Friday Night Back of Beyond Game

On Friday Chris and I met at Julian's for another run through of the "Red Actions" rule set we have been concentrating on recently.

It turned out Julian had selected a scenario from one of the library of "Dunsterforce" books he has recently acquired, so rather than a Red v White clash, we fought a battle between a combined White and British force against the Turks on the road to Baku, albeit that the British armoured cars were represented by Bolshevik models and the Turks likewise! Had Julian warned me of his intention, I would have brought along my late 19th century Colonial Brits - not quite right obviously, but we had agreed they would make an adequate substitute when we did a Dunsterforce scenario....oh well!

The basic idea was as below - both the Turks and Whites were trying to capture the bridge to Baku to secure the local oilfields - bloody oil has caused a few wars in the last 100 years hasn't it? The bridge was held by a small force of Reds (who unaccountably at this time are allied with the Whites and British - probably due to early 20th century Islamophobia!). Julian commanded this small force but had to roll 1 D6 per unit each move - if he got a 6, they buggered off to Baku to a Workers Soviet Committee meeting (apparently this is a true story!)

Chris took the Whites/Brits and I took the "Turks". The scenario claimed it was a hard task for Chris' force, but he had two HMG's, three British armoured cars (HMG each) two field guns and the same amount of cavalry! I had three HMG, two off table guns that could fire a total of 8 times each and had to score 8 or greater on 2 D6 to activate and a lot more infantry - so I am not sure why it was so hard for the Whites! Chris very sportingly let me have unlimited off table artillery and only used one of his three armoured cars - Julian would not have let me off that easily!

In the event, we proved that Churchills old saying that "Jaw, jaw is better than war, war" does not apply to the gaming table, and at past 10pm, all we had really done was advance up our respective roads, cause a few casualties on each other, and see the bridge guard decamp to their committee meeting (which was rather amusing!)

Here are the pictures I took:

 Julian, inspired by my recent foray into Matchbox Yesteryear purchasing, has acquired a significant number of similar vehicles and sprayed them with a khaki base then added some weathering - they looked so good, I thought they had been issued that way, as a WW1 commemorative set or something!

 Turkish cavalry move towards the advancing White infantry

 The last of the White troops entering on their road

 The bridge guard busy voting on whether to attend the important committee meeting in Baku...the first unit soon decamped!

Turkish rear guard deploying to confront White cavalry....

 .....whilst the two van guards make a bee line for the now undefended bridge - if Julian had stuck around, I would have been stymied at this point!

A rag tag mixture of female soldiers, courtesy of Siberia Miniatures - not sure how many female soldiers the Turks would have had in 1918......

The Turks win the race to the bridge - in the next move, Chris' White infantry gave them a close range round of rifle fire - but had no effect - Huzzah!

The two forces, Turks on the bottom, Whites at top, confronting each other. Note the solitary HMG - in move one and two respectively, Chris's  #%*#$* field guns got direct hits and destroyed two of my original three HMG's!

The solitary armoured car rolled a 6 while moving full speed off road and snapped an axle, permanently immobilizing it

Sailors from Hinterland Miniatures

 The Turks were the only ones to reach the bridge and cross it - can I claim a marginal minor win...:)

The final position of the two forces around the approaches to the contested bridge

We agreed to stop here, as all that was going to happen for the next several moves would be an exchange of fire, decided by the dice Gods. Chris likely would have overcome in the end, with three HMG (including the armoured car) to my one plus artillery that automatically fired each turn, but we shall never know - definitely a 0 - 0 draw but a fun way to spend a miserably wet and cold Auckland evening!