By Jove it’s Bundooks & Bayonets

I intimated last time that this post would be about the currently unloved ginger headed step child of my collection, ie my 100YW collection, but sadly, I lied.

Instead, and perhaps in compensation, I bring you some Indian Mutiny fodder. 

They say you can’t polish a turd…which is undoubtedly true, but you can of course always roll it in glitter - which is the approach I’ve just taken with a set of rules I wrote last year for the Indian Mutiny. They were almost erm…good. Almost. Tantalisingly close in fact…but while I grew disillusioned with them I failed to delete them off my computer in my usual fashion.

Which has been a blessing.

Because after months of dicking around with published (and very well regarded) rule sets, I’ve finally circled back to mine and might, just might, have something I’m happy enough to play actual games with. Are they perfect…nope…but they’re close enough for a paddy as my racist father would have said. 

To be clear the journeys been a long one on this particular front, and my experiments to date have included, 

1. The Men Who Would Be Kings. Great for general cinematic colonial adventures (which I love) but they really shine when fighting uncountable waves of savages who are happy to feed themselves into your Gardner guns arc of fire armed only with a kiwi fruit. 

2. The Sword and the Flame. Very old school (50yrs?) As difficult to get your hands on as a pair of elephants testicles, but once I had them I found I hated the close combat rules. Doh.

3. Sharpe Practise 2. An excellent set I cant honestly criticise. Sadly there’s too much detail in there for my drug befuddled brain to remember. It served as a constant reminder that I really am losing it and sort of took the fun out of proceedings. 

4. The Devils Wind. Sorry but I can’t get past that it sounds like the aftermath of a bad jalfrezi. 

5. Fist Full of Lead Bigger Battles. Almost. Almost. Probably came to these too late. I’ve now grown weary of roster sheets data cards and some of the more « amusing »  character traits ascribed to colonial officers. 

So then back to my own buggers muddle, my Frankenstein like mishmash of stolen ideas and ill thought through game mechanics. They’re probably crap…but they’re my crap…and if I really can’t recall the specifics of the terrain section on page 3 of 3 then I probably ought to accept that it’s over, call the nurse, and ask for the bedpan. I’m now on version 1.2 and the titles changed from “I don’t like it Sergeant - it’s too quiet”, through “Never mind the Bundooks” to “Bundooks and Bayonets”. They’re hex based, D6 ers, fire tables free and counters light (or lite as my American reader would have it) and they don’t contain nuts. 

Handsome fella ain’t he! Chat GPT knocked 15 years off my life and dressed me up as a colonial British East India Company officer which was jolly nice of it. Oh bless…look, actual hair on my head. I do miss you hair…Please come back.

My mutineers suffer from older weapons than their European opponents, fragile morale, and poor command and control, but they do not lack for pluck or intelligence and their greater numbers can often swing things in their favour.

Here’s a test game I ran with them last week.

The Indian forces surrounding Somerset House have set up several guns to bombard the defenders into submission. 

The 64th have exploited the breakthrough at the Mansanar bridge and the 1st platoon have advanced to within several hundred yards of the Somerset House perimeter. Their mission was to destroy the gun battery and seize or destroy two piles of supplies that the besieging force have looted from the EIC armory. Unfortunately their advance has not gone unnoticed and even as they close on their objectives a detachment of the 28th Native Infantry have been sent to block their path.

Three twelve man sections of the 28th Native Infantry advance to stop the company men in their tracks.

The card activation mechanic kicked the British in the teeth from the get go. A joker meant a random event and the 1D6 roll of 5 saw a conflict of interest arise within the Sikh troops on the right flank. They buggered off on turn 1.

Just as the normally doughty Sikhs were off to the shops the left wing of the Indian force benefitted from a double activation and made it to the camp full of arms and ammo. All they had to do now was hold against erm…well…erm, zero opposition.

In the centre of the field and advancing on the dug in cannon, men from the 64th press forward, backed by the forces command group. Each section has an nco that does all of the real leading. The command group act as a potential rallying point for figures that rout and ensure that the kettle is on at all times. 

The British capture their left flank objective while the Indians charge bravely at them. The Brits operate in 8 man sections and the natives 12 man sections. Two native sepoys were shot at close range (there is no wounding in my rules only “out off the fight”). If you think that might be an abstraction too far, I challenge you to pick yourself up and carry on fighting when a 30gram lump of lead has just hit you at 1000 ft per second. Yeah, thought not. The two guys with the yellow counters had near misses and are “shocked”. In the end of turn morale check they ran for it and the still intact group of four in the neighbouring hex followed in their wake since routing has a negative effect on those in neighbouring hexes. The British lads behind the crates will need to spend a turn reloading those muskets if they wish to fire again.

