"Frontier Fort Betrayed" Topic

Hollywood Brigadiers (or the skeleton crew that remains of us!) fought this North-West Frontier TSATF battle some time around the start of the Summer. On the terrain front, please note the new ground cover, consisting of one solid piece of inexpensive brown berber type carpet from Home Depot, turned on its reverse side for a nicely mottled desert tan with flecks of reddish brown effect! (forgive me but after years of using 2 pieces of desert vinyl that left a straight line down the center of the tabletop I find this very exciting!

THE BATTLE:

A British fort on the NWF was under attack, defended by 1 unit (20 figs as per TSATF) of British regulars and 1 unit of local Constabulary, plus a Gatling Gun. Somehow, the British officer in charge of the fort had convinced himself that his incredible charisma and leadership prowess would keep the uniformed locals loyal no matter what, even though his Sgt. Major advised him to boot the militiamen out, even if it meant being able to post only half the number of riflemen on the walls.

The Afghan commander chose to ignore the fort and concentrate his entire force on attacking the relief column. At first his attacks were rather handily repulsed and it appeared as though the column would reach the fort having sustained rather light casualties -- but then, on turn 8, the tide changed….

At the start of each turn a card was drawn to determine whether or not the local constabulary remained loyal to the British. Only a SUICIDE KING or ONE EYED JACK would mean they changed sides. Needles to say, on turn 8, the dreaded suicide king was drawn. The militiamen turned around and blasted away at their CLASS I TARGET comrades on the other side of the fort. The Brits fired back and the ramparts ran red with blood. Over the next several turns the Bengal Lancers were routed, the Highlanders lost a desperate melee, the Gatling gun jammed and the morale of the Pathan commander -- who had come very close to deserting in sullen despair when his first unit of Ghazi fanatics had attacked and been routed and one of his tribal Pathan units was wiped out, all on turn 5 -- became thoroughly reinvigorated.

The end of the action saw the relief column's sole remaining unit of infantry (with 15 effectives, including 1 NCO, left) formed up in square to defend against the threat of devastating Ghazi charges, moving painstakingly slow towards the gate of the fort, followed by the remaining crews of the 2 screw guns, while inside the fort all the native militiamen were dead or wounded but inside the walls, in addition to a portion of the Gatling Gun crew, only the fort's hubristic Commanding Officer remained alive and unwounded.

What started out with great promise, ended as a near-total debacle for the British. If it were part of a campaign, another relief column would need to be organized and dispatched at once!

NOTE: Keeping the local constabulary of dubious loyalty within the fort's walls and the "Betrayal" card-flip rule was part of the fun of this scenario. When that suicide king was flipped on turn 8 it took everyone by surprise. The resulting firefight between former allies on the ramparts was perhaps the quickest and bloodiest action I've ever seen in many a TSATF game.

Jeeze, I wrote all that and then forgot to paste in the link. Here ya' go:

link

Great AAR! Cool scenario idea. Love the pics. How many native units were there?

Thanks,

John

Thanks, John.

There were 5 Pathan units, each with 10 riflemen and 10 sword & shield only, 3 units of Ghazi fanatics armed only with sword & shield but testing for morale, close into combat and stand and fight as Zulus, plus one tribal gun with 4 crew, each counting for only 2 men on the artillery firing chart. There was one Mullah in command of the 3 Ghazi units and a Tribal Chieftain in overall command.

The Relief Column consisted on 1 Troop of Bengal Lancers, 2 screw guns, two regular infantry units, plus an attached commanding officer and senior NCO -- and the garrison of the fort, as described above, was 1 Gatling Gun, 1 unit of regular infantry, 1 unit of local constabulary, plus a Commanding Officer and senior NCO.

Great looking game, particularly the ground cover.

Who commanded the goats ? Were they gungoats?

Chick

I like your hills. What material did you use to make them?

Marvelous, Gentlemen!

Great to see old Hinchliffe's still in action--TRULY "Veteran" Troops!

TVAG

Thanks for the positive feedback, guys -- especially you, Chick, for getting a bit excited by my new Afghan ground cover!

TVAG, yes, I ordered those Hinchcliffes from my local gaming shop, located about 4 miles from my house in Brooklyn, NY, when I was about 12 years old, a little more than 30 years ago! I brought them back into service a few years ago when my parents followed my family across country, from Brooklyn to LA, to spend more time with the grandkids. My parents sold their house, which still had the gaming room my dad had built for my brother and I in the basement, and my mom brought a box of dust-covered figures and terrain which she had packed up before they left. Included in that box were all my painted Brits from back in the day and among them were the screw guns and Gatling guns I now use. Part of me wants to replace them with more recently sculpted, better painted castings, but the other part is too sentimentally attached to the "VETS"!

cfielitz,

I previously posted pics with those hills in them and gave some info about their fabrication. Maybe I'll take pics and post a little "tutorial" on the TERRAIN board. But until then…

…the hill contours are made from 2 layers of carpet underlay foam, with the slick covered sides glued together with spray adhesive, leaving back-to-back rougher, exposed foam sides showing on both sides.

The foam itself is multi-color and very bright. I give it a solid undercoat of DARK EARTH brown spraypaint, then several coats of various shades of light brown and tan.

The most important thing is that the contours themselves are made by TEARING THE FOAM BY HAND, not cutting with scissors. This gives them the rough-hewn, craggy look which I think works great for the North-West Frontier. Some day I will spray the reverse side of all my contours with several shades of OLIVE and GRASS GREEN and be able to use them for French & Indian War skirmish battles with individually based figures. I have English, French and Indian armies like that but they've been stationed in my closet since about 1760!

The foam is pretty inexpensive and available at any Home Depot, though I'm not sure if you can buy it in small quantities. You could also try carpet stores. I got mine when I pulled up the wall-to-wall carpeting in our (at the time, almost 7 years ago) new house. I knew it would come in handy in some hobby-related manner, so I rolled it up and saved it in the garage.

Um… that's "The King With The Axe" in the photo, not "The Suicide King" ( King of Hearts ,iirc-the one with his sword stuck through his head).

Keen eyes, komradebob!

Ah, well…

Yeah, I noticed that when I first went thru the pics last night, but told myself "axe to the head must count the same as sword in the head." I didn't see the card when it was flipped during the game. I played as the British commander of the fort, so it certainly had a very big impact on my position! Either our computer/photo guy (in command of the relief column) made the mistake or my 12 year-old son (playing as the Afghans) did. I think they both saw the card at the time, so at least both sides were equally culpable. To be honest, I'm cool it happened that way, since it made for a very interesting development in the game -- albeit one that devestated my command!

…or perhaps there was some slight-of-hand after the fact and the suicide king was replaced for the pic, to cast doubt on the results?

Well, honestly, if the betrayal option was in the game and it didn't come up, that would have been a bit boring wouldn't it? ;)

I hear you about the old Vet figs! I like your terrain. Extremely functional but still looks good.

Thanks,

John

You're very welcome -- and thank you, John Leahy!

You hit the nail on the head. It's always a struggle for me to compromise between function and look, especially for TSATF, played with individually based figures. It took me a long time and a ton of different materials to find scrub brush I like and same for the rocky terrain. I think the new ground cover really things together.

Please post reports of any other games you run.
I would love to see them. You've got me pumped up to paint some Colonials!

Thanks,

John

AH, i do love colonial wargaming! thank y'all for the batrep, the pictures , everything!

DAWGIE

Cool!

hussarbob1746.webs.com