Angus Konstam

Somewhere in Darkest Africa, c.1878 (Home-grown rules) 28mm - Report by Colin Jack

The Edinburgh club will be running a small participation game at a forthcoming show, and this week's game was a playtest of the rules, and the strange game mechanics.

Players were first asked to choose from a selection of Historic Explorers. These fell into three categories;

1) The Peacemongers (Livingston & Thomson) 2) The standard version (Speke, Burton, de Brazza & the Bakers)

3) The Warmongers (Stanley, Peters & Teleki).

Next a bearer was required from a choice of five, each with their own skill but with that unknown to the player. Finally the expedition needed askaris (2 points) and porters (1 point). The players had 10 points to spend. The players were then given 6 cards, used to trade, parley and shoot in differing proportions depending on his peaceful or warlike demeanour.

Now the blank map of Africa could be filled in...

We used six 2'x2' terrain tiles (from TSS) to represent plains, jungle, lake, river (2) and mountain. One tile was placed at the start of each turn, and the party was placed on it. An Event card was then picked, which may have good or bad effect. For instance a witchdoctor may cast a spell or the Explorer might find King Solomon's Mines. Next a Native card was picked which could put a village, a war party or a band of slavers in the Explorer's path. The player used one of his cards to interact with the natives, and rolled against a chart to discover the effect.

In the event of combat the Explorer's party had to record a victory to allow them to proceed to the next tile. If the tile contained a water feature the player had to draw a further card. This could provoke an attack by crocodile/hippo, or provide a supply of fresh fish. The end of a turn was marked by the removal of a porter as the food which he has been carrying was eaten. In combat, the first casualties were the unfortunate porters, or any freed slaves. The Explorer was obviously the last to die, as his party were happily prepared to sacrifice themselves on his behalf!

That's about it. Repeat for five further turns then after the final tile is conquered the Victory Points are added up, but only if the Explorer has actually made it home again.

We used it with great success at several shows but it hadn't had an outing for many years until now. We practiced on some of the club members on Thursday and all except one (Hugh again) reached home to tell the tale. Everyone seemed to enjoy it.

Trouble in the Delta, Vietnam, 1967 (Andy Watkins' Vietnam Skirmish Rules) 28mm - Report by Colin Jack

Somewhere in the Mekong Delta, a small US base hospital found itself under attack from the Vietcong. The assault came in four waves, and without help it looked like the heavily outnumbered defenders would be overwhelmed. Fortunately just such help was at hand, as - with a rather bad sense of timing for the VC, a riverine force was in the neighbourhood, while a hospital ship was moored in the river just off the hospital itself. The plan was to evacuate the patients to safety, but the Medevac Huey on the Hospital ship was hit by a dud mortar round, and quickly took off to find a safer spot, and to avoid even more effective "incoming". A second mortar round landed on the operating theatre of the Hospital ship, wounding two of the three medics and one of their patients.

That was when the cavalry arrived - or in this case the Riverine troops. Across the bay from the hospital an Armed Troop Carrier (ATC) landed US troops to sweep a native village, which was suspected of housing the mortar. The ATC was promptly hit by RPG and recoilless rifle fire, and spun away from the shore, stricken and temporarily disabled. Still, at least its troops had managed to scramble ashore. The first GI through the door of the main house in the village disturbed a booby trap, but luckily for him he narrowly avoided injury. The rest of his squad was less fortunate. They were standing in the open when they were caught in a burst of HMG fire from across the river, where the fighting was still raging around the base hospital. Two were killed outright, along with one of the civilians they were "talking to". That was when the mortar opened fire again, from its still undiscovered location. It seemed that the Riverine team had been landed in the wrong place...

The Medevac helo was ordered in to the village to rescue the casualties, by which time two more Americans had fallen victim to the HMG. As it landed behind the village another Vietcong RPG team appeared out of the surrounding jungle. Things looked bleak, but amazingly the round went straight through the open doors without hitting anything! Once again the Huey lifted off with alacrity, and quickly made itself scarce. That was when the rest of the reinforcements arrived. A Cobra Attack Helo appeared, flying protectively over a River Monitor, which carried a squad of US Special Forces on board. The Cobra crew spotted movement in the treeline beside the village, and promptly launched a salvo of rockets, which "took out" the RPG team. Meanwhile the Monitor directed its fire on the human waves attacking the base. The Special Forces were landed near the village, and waded through the rice paddies to the river edge, to open fire on the attackers from across the river. This help came in the nick of time. On the base only one defender was still uninjured, and the medical staff have to abandon their patients to man the perimeter themselves. It was touch and go for a turn or two, but eventually the combined firepower of the Monitor and Cobra broke the back of the assault. Eventually only four VC were left alive - the ones too close to the defences to engage. In a last desperate measure they hurled themselves at the medics, and the fighting became a hand-to-hand scrap. Across the bay the ATC had moved up to the village to take off the survivors, and the casualties. The Medevac helicopter returned, and landed behind the Special Forces who had suffered their first casualties. It looked like the Americans were finally on top of the situation ... or were they?