Having tested the musketry rules I moved over to the centre of the field for a shufti at the morale section. The Indians here have charged into a hex containing four British soldiers and due to some excellent  die rolling “slotted” all four of them. The other four British soldiers have turned to face them and would have no doubt avenged their comrades had not my builder turned up to give me a quote. 

Everything worked out very satisfactorily, so if things continue to go well with the testing I’ll jump back into my Mutiny campaign and finish it off (it’s only been a year since the last update) lol. 

In other news, no sign of my blue moon ECW lads (old glory UK seem, erm, a bit “laid back” shall we say about sending stuff out. When I contacted them last week by email I got a “oh yeah, I was going to get in touch and let you know I didn’t have one of the packs you ordered - any thoughts on what you’d like instead?” Despite my prompt return email, they’ve still not turned up. Sheesh…you’d think I lived in ruddy Kathmandu.

Catch you on the flip side.

A bridge too far - The batrep

It’s been two weeks since I played the game but I’ve been so busy breast feeding my baby chickens that I’ve not had a moment to commit the action to paper so to speak. This is the concluding game of my short VBCW campaign - pitting the defenders of Brompton against a Mosleyite force of black shirts. Game 4 of 4 saw the Brompton force attempting to destroy a bridge ahead of Edward VIII ‘s advancing army of the Severn Valley.

Arriving near the bridge the Brompton lads got off their bicycles, readied their weapons and split into two groups on either side of the road. The armoured car “unlucky for some” crept cautiously towards the bridge and following up behind was a lorry packed with TNT. The plan was relatively simple, the armoured car would flush out any opposition, the infantry would sweep the flanks and the lorry would be driven up onto the bridge and then detonated. The only fly in the ointment was that they had a mere six turns to reach the bridge before the lead British Army vehicles arrived, so they were going to have to get a wriggle on.

The black shirts were deployed in two of six random locations, and since the wife placed the counters I had no idea which of the six they were actually at.

On the right hand side of the road the Brompton boys and the armored car were relieved to find that no one was lurking behind the wall. 

On the left hand side of the road, things immediately took an unfortunate turn for the worse. The Brompton force ran slap bang into 6 of the ten man BUF defenders…with predictable results.

Despite the BUF retreating to the woods, within minutes those attackers that weren’t injured or taking cover were legging it off the board to be counted as losses.

The armoured car provided much needed fire support, preventing a total rout, but couldn’t hang around since the other defenders still needed to be located and suppressed before the regular army arrived at the bridge.

The brief respite did allow the Brompton flamethrower chap to recover in the nick of time, allowing him to barbecue a couple of BUF who’d run over to finish him off.

The armoured car pressed on towards the bridge only to discover Action Group leader Hartwell and three other defenders lurking nearby. Armed with a turreted MG it should have been curtains for the BUF at such close range…

But it was not to be. Hartwell had a grenade…and he wasn’t afraid to use it. With the best die roll possible  he damaged the armoured car enough for it to immediately withdraw instead of risking a protracted engagement and potential destruction. 

Pulling back off the road, it left the way clear for the lorry full of TNT to make a last minute dash for the bridge.

Too late! The first armored vehicles of the Royal Tank Regiment arrive on the bridge and open fire on the lorry. At this point I realised that there was no way the Brompton force could now reach the bridge to destroy it…but they still had a vehicle packed with TNT that could maybe block the bridge with a disabled tank?! Wedging a brick on the accelerator the driver leaps from the cab as the lorry begins to pick up speed.

And just then the gunner of the tank gets his eye in. The second shot finds its mark and a lorry full of TNT  becomes a cloud of smoke and a blast that shatters the windows in the distant cricket club. Hartwell was very close to the explosion and was only saved from serious injury by the wall. Some of his nearby associates were not so lucky! 

So that ended the matter pretty conclusively. The BUF’s victory in this mission gave them enough points to win the entire campaign, so Hurrah for the blackshirts, or boo hiss depending on your political leanings. I have a British army infantry and naval shore party force to paint up so I’ll probably return to Brompton at some point in the future but for now it’s on to pastures new.

It should be noted that the change in rule sets for this battle may have worked against the Brompton boys. Turns in Five Men In Normandy can be one of three types, an all firing and no movement turn, a cautious all movement turn and a regular turn with a limited number of figures allowed to move and fire. With a tight deadline for reaching the bridge the Brompton force spent too long bogged in positional firefights and unable to advance. Them’s the breaks I guess.

Next post will be 100YW related. I didn’t buy the Ecorsures rules for this as I’d planned because after a bit more digging I discovered aspects of the system I wasn’t that keen on. Instead I stumbled across a set from a gentlemen called Mr Atherton, on the interweb, which look cool - so I’ll trial them on here with a bit of a knockabout to see how they work on the table.

