More Sikhs and Others

Bit more progress for the Sikh Wars Game.

Ideally I would like to get two more units of Indian Matchlocks, the one in blue and one in Red as below.

Also a Command Elephant, a Bengal horse artillery crew and some tents would be good. Maybe some pack elephants too but lets not set too hard a goal.

The below are all Foundry, the first 3 from the old Mutiny range and the last from the Sikh Wars range.

This one was natural light only, actually looks a bit better in this case I think.

A bunch more including the first 1st Corps Boer War.

First British trooper, very washed out photo unfortunately but the Khaki I am happy with.

First two first corps Boers. I like the standing figure, the kneeling one is ok rather than great.

This mounted figure is actually a Black Sheep Mexican Bandit with head swap to make him a Boer, I think it works quite well.

Two more Foundry Indian Matchlock men, much paler washed out blue as I want a variety of blues through the unit. Still another 12 to go.

The Renedra bell tents were a very easy paint job , initially for the Surad Khunj game they will be a good fit for any number of games including Mexico and Boer war.

And a few more of the Matchlock men gets me almost to a new unit completed.

The standard bearer is from Empress and the Officer from the Foundry Sikh Wars range.

These 4 are all from the old Foundry Indian Mutiny range but still look nice. This units will no doubt be one of the "regular" Daudpotra regiments from Bahalwalpur allied to the British.

Thanks for stopping by.

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.

Finished Units for the Punjab

 So with Partizan only a few months away and the first test game in July I am keen to get some more finished units on table.

First completed a unit of Pathan Tribal Foot.

A big mix of manufacturers, Foundry, Perry Metal, Perry plastic, Wargames Atlantic, and Empress. 

Very versatile, Afghan troops for the whole Victorian Period of course Muslim troops for the Sikh Army but also Pathan levies supporting the British against the Sikhs in the second Anglo Sikh War. Can even be Pathan tribal irregulars fighting the Sikhs in the slightly earlier period of expansion. The Sikhs would have the same uniforms so very do-able for me.

Then another unit of Sikh irregulars with blade weapons. The lighting was working well for a change.

These are the Jagdiri, feudal levies of the Sikh landowners.

A real mix of figures, some plastic Perry and Wargames Atlantic Afghans with Sikh heads such as the leader figure in blue drawing his sword, plenty of metal Foundry Sikhs and a couple of Old Glory for good measure. 

Pretty pleased again with these.

An Indian Leader figure, Hindu or Muslim, from the Empress Mutiny range, lovely figure, not sure I am happy with the turban but otherwise very colourful.

So plenty more finding its way on table ahead of T'Other Partizan.

Thanks for stopping by.

Sikh Wars Partizan Prep

Having decided that Sikh Wars would be the theme for our T'other Partizan game we needed to decide on rules.

I have been working on my own set but these are much more focused on 2-4 players, both our test games and show game are more likely to include up to 8 players most of whom would not be familiar with my rules.

Initial thoughts were to use Valour and Fortitude with the stats from last years Boondock Sayntes Aliwal game. So Steve and I organised a quick game.

Our game had 4 brigades a side, with a small village occupied by one Sikh Brigade.  The Sikhs having just one extra foot battalion and mounted regiment.

As we had no real intention of playing a game through to conclusion, this was all about seeing if the rules worked. Whilst they did and the rules additions for Sikh Wars had some very interesting mechanics to reflect the reality of the conflict we were unsure if they would work for our group.

I was surprised to find the Sikh Gorchurra rated as good as the Bengal Native cavalry, this did lead to a bit of a kicking for the British on the right flank.

Elsewhere the ability of the British forces to lead with the Queens regiment but spread casualties over the whole brigade, along with forcing the Sikh guns to target counter battery where they could gave the numerically inferior British a fighting chance of closing with the Sikhs. 

On balance an enjoyable game, however we are concerned about trying to get 8 grumpy blokes who dont know the rules to play them through with two of us who also dont know them very well taking the lead.

