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Saturday 13 July 2024

Incursion

 I couldn't resist starting another OHW Mini-Campaign today - the scenarios to be played were rolled for as in the previous version (see here) and are as follows:

1. Scenario 21 Twin Objectives

2. Scenario 24 Bottleneck

3. Scenario 17 Encounter

4. Scenario 6 Flank Attack 1

5. Scenario 20 Fighting Retreat

As in the previous mini-campaign, I'll be using Portable Wargame rules (with occasional changes if it suits the Scenario). I'm using my Late 19th Century setting, an imaginary continent called Uqbal that is being colonized by some equally imaginary Great Powers, one of whom is the Kingdom of Albionia.

Background

In a serious attempt to smash the illegal, and morally reprehensible, slave trade, a brigade from the Albionian Army in Uqbal, in pursuit of the Slave Traders, has crossed the Eastern border into the Kingdom of Uqbalistan (causing umbridge in the latter). Quite naturally, the King sees this action as an incursion into his territory and sends a force of his own to chase the intruders away. The two force's initial meeting sees the Uqbalis split, and holding two objectives; a hill and some ruins. For Albionia to win the battle their larger force must have captured both by Turn 15.

Game 1 Twin Objectives

The majority of the Uqbali force defend the ruins

The Albionians advance on both objectives

Albionian Cavalry and Mounted Police attempt to soften up the defenders

The Rifles (Light Infantry) and Regular Line Infantry attack the hill

Infantry replace the cavalry attacking the ruins

The first objective has been taken

The Rifles rush to join the attack on the ruins

but time is running out and casualties mounting

The Albionians reach Exhaustion Point having failed to capture the 2nd objective

So the first battle is won by the Kingdom of Uqbalistan (KU) to the chagrin of the Albionian Army of Uqbal (AAU).
Using the same scoring system as the last campaign, the scoreboard after one game reads:

KU 1 AAU 0

8 comments:

  1. An interesting start. I like your armies, are the figures 15mm?

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  2. Thanks Mark. They're 28mm, mostly Irregular Miniatures (Yorkshire, UK). They were my attempt at capturing the look of Joseph Morschauser's colonial games - his were 54mm figures of course.

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  3. Another campaign!! Excellent 🙂.
    Interesting start to proceedings. Looks like even with 15 turns the AAU would have been hard pressed to have kicked the KU forces out of the ruins.
    Do you set EP at 33% or 50% for your games, MJT?

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  4. Thanks Martin. With 15 turns these scenarios are not easy and of course I'm making them harder again by having a morale rule (EP). Using the OHW fight-to-the-last-man rules would have given the Albionians more chance of clearing the BUA for sure. I'm currently using 33%.

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  5. As you’re playing the game solo then have you considered having a random EP?
    This could be something like: when an army reaches 30% throw a D6 to see “how much more” before they reach exhaustion (score of 1 = 33% - your current game EP level - whilst scores of 2 through to 6 give correspondingly greater % levels).
    Cheers,
    Geoff

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    Replies
    1. Interesting idea Geoff and one I haven't used. Perhaps EP could also be linked with the quality of the General?

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    2. Yeah - a capable commander would be more inspirational than an incompetent one. Having some level of EP randomness would surely be better than a situation where a general knows “if I destroy just one more enemy element then I’ll win”.

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