Suraj Khund Re-imagined Sikh Wars AAR

We have a game at Chris Flowers this weekend so an opportunity to try out the Sikh Wars on a  bigger table.

I want to have a run out of the rules with amends but also how the game itself will play.

The only issue is we have 7 or 8 players which is too many for the forces I have planned for the game, at Partizan it wont be an issue as we will be shopping and chatting and may have less players anyway, but for a full day game everyone needs to feel like it was worth the trip so I need to add a couple of brigades per side to the historical order of battle.

On the upside I will get to add a couple of newly finished units to the game and we playtest the rule amends pretty thoroughly and Flashman survived to run away another day.

The table is 15 feet by nearly 7 feet with the front long edge covered by Jungle Forest disguising the approach of the British flanking force.

The British camp was behind a dry river bed, we should have one for the game but for our purposes today an actual river fille din with two fords for the Sikhs to fight over.

The British are shown the table with their fortified camp at one end besieged by a token Sikh Force, shown where their flank attack will come on through the open jungle on the long table edge.

The British have a Brigade of allied matchlockmen holding the camp supported by a brigade of tribal irregular coming out of the camp.

The flank attack will have 3 brigades of British foot and two brigades of horse. A nasty surprise for the Sikhs when it comes on. (The correct OOB has 2 brigade of foot and one of horse)

With the British out of the way the Sikhs are brough in to deploy 2 Brigades of regular foot attacking the camp supported by a weak brigade of regular hose, A further two brigades of irregulars occupy the earthworks and the village in the middle of the table whilst two very large brigades of irregular horse flood the rear of the table. (Correct OOB battle would have less regulars and the mass of cavalry took no part in the battle)

Both sides then start the battle with nasty surprises of lots of regulars attacking their earth works. Each of them have 3 objectives, the British earthworks covering the camp, the Sikh earthworks besieging the camp and the village with the Sikh reserve. The winners will be the side holding at least 2 out of the three.

British move first and march out of the jungle where they need to spend a turn forming up. The Sikhs immediately respond by refusing their flank and splitting their regulars, half heading towards the British camp and the other half turning to face the British flank attack.

Jerry takes the Tribal British allies towards the ford on the right flank, before realising the British have this flank covered and he is better moving these to cover the other ford.

The British turn allows them to advance on the Sikhs but we immediately see one brigade fail its orders and another blunder moving left towards its own camp in error. Ricard C and Richard H have decided to leave a brigade each of foot and horse in reserve and bring on later to take advantage of whatever chaos they can sow early on.

Jerry lines his native matchlock troops along the defences behind the river as Chris C advances his brigade of Sikh regulars on him.

The Sikhs make a bold display but 4 units of Sikh regulars are going to find it hard to take an earthwork behind a river with 7 units of native troops defending it.

The Sikh guns are all firing at long range and have little effect on the Native allies in their earthworks.

Rich C is quick to push his Light Dragoons forward and charge the Sikh matchlocks. The Sikhs are defeated but inflict some pain on the British.

To their right the Governor Generals Bodyguard make short work of a unit of Tribal warband.

Sikh regular Cavalry counter charge the Govorner Generals Bodyguard, the Sikh cavalry prove a tougher nut to crack and are able to hold the East India company Sowars.

The British line is advancing into and behind the Sikh entrenchments whilst Steve rallies the Sikh regulars for a counter attack.

Chris has the lead Brigade of Sikh regulars up to the river bank, he is however faced by 4 battalions of matchlock troops and a pair of field gun batteries. With the defenders in cover this may be too much for Chris's Sikhs to chew.

The second brigade of company cavalry has entered the battle charged Mikes Pathans, the Pathan foot heroicaly hold their own against the Bengal Irregular cavalry.

The Governor Generals Bodyguard beat back the Sikh regular cavalry but our now too worm out to follow as they have reached shaken status. 

Further up table Chris Flowers Sikh armoured irregular cavalry finally get going and charge the Bengal Native light cavalry. The Sikhs win this one but are also too shaken to follow up.

On the other side the Sikh Light cavalry under Mike creep forward.

The first of Jerrys Tribal Irregulars storm over the ford after failing an un-controlled charge test, they manage to take the first battalion of Sikh regulars with them. 

Firth up table the Sikh irregular cavalry reform planning to press their advantage but fail orders to advance.