Blind leading the grumpy blind springs to mind. This may lead us to use Blackpowder which, whilst more vanilla, is at least familiar to our Generals.

We decided an immediate follow up game with Black powder was in order. Below are the current stats we use for Sikh Wars.

So, a small meeting engagement to test rules.

We gave the British a 3 battalion brigade of foot, a two battalion brigade and a brigade of three regiments of horse, each brigade had a gun.

The Sikhs had no regulars, a mix of tribal and matchlock armed foot. Three Brigades of foot totalling 8 battalions and 2 brigades of horse totalling 5 regiments, and 3 guns. So 8 units vs 13 but with the British having the edge in quality with most Sikh Generals as 8's and most British as 9's.

The idea was to get cracked on, check our understanding of all the rules and the various amends to rules we already use or want to add so we are ready for the bigger test game next month.

The Sikhs went first and straight off both sides were attempting to get to grips as quickly as possible. Once the initiative handed over to the British I charged my Light dragoons at the Sikh horse supported by the Governer Generals Body Guard.

Unfortunately the Horse artillery failed to move at all (I forget they get a free move if limbered) and the Bengal Native Light Cavalry blundered making a move to their left.

The Light Dragoons inflict a decent amount of casualties but the Sikhs stand with some great saving rolls, with a draw both sides pull back.

The rest of the British push forward.

The tribal troops finally get going, we moved these into Warband formation after this photo.

The artillery gets a good shot into the Sikh Cavalry with limited effect. Pretty much the only artillery to score casualties for the British.

Two unit of Tribal irregulars approach within 16" and trigger and uncontrolled charge test.  The irregulars were quite volatile and hard to control so this is a rule that adds flavour to the pot. One unit of Sikhs fails and hurls itself at the British line.

The uncontrolled charge closes on the British line, taking 2 casualties form closing fire, this doesn't stop them and they close. Despite being roundly beaten the Steve makes a whole bunch of saving throws and rolls well for his morale leaving the melee to continue into my turn. 

On the right wing my Bengal Light Cavalry has got going and is immediatley charged by the left wing cavalry.

One of the best rolls I have seen for a long time I get 6 sixes from 8 dice, giving me 8 out of eight hits. A draw leaves both sides pulling back to reform.

On my extreme left two regiments of Tribal infantry charge my native infantry, they hang on for one round of melee and then are finally pushed back in dis-order starting to create a gap in the line.

At that point we stopped, all to play for but its 10.30 and we need to pack up having learned all we needed. Plenty of fight left in the game with neither side getting a significant advantage yet.

So amends we already use that will stay in;

1. Firing is before moving

2. Brigade break Tests when a brigade loses half or more of its units excluding supports

3. If a unit fails an order a Brigadier cans till try to issues an order to subsequent units with a -1.

4. All movement and ranges reduced by 1/3

Amends we will look to include:

1. Zambureks range of 24" always fire one dice only have long or effective range

2. Zambureks take an action to set up but once set up may man handle up to 8" in movement

3. Heavy artillery moves at 6" per action and cannot be moved once deployed. It may be man handled 1" per turn.

4. Sikh artillery must counter battery where possible unless infantry & cavalry units are closer than the supporting guns.

5. Casualties on attacking HEIC infantry by artillery can be shared across the brigade if units are within supporting distance of the lead British unit (6 ")

6. Sikh guns can re-roll a miss if they have at least 2 misses from a gun. 

7. Uncontrolled charge for tribal units, tribal units within 16" must test for uncontrolled charge of nearest enemy 1 or 2 they charge but only move whatever number of actions they get. units within 8" test for charge and go in on a 1,2 or 3.

8. Tribal units are warbands and move at 10" per action, they cannot change formation, wheel or turn but flow from the front centre in the direction players require.

9. Crack special rule added to Bengal Horse artillery, re-roll a failed morale save if no other casualties so far.

All these should add flavour for the period and reflect some of the challenges and solutions the sides had during these conflicts. 

So bigger game next month watch this space.

Thanks for stopping by.