Sunday 10 September a "The Men Who Would Be Kings" game.

Today I went over to Andrews place and took with me some of my Colonial British collection, as well as the recently painted Zombie Survivors women featured earlier in the week on this blog. Julian was due to come to but as it turned out, he did not arrive until after lunch, so we tailored the game accordingly.

We have played two or three games of TMWWBK before and they have all gone well for the British, but today was a different story. Andrew had upgraded his native forces to obsolete rifles rather than muskets, but there still seemed to be about twice as many of them as there were of the British. I think I made a mistake choosing two units of lancers - in the close country in which the game was fought, another two infantry units with rifles would have been more useful. I also rolled my unit morale a bit averagely - both cavalry were grade 5 (the best possible) bit two infantry were 6 and one infantry was a grade 7.

We also had some specific task cards borrowed from the medieval version of the same game, giving us game points for achieving certain tasks - Andrew had a really good card which was to avoid having his overall leader involved in any combat for the whole game and he would gain 3 victory points! His second card (unknown to me) was to initiate the first combat, which he duly did in move two or three. In turn, my task was to have one of my nits closer to the enemy base line than any enemy unit at the end of a game turn, to gain 1 point and the second was something pretty unachievable, like destroying more than half they enemy force. 

In previous games, the Brits modern rifles have had a battle winning impact, with a range of 24 " compared with 12" for the muskets, but with the natives now sporting rifles, albeit less modern than my boys, their maximum range was increased to 18". In addition, there seemed to be a lot more cover in this game than  previously, which added an extra kill dice requirement if the target was in the terrain - so at long range, you needed to get 3 hits per infantry figure.

The writing was already on the wall I think before Julian arrived, but after lunch, he added another three units of rifle armed Pathans to Andrews force whilst I gained two more Indian army units. I pulled back into more defensible position but I really did not have enough troops to contain the 2:1 or greater advantage of the natives. On top of all this, my dice rolling throughout the day was abysmal - in most cases, I was rolling 12 dice - even my six lancers got to double their melee dice up to 12 when they were charging - but I would be lucky to roll 2 or 3 hits, and in many cases I needed 3 to kill one wily Pathan, sniping at me from the concealment of the abundant cover. I did manage a couple of good volleys near the end of the game that more or less wiped out an entire unit in one shot, but it was far too late and the Pathans were also able to destroy two of my five infantry units by rifle fire. 

The game was still a good way to spend a wet and windy Auckland day but it was a decisive defeat for the Empire forces.

The images show my British troops - all Old Glory - plus Andrews natives, an eclectic mix of ranges and - in the last few images - Julian's Pathans who are once again Old Glory sculpts.

Royal Marine Light Infantry

 Most of the British force deployed on the base line at the start of the game

 View along the British Base line - Bengal Lancers nearest the camera

One of Andrews excellent home produced scenery pieces

 The Bengal Lancers advance to engage native cavalry on the British left flank

British infantry advance in the centre

 Native cavalry on the opposite flank

The Bengal lancers engage with the native cavalry...

 ...and drive them back. They continued with a break through and inflicted another casualty but then suffered rifle fire from the adjacent infantry and had to retire

The native cavalry on the other flank open fire on the British lancers

And the lancers charge them.......

 ....killing most of them and driving off the remainder

                                      A general view of the centre of the table from the British side

 Julian's three extra units join the fray from the British left

The British pull back to a stronger defensive position

 A view of the advancing natives from the British position

Julian's Pathans advance 

 Andrews native forces in the centre advance en masse

 Above and below - the final British defensive position

 Andrews forces continue to advance despite losing a unit to short range rifle fire

 The Pathans on the British left move in for the kill

 A final view before two British units disappeared and the game ended

The victors - Pathans occupy positions previously held by the Royal Marine Light Infantry