After the Battle - A Skirmish

Recently I acquired a 2nd hand copy of Napoleonic Wargaming for Fun by Paddy Griffith (1980). Chapter 2 of this excellent book features rules for a skirmish game. It's a little bit more complicated than I would like and would ideally have two players making simultaneous moves, so, naturally, I simplified it a little and made it a grid game. I think it still retains the general feel of the original and will add the rules to my In-House Rules section in the side-bar in the near future. This game requires quite a lot of record keeping which I undertook using tiny dice and counters (see below).

The following skirmish takes place, as the title suggests, after a large battle has been resolved. Some soldiers from a battalion of the victorious Army Blue are out foraging when they come across some stragglers of the defeated Army Brown who are looking for somewhere to shelter.

Blue's troops approach the ruined farm 

The two sides spot each other and open fire (the dice indicate hits)

A general scramble for cover ensues (the white counters indicate who has fired)

The fire fight continues (blue counters indicate who is pinned)

Close combat - the blue soldier is at max. hits and pinned!

Left the Blue soldier goes down spraying flock - Right sharp shooting takes its toll

A superb (lucky?) shot takes out the man behind the hedge

The Brown Captain takes cover inside the farmhouse to reload his pistol

The surviving Brown soldiers are losing heart but fight on (much ramming home of cartridges)

Hand to hand combat and appallingly bad shooting in and out of the building continues

The 2 remaining men of Army Brown admit defeat and surrender

A Last Stand

Introduction

Today I unexpectedly found time for a game so went with a Portable Wargame based on Scenario 17 of Scenarios for All Ages by Grant & Asquith.

Setting

The Albionian colony of Uqbal has been increasingly suffering attacks by indigenous hill tribes. Suspecting involvement by a foreign power, a spy is put ashore from His Majesty's Gun Boat, Kobayashi Maru, and sent deep into the hill territories to find proof. The Spy has sent a communication by carrier pigeon that he has succeeded in his task but is trapped. Captain Pine is determined to get the evidence back to the War Ministry and leads a force in land. They reach the Spy's last location, a ruined compound, but find that he has been killed and that the relief force is itself now surrounded by a larger enemy force. "It's a trap", says the Captain, mixing his Sci-Fi metaphors. As dawn beaks the enemy are poised to attack...

The gunboat Kobayashi Maru (image from the internet)

Rules

Normal Portable Wargame rules apply, except I have excluded Exhaustion Point as both sides will fight to the end. At least one of the defenders must survive until turn 15 when he or they can escape under cover of darkness. The attackers must destroy all of the relief force to win.  The Albionian force consists of a company of Hibernians who, being tough elite veterans, have an SP of 5 and a company of sailors from the gunboat, who have an SP of 4. The Tribesmen are a mix of musket armed men and sword wielding men. They are led by a Swarzlandian Colonel accompanied by a unit of hussars.

Game

The hill tribes start their attack on the compound

The Defenders

Battle commences at the walls

The exposed tribesmen take hits

The compound holds

The Hibernians are caught in a relentless crossfire

The enemy closes in on the defenders

The Swarzlandian Colonel watches as his men breach the walls

The Hibernians just before their last glorious bayonet charge

The Navy's last stand

Captain Pine's end

Swarzlandia's involvement in Uqbal remains a secret, but for how long?
 

Portable Wargame Encounters

The following game used a simple set of skirmish rules (Heroic Encounters - see In-House Rules in the side-bar) that are based on Bob Cordery's popular Portable Wargame rules.

Treasure Hunt

A team of Treasure Hunters led by Harry "Hertfordshire" Jones is searching for an artefact of possible power, lost in distant Pesbekistan. They are pitted against a group of local tribesmen who have been recruited by a White Russian Agent-Provocateur, Count Sokolov, who are searching for the same thing for use in counter-revolutionary activities, or something...

The Treasure Hunters

The Count and his followers

The Artefact hidden in the undergrowth

Let the skirmish commence

The tribesmen look for cover

Hertfordshire Jones and his men rush across the open area

A tribesman cries out when he locates the artefact

He immediately comes under fire

The home made HIT DICE features the cunning use of an H on 2 sides of a d6 - clever stuff

Casualties on both sides

Tribesmen attempt to out-flank the Treasure Hunters

Fighting on all sides

50% casualties are reached for the Counts' side

Tribesmen begin to lose the will to fight...

they slip away on both flanks

"This belongs in a museum"

"Curse you Hertfordshire Jones! We'll meet again...grrr"

Revenge in a Time of Drought

Introduction

In an earlier post (see Invasion below) we learned that the Wild Men of the East had been pushed West into Nearsea. Here we discover who did the pushing. 
Descending from the mountains, a collaboration between tribes of Orcs, Goblins and Trolls was responsible for clearing Men from a large swathe of the Eastern Lands, destroying their farms and villages and leaving all in ruins. Now it is High Summer, and without a mutual enemy they have begun to fight each other. 
The following battle had two causes. Firstly, the Orc Band involved was looking for a source of water in this time of drought; and secondly, the Goblin Tribe controlling the nearest well had insulted the Orcs by using the head of a fallen Orc Champion on one of their standards (it was known locally as the "stick with orc 'ed 'andle" - apologies to Marriott Edgar).

Game

The setting is a ruined farmstead controlled by the Goblin tribe. The Orcs have two objectives; capture the well to the South and destroy the offending Standard. The rules are the Fantasy version of Bob Cordery's Portable Wargame in the side bar.

A dry (gridded) land - the well is visible next to the dead tree

The Goblin Tribe

Orc "Cavalry" rush by the hill heading for the well to the rear

The Main force of Orcs attack the defended hill

Battle rages at the foot of the hill but all is calm at the rear.. for now

The Wolf Riders charge the Goblin guards

Fighting in all areas

The Orcs begin to take ground amid the ruins

The Standard falls - Revenge!!

The Goblins are breaking (Exhaustion Point was set at 50% and reached by Turn 7)

The Orcs have taken their second objective

The Goblin Chief fights to the end

The last Hobgoblin archers are mopped up