bit of delicate balancing of aquarium features and a very large old Last Valley desert hill...

'Pinned' markers (or 'Suppression' markers for Triumph & Tragedy) coming next along with a Mountain gun...

11 comments:

Scottswargaming said...

Good looking stuff!

DeanM said...

Great looking game; wonderful terrain and lovely troops

commissarmoody said...

This is a great read and a great report. I think I will share it with my group.

Dalauppror said...

Jolly good blog post Andy. Glad that you get a good number of TMWWBK games in, we Will have a run of Swedish gold coast gaming thursday night, really looking forward to that.

Looking forward to see more of you lovely painted minis in future aar's

Millsy said...

A great looking game with some wonderfully painted lead. Thanks for sharing!

Vinnie said...

Andy

This looks like a great set of fun rules, whcih I may just have to crack into next year once they are available. The NWF period is one of my favourite periods.

Thank you for the post

Regards

Nathan

Mallius Vane said...

Great table and lovely minis!

legatus hedlius said...

Great photos and interesting write ups. Are you allowed to say how big unit size is (As I am painting NW Frontier at present? Is it 12 or 6 like Lion Rampant or bigger units?

GuitarheroAndy said...

I don't think Dan would mind me saying that, currently, (emphasis on 'currently') Regular units can aim for 12 models. Tribal units can aim for 16, although Pathan riflemen tend to be fielded in 12s as we class them as 'irregulars' due to certain rule mechanics that I can't go into.
That's what I do in my games, although there is some scope for altering that. Seems to work well for what I'm doing...

Thanks to all for the comments :-)

Unknown said...

Hey Andy I have some of you hedges and I absolutely love them !! Some flock came off and I want to re flock one of the my pieces and was just wondering what kind and what color flock you use ? Just wanted to put on matching stuff some it doesn't look odd I hope you read this and can get back to me. Thanks in advance
Ricky

GuitarheroAndy said...

Hi Ricky.

I'm a bit confused by your query, as I don't actually produce hedges (or anything else for that matter). So I'm not sure I can help. Have I misunderstood your query?

Cheers

Andy