"Peachy & Danny's Excellent Adventure Part III" Topic

Final TMWWBK game at Little Wars was a caravan scenario. Peachy & Danny have decided to get out of Kafiristan while the getting is good. So they load up their treasure on some wagons and head for India via the Khyber Pass.

Game feature P&D with two units of cavalry, two units of mounted irregular infantry, a unit of Bashi Bazouks atop the wagons, and a couple units of tribal infantry. Plus some supply camels. Pathans had 3 units of cavalry, 3 units of irregular infantry with obsolete rifles and 6 units of tribal infantry including 3 ghazis.

P&D had to try to traverse as much of the pass as possible. It's a tribal infantry unit's paradise, with tons of cover. Rifled units would be especially hard pressed if infantry got anywhere near them.

The challenge for the Pathans was this: deployment was determined by a blind draw. Their 12 units could end up in any of 18 different points. They could remain hidden as long as they didn't move, fire or (obviously) attack. Some ended up in great ambush positions, others not so much. Also, since they were from three different tribes, there was a chance that there ghazi units might choose to attack one another instead of the caravan.

Here Danny and Peachy struggle to get up the main road. A hidden ghazi unit (red base) hits Danny's horse and manages to win the melee, but are subsequently driven off by mounted infantry.

A second ghazi unit jumped out further up the pass and took out most of the mounted infantry. A Kafirstani infantry unit was poised to counterattack the depleted ghazi unit, but blew his activation roll and … just sat there.

The Kafirstanis eventually got their act together and started making progress up the trail, but not before an Afghan cavalry unit made off with their pack camels. Bashi Bazouks came under attack from the ghazis and then did what bashi bazouks usually do … they ran away. Enough of the caravan remained that it looked like P&D would make their escape.

The fact that they lost most of their army doing so was actually a bonus. Their subsequent payroll bills was reduced considerably.

Having finally seen the movie, I'm pretty sure a game based on the movie can be much more entertaining than the movie. I like Michael Caine. I like Sean Connery. I like colonial gaming. But that movie was hold your nose for the stink bad in my opinion.

Above referenced game looks pretty cool, however.

Michael Caine has had a chequered career, he has appeared in some great films even picking up a couple of Oscars, but has also been in some real dross. He has a relaxed attitude about this and I like his comment on Jaws 4:

"I have never seen it, but by all accounts it is terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific."

I know tastes differ – but The man who would be king is one of my top 50 movies of all time. probably quite high up if I ever actually were to write the list down…..

Anyone who doesn't put this movie in their top 20 has forfeited all credentials to opine on movies. You still have the right of course, but should not be taken seriously.

'ats on,About turn,quick march!

I just watched this movie Tuesday night! What a coincidence. Nice game and AAR also. I think using some "historical" characters to give a game flavor is a great idea.

Totally agree with Winston above.

Winston nails it, again. Here's an interesting backstory on the film from IMDb:

"John Huston tried to launch the film version of "The Man Who Would Be King" many times before completing it. It was originally conceived as a vehicle for Clark Gable and Humphrey Bogart in the fifties, and later as a vehicle for Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas, then Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole. When it was considered as a vehicle for Robert Redford and Paul Newman, Newman suggested Sir Sean Connery and Michael Caine."

I shudder to think of Gable and Bogart as Danny and Peachy….

It would be a very different film.

The scene at the end where Peachy is telling the end of his tale to Kipling is the finest thing Michael Caine has ever committed to film :

"And do you know what they did to Peachey ? They cruicified him sir, between two pine trees as Peachey's hands…will show. But Poor Peachey who had never done them any harm he just hung there – and he screamed…but he did not die."

Fair enough, Winston, we will just have to consider one another's movie opinions at odds. I stand by what I said, however. Unlike far too many here who want 'history' from their history movies, I want to be entertained by a movie. This one just didn't get there for me. I had high hopes but they got swept under the carpet in the end. The story was a puddle, and sort of yellowish.

How very strange that such an ahistorical movie gets defended by those who all too often trash movies that are meant to be entertaining but don't toe the 'historical' line – but are not only highly entertaining but highly profitable, though profitability is no guarantee of a good movie or a bad movie.

Maybe this movie needs to be watched while dead drunk. Gave that up quite a long time ago.

But to each their own. Maybe having his wife so close at hand and perhaps an excessive quantity of boffing undertaken diluted Caine's performance.

If it mollifies – it didn't make it into my bottom twenty.

Wow. I never really met anyone who did not like The Man Who Would Be King. (Yes, I've met plenty who have not seen it.)

I do have a gamer friend who preferred the Kiefer Sutherland "Three Musketeers" to the Michael York version. I'll never understand that, either.

Well, I've derailed this thread enough – how about back to the cool game based on the movie!

FearAndLoathing: what a fantastic set of 3 games you ran at Little Wars!!! Can't believed I missed your trio of AARs here, but thanks very much for posting all of them! Only wish I could've been there at the convention to take part myself!

Re: the quality of the movie "The Man Who Would Be King"… well, everyone is of course entitled to their opinion, but I must agree with those above who see it as a very high quality piece of work. I love that short-story, one of Kipling's very best IMHO, and I also love the movie… but as Early Morning Writer himself said above, back to the cool game that started this thread, and I repeat: THANKS FOR POSTING this and your other 2 AARs, and as Kipling himself might've put it: You're a better man than I am, FearAndLoathing!