The second Tribal irregular warband gets an uncontrolled charge in to Sikh regular gun whilst the first one turns and charges the Sikh foot. Chris holds them off but he is badly mauled now and is in no condition to continue to the attack on the British camp and begins to withdraw.

Rockets are notoriously inaccurate and Rich C was warned early on about their use. Only a six gets an actual on target hit and you get two shots which can go all over the place. Rich responds with a double six immediately inflicting two casualties on the Sikh cavalry and disordering a second unit. So much for my advice.

The British now have a pretty sold position covering the Sikh earthworks but are not strong enough to advance on the village whilst holding off the remaining Sikh regulars.

The original British brigade now pushed over the earthworks into the flanks of Steves Sikh regulars and forces them back.

Its all over bar the shouting, the British consolidate their hold over the Sikh earthworks but are not strong enough to push onto the village, the Sikh regulars are pulling back from the British camp and not quite strong enough to try again for the earth works.

The British have 2 out of 3 objectives, the Sikhs 1. A victory for the British, but a hard fought one.

A good game all around, the players seemed to enjoy it and the additional rules worked well. A good start to the playtesting for T'other Partizan game.

Thanks for stopping by.

Completed units for Mexico

Mainly  Belgians to share here.

These are all Gringo 40's and happy with how they have come out.

The flag is home made by chum Chris Charlton, cheers Chris, the standard bearer from Gringo 40's Tonkin range with some slight amends.

The Belgians are a nice looking force who saw a decent ammount of action, they were not Veteran troops like the French so add a different dynamic to a game as well as looking very pretty.

Happy with these.

Couple of command bases, a mounted Republican leader for a Brigade a Perrys Triple Alliance leader.

Plus a dismounted Belgian leader for Sharpe Practice which I particularly like.

Boer War Mania

Well I have got a bit excited and started buying all sorts of stuff.

The haul includes 1st Corps, Great War, Artizan and a 3d printed 37mm pom pom.

The 1st Corps Boer pack is lovely, lots of character all skirmishing as you would expect. I am imagining my Boers in small units of 6 and maybe having 6 - 10 of these all with mounted options and all with horse holder units.

I have purposely gone for the 1st Corps British advancing with bayonets, 3 different packs which match this and with the command figures give me 2 x 8 man units. Lovely figures these are my favourites of the British options so far.

My British and Commonwealth will probably be 2 x 8 man platoons to a company with leader figures. I am thinking one Generic British, one Highlander in kilts and one in bush hats with mounted infantry in support.

A comparison of ranges shows these will all fit really well together, left to right:

Perry, 1st Corp, Perry, Empress, First Corps, Artizan. I am quite comfortable mixing these in units. The Boers in particular I wanted a lot of variety.

I planned to use Early WW1 British Cavalry as Mounted Infantry by giving them head swaps for Bush hats. They have the right bandoliers rather than webbing.

My concern is the pack on the left hip, this is a definite WW1 webbing item and wont be coming off easily, can I live with that?

A little blurry sorry but this 1st Corps Boer is interesting, he has a broom handle Mauser Pistol but with the shoulder butt on. I have seen photos of this being used in this way in the Boer war so a nice characterful addition.

Last lot of metal figures, these are from Footsore. They have an inter war range with some useful figures.

One pack of IRA, men in civilian gear with modern rifles (Mausers of Lee Enfield's) and bandoliers. A very British Civil War pack of Brigands in civilian gear with Lee Enfield's and Bandoliers, these will all need head swaps but are again very nice, then 2 packs of Black and Tans for Ireland, very basic British uniforms and gear, with leather bandoliers rather than webbing make them ideal to convert to British dismounted Yeomanry or similar. Perfect size wise as they will of course match the Empress Boers also sculpted by the talented Mr Hicks.

This now pretty much covers the dismounted Boers I want but will need a whole bunch of mounted ones once they are available, I will want to add British Mounted infantry, Yeomanry/Commonwealth troops in bush hats and Highlanders but will probably wait for 1st Corps to release these rather than mess around with more conversions.

The Maxim 37mm Pom Pom looks very nice, I will hang on until the Boer gunners are released before painting it, I have seen an image of these.

The colourised photo gives a nice idea of this weapon.

Then the Osprey and two sprues of plastics, the 1880's Perrys British, the uniform is perfect but the weapon is the Martini Henry and they need Lee Enfield's so I got a WW1 British sprue. This has spare weapons for me to swop over and I can add the sun helmets to WW1 figures and mix these in with my WW1 Brits for Palestine and India if there are enough weapons. Well thats the plan.