That's where we must leave them until we can pick up the action again in a few weeks time.

The home-grown rules gave a fun and action packed game, and for once the medics had proper role, dealing with casualties rather than just being hangers-on to the main event.

Jedburgh, Scottish Borders, 1938 (A Very British Civil War / Triumph & Tragedy) 28mm - Report by Colin Jack

Note from Angus: Colin Jack is nothing if not inventive. Here is his game report of the latest battle in his fictitious Civil War of 1938 campaign, based on a battle fought in the mid 16th century. Of course, he'd be much better off fighting the historic 16th century battle to start with, rather than inventing history, which is something dangerously close to fantasy gaming. Still, in this game (as in the original) the bad guys got a kicking, which at least counts for something! Still, I do wish he'd get back to playing loosely historical Back of Beyond games, rather than this inventive nonsense...

A small Scots force intercepted a much larger invading force between Melrose and Jedburgh on the line of Dere Street and what is now the A68. Either purposefully or by accident they gave the impression that they were fleeing before the invading cavalry and drew them and the following infantry on to their own infantry in hastily prepared positions. Historically the defeated invaders complained that the Scots pikes were 3ft longer than their own and that the sun was in their eyes!

Naturally I had not told either Hugh or Bill what battle they were fighting just in case either was familiar with it (quite likely in Bill's case). Therefore instead of Parthian flight Bill charged the Scots cavalry into the BUF cavalry and lost. Then as the invaders advanced the Scots HMGs failed to register a hit for three turns. As they swept forward it looked as though history was about to be turned on its head. Then the HMGs finally found the range and caused a militia unit to flee.

Historically the Borderers in the invading army changed sides as soon the first English units began to break and this event was factored into the game as Kerr's Horse charged into the back of one of the BUF Legions completely destroying it. The second legion stood firm and defeated the Borderers in hand to hand combat but the tide had turned and one by one, under the fire of the machine guns, militia units, many of them foreign, broke and fled. Only two units stood firm to cover the retreat which quickly became a rout.

The battle was Ancrum Moor fought in 1545 by a Scots force of 2,500 under the Earl of Angus and an "English" force of some 5,500 comprising 3,000 foreign mercenaries (possibly landsknechts), 1,500 English and 700 Scots borderers. Sir Laiton and Sir Ewer, the commanders of the two English battles were both killed along with 600 of their force. A further 1000 were taken prisoners. Scottish casualties were negligible.

Another note from Angus: There isn't a supporting web page covering this fictitious 1938 Civil War, which, given Colin keeps on playing these games is becoming something of an omission.

I'll therefore ask him to concoct something over the next few weeks, plus a little about the other on-line resources for the campaign, and the rules the guys use.

Agedabia, Western Desert, 1941 (Rapid Fire) 20mm - Report by Colin Jack

Note from Angus: Although most of the rest of us have moved on to the more realistic "Battlegroup Panzer Grenadier" (great rules, bad name), Colin Jack and Bill Gilchrist have remained loyal to the older "Rapid Fire", which gives more of an "old school" game. In their games everything seems to be blown up within a few turns, and the body count rivals a set of Chris Peers rules. However, the guys always enjoy themselves, which is more than you can always say for our Second World War games, which are always a lot more tense, with most of the defending force hidden from view, and where panzerfausts lurk around every corner. In this game though, the simpler rules really seem to have worked, and produced a tense and enjoyable encounter...

This game centred around the attempt by an Italian column to escape up the length of the table and off the other end. Hugh had the Italians and led with two of his M11/39 tanks with the Italian infantry in trucks and another pair of tanks bringing up the rear. An L3/35 flamethrower tank was on one flank and the native infantry, on foot, on the other.

The British first struck with their 2-pdr portees and knocked out one tank but were all quickly knocked out themselves. As the only other British armour was three MkVI light tanks, it was down to the two 25pdrs firing over open sights to take out one apiece (their only hits of the day!). The Mk VIs lasted no time at all and had made little impression on the native infantry. Star of the show was the little L3/35 which removed the British HMG and mortar teams and was moving on to the infantry when the game ended. The late appearance of three British cruiser tanks failed to stop the Italian column driving off the table.

Indian Mutiny - Lucknow, India, 1857 (Rules set unknown) 28mm - Pictures by Colin Jack

This is less of a game report than a short photo essay, showing a game laid on by the Edinburgh Club (the SESWC) at the recent Partizan show in Newark. Most of the figures were supplied by Brian of Mutineer Miniatures, and Colin Jack was there to help, and while the game itself would have been a very short one if it was played out (the British and loyal troops outnumbering the mutineers by about two to one), it certainly looked pretty. The figures are for the most part from the superb Mutineer Miniatures range, which could tempt anyone into the period!