"Afghans besiege British frontier fort" Topic

Posted these pics to our groups website -- HollywoodBrigadiers.com -- a while back but never put a link up here.

Sword And The Flame scenario had 3 platoons of Brits, with a Gatling gun and screw gun in support and a Captain and Sgt. Major, defending against masses of Ghazis and Tribesmen, supported by a tribal gun, with a couple units of Afghan regulars coming up to aid the assault -- one regular infantry, one regular cavalry.

It was a closely fought, seesaw battle, with the Afghans taking one section of wall relatively early but the Brits hanging onto the rest of the interior. At one point the Brits actually pushed their screw gun over the ramparts and dropped it atop the attackers below, who were attempting to batter down the gate.

In the end, the Afghan attack petered out just before breaking through into the fortress. The tribal gun exploded due to a misfire, several units failed morale checks and the Empire skated through by the skin of their teeth -- much as they often did on the real Northwest Frontier.

Hope you enjoy the pics. Here's the link:

link

What scale is that 20mm?

Nice looking game!

Thanks,

John

Looks like a hoot!

James

'What scale is that 20mm?'

28mm, actually. The Afghans are a mix of Foundry, errr… Afghans, Sikh irregulars and Darkest Africa Baluchis, though there appear to be a few figures from other manufacturers I can't identify. The Afghan regulars are Foundry too, from the old North West Frontier range. The Brits mostly appear to be the Perry Miniatures Sudan line, except the Highlanders which look like they are Ral Partha or RAFM .

Thanks for the compliments -- and sharp eyes, Quintus.

The troops are indeed all 25mm-28mm, with the old Ral Partha Highlanders on the 25mm side, the Foundry NWF tribesmen and Afghan regulars in the middle and Perry Sudan range British infantry on the 28mm side, along with later produced Foundry Baluchis, serving as Ghazi fanatics, who probably tower over everyone else by at least a millimeter or two.

The Fortress was a custom-built job that I won on eBay a few years back. It's actually much closer to 20mm scale than 25mm but the truth is it works almost just as well, especially for games involving relatively small number of defenders. In its true scale, garrisoned by Airfix FFL or El Cid Spaniards or Saracens, it would make for a more epic sized location.

The rest of the terrain is homemade. We've actually raised the bar on the quality of our NWF/Afghan hills, rocky terrain and scrub brush areas over the past few months and I'm hoping we fight another NWF/Afghan game some day soon so I can post some pics with the new terrain in them.

It looks great job well done.

Sooo.. what kinda damage *does* a falling cannon do..?

I think we used a rule from TACTICA MEDIEVAL siege rules…

"The Sword in North Africa" -- which contains Larry Brom's own rules for attacking walled forts -- says up to 4 figures can assault up a ladder in one turn. It happens that this is the exact same number of figures able to assault up a ladder in one turn of Tactica Medieval.

We treated the falling artillery piece as falling rocks, hurled from above. First figure ascending ladder killed automatically, second killed on 4-6, if the second is killed then the third is killed on 5-6, if the third is killed then the fourth is killed on a 6.

Don't remember exactly how effective it was in the heat of battle but it probably did some damage, since the Brits were about to toss their other one off the top of the tower! The guns couldn't depress to fire on targets closer than 8" -- as stipulated in "Sword in North Africa."

Very nice pics and site! Kudoes!

Great, close up photos. Thanks.

WOW! I'm a die hard TSATF colonial gamer. I love the pics and the site. Great fort and figs.

How did you make you Afghan flags???

Very inspirational, thanks. I think I'm going to go paint some figs after dinner after viewing these pics.

Cheers,

JB

JB,

Very happy to have inspired you! I've been playing TSATF -- on and off -- since it was first published back in 1979 (at least I think that was the year). It's a game that never fails to provide great moments of drama, some realism and the odd moment of comedy too.

If you are tenacious you can track down some 19th Century Afghan flag info, though probably not very much. There are one or two contemporary photos from the 2nd Afghan War (1878-80) which show TRIANGULAR and FRINGED flags, as well as some drawings by British officers, which I think date back to the First Afghan War (1839-42), showing similar designs, with Arabic inscriptions in the center. The colors and exact pattern and/or inscription are another matter. I think most gamers simply use Arabic writing and Islamic geometric patterns.

There are also the various official flags of Afghanistan stretching back to the 18th Century. These will give you an idea of appropriate colors (mostly RED, GREEN, WHITE and BLACK).

Here's a link:

link

Arabic inscriptions could be verses from the Koran or the names of the Caliphs or just "Holy War".

And you can always find Arab Conquest and Crusades era banners and standards to pick and choose from.

The biggest challenge for me has always been flags for the Afghan regulars, who I've always had a special interest in. After years of digging I have yet to turn up anything hard and fast beyond the BLACK FLAG used by Abdur Rahman's government from 1880 to the turn of the 20th Century. It's easy to posit that his regular army would have used that same black flag with various emblems, names or numbers added to differentiate specific units, said emblems probably being done in WHITE, which is the color his son went on to use for the various emblems he added to the national flag after becoming King.

…only problem is Abdur Rahman's government came into being directly after the END of the 2nd Afghan War -- so who's to say what the regular army regiments of Sher Ali Khan and Yakub Khan flew as flags from 1878-80. Could have been black… or not.

Good luck with your flags -- and may your TSATF melee dice always be high (and Gatling Gun to-jam dice low!)