The15mm ECW is definitely now “a thing” but progress has been set back by the continued absence of my Steel Fist Miniatures test order. Going on their website to enquire as to their whereabouts I noticed that most of the Steel Fist range I actually want are suddenly “currently unavailable,” Another hour or so on the interweb saw me chance upon the Blue Moon / Old Glory range and I have now “invested” in them instead. They’re not as intricately detailed as the Steel Fist figures but it’s a pretty comprehensive range at a much more competitive price. 

They even do a camp set which looks pretty swish and I’ll most likely order the thing even if I haven’t got the slightest idea what I’ll actually do with it.

Two of the rather sweet little 4 Ground houses finally got built with a third still under construction. 

Okey cokey, I’d best be offski. It’s half four here and not a child in the house has been washed as my gran used to say. 

Behave yourselves until next time…and remember. Wherever you go - there you are.

A bridge too far - Game 4 of 4 & The law of unintended consequences

Soz to all whose blogs I’ve failed to comment on in the past two weeks, but that orange buffoon in Washington persuaded me it was time to go on another internet detox. Having finally girded my loins and summoned sufficient courage to come out from under the duvet, here’s another post.

The final game in my four game VBCW mini campaign beckons.

Situation fluff.

The BUF’s attempt to seize control of the vital Brompton industrial area has failed and Action Group Leader Hartwell and his merry band of blackshirts have fled the field.

“The Major,” Brompton Town’s military supremo, receives alarming news from a trusted fellow Rotarian in the Whatgoesup Aero Club that elements of the King’s Severn Valley army has left its barracks in Worcester and is heading east on the A21 towards them. 

Birmingham promises to send reinforcements to the town but the Major knows the only way he can delay the government force is to blow up the bridge across the  nearby river Stour. With no time to waste he creates an adhoc flying column and heads off with all the TNT the Public Works Department can provide.

Meanwhile, crossing the very same bridge on their way back to the safety of Worcester, the remains of Hartwell’s disheveled BUF Action Group are intercepted by a motorcycle outrider who brings exciting news. Lead elements of the 1st RTR are only an hour away, the spear point of a powerful force intent on crossing the Stour at the very bridge they’re currently standing on.

Hartwell reasons that if he can make a big show of “holding the bridge” for the regulars, he might offset some of the recently acquired damage to his military reputation. Hurriedly he orders his men to take defensive positions around the bridgehead.

The Brompton force has eight victory points from the previous games and the BUF have seven. The dice decided that for both sides this missions importance is high so there’s 5 points to be gained from the game and victory in the campaign itself to the side that wins this one.

The bridge over the river Stour. A bridge too far? I’ve resorted to my hexon tiles to create the none urban landscape needed for this scenario. The hex divisions will play no part in determining movement etc, just the general lie of the land.

I’m giving the 5 men in Normandy rules a run out here, because they were the original set I chose for the VBCW project and though I eventually sidelined them for the FFOL ones, I’m still keen to see how they work out.

The Forces.

The BUF have ten men a tank and an armored car from 1st RTR that’ll enter the board over the bridge on the BUF’s turn 6. The BUF infantry start in hiding at two of six locations, their position automatically revealed when the Brompton force comes within 6 inches of them. 

The Brompton force includes an armoured car 10 men and a lorry loaded with TNT. Either side will concede the mission if four or more men are lost.

The law of unintended consequences.

I had occasion to root around in the barn last week, (looking for an angle grinder as it happens), when I stumbled across a box within a box that hasn’t seen the light of day in about 6 or 7 years. A quick inspection revealed a 15mm Peter Pig pikeman with no head and a bundle of warning orders from when I was re enacting with Sir William Pennyman’s Regiment of Foote. Said pikeman, headless or not, is the last survivor of the great 15mm twin army chuck away, plucked from the ranks for a head swap that clearly never came to fruition. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that his colleagues were all mistakenly despatched to landfill, but have since consoled myself that without a head he couldn’t have heard me anyway. Phew. Also in the box were these…

Dear old “4 ground” - we hardly knew ye. Driven, somewhat ironically, into the ground this last 4 years…apparently. Must have stuffed them into my “never to be opened again” box a long time back. They look neat don’t they. Shame they’ll never be used, what with being ECW and 15mm.

Anyway where was I, oh yes, unintended consequences. Regular readers will recall that I purchased two Silkie hens last summer, one of which actually turned out to be a cockerel. As a bit of an experiment the wife and I took up a friends offer to use their incubator this spring and thanks to Eddie the cockerels unstinting and untiring efforts to fertilise everything vaguely chicken shaped (and even a few things that aren’t chicken shaped) we’ve ended up with these two.

Taa daaaaa… May I present Daphne and Gladys (or Dave and Gary depending on how they develop).  Since Eddie the