I think the only film I have seen of the Boer war is "Breaker Morant" this book is a biography written by one of his co-charged which may be interesting and add some detail to the project.

I also picked up these dead mans hand wild west horses, hopefully perfect for the Boers, just frustrated they dont come with bases making them  much hard to handle when painting which is a shame.

Thats probably it for now. Plenty to keep me busy I reckon.

WW2 German Assault

This week we introduced Andy to the rules and re-introduced Chris Flowers.

Chris and I would assault two towns with a Panzer Grenadier battalion and two tank battalions each with a company of tanks riders. Steve and Andy defending with 2 Russian battalions, a regiment of anti tank guns and 2 battalion of tanks coming on as reinforcements. Both sides had off table artillery support.

A large town near the Russian table edge and a smaller town in the middle of the table were the German objectives. With most of our infantry on foot moving at 4 inches the further town was going to be a stretch. The Tank riders would be invaluable.

Chris got good movement on his PZR IV battalion and pushed forward, a little too close as it happens as a regiment of anti tanks guns were spready across the front of the Town and opened up causing some serious injury. 

On the right one of my Panther companies pushes forward down a gully with a view to outflanking the small town i the centre.

The other one pushes straight at the village with a company of Panzer grenadiers to its right. In heavy fighting I loose half a company but eventually drive out the remnants of a company from the front of the town. Steve drops a number of artillery strikes on us and adds to the casualties on the grenadiers and one hit on a Panther.

Steve and Andy's reinforcements come on and 6 tanks against my 2 is a nasty surprise. T34 85's in the main.

I push the panthers into hull down position at the end of the gully with the infantry holding the edge of the wood in support. My firing inflicts minimal damage on the T35's.

On our left Chris's tanks have pulled back to the wood leaving the tank riders to shoot it out and providing longer rage support along with the Tiger inflictign steady losses on the anti tank guns. 

The Panzer Grenadiers have some staying power so despite beign hit by mortars are able t whittle down the gun crews.

Andy's Russian armour closes with me and starts to knock lumps off the Panthers.

In the centre Andy fires a light AT gun and I am able to drop heavy artillery on him, turns out the wood has alsorts in it and I end up getting shots at multiple targets, we dont know but his HQ company has been wiped out along with the AT gun and some infantry,

I manage to inflict some hits on him including one tank brewed but in return he destroys one of mine and suppresses the other.

I should really have kept the Panthers together and having pushed the Russians from the front of the town I try to remedy my error by supporting the front company, too little too late really.

Having inflicted lots of damage on the guns Chris sends the Tiger to support my flank.

My infantry opens up on the next house int he town and we also drop mortars on them, this forces a morale which they fail, 

Next move we occupy the house and fire into the retreating Russians causing more casualties. This causes a battalion morale as we had earlier wiped out their HQ and supports with artillery in the woods. They fails and one battalion of Russian foot leaves table/Surrenders.

Against my better judgement the fresh Panther company drives to the top of the hill to fire on the Russians, these are all on overwatch and 6 shots result in 3 hits to one panther which fails its morale and routes. The remaining tank takes out a T35.

The Russians still have 4 tanks with minimal damage so capable of coming at us. Which they do.

The Tiger takes a long range pot shot and scores a single hit on a T35. They all add up I guess.

Artillery and mortar fire take out two of the anti tanks guns and with just one remaining Chris advances his three remaining tanks on them.

The Panzer grenadiers also start to advance from the woods albeit with a very long way to go.

Chris's tank riders close assault the gun in what should eb a forgone conclusion, 3 dice vs 1. Chris gets no hits, Steve gets one and the grenadiers are thrown out.

Fortunately the Tanks then get a clear shot and destroy the last AT gun, leaving the way open to close with the town.

On the right the remaining 4 Russian tanks push forward and the Panther and Tiger take up positions to contest their advance.

A tough game this week with the Russians a bit stronger and some mistakes leading to higher casualties for the Germans.

We perhaps needed another 30-40 minutes to get a final result.

All four of us enjoyed it, honours were fairly equal but on balance a narrow Russian victory as we had yet to take the main town. Another few moves might have allowed the Panzer Grenadiers to take the town, they now had support of 3 tanks with no anti tank capability to stop them.

On my right flank we had just two tanks left but a panther and a Tiger had the edge on the remaining 4 Russian tanks and I was supported by infantry where they were not so all in all a close game.

Good fun, thanks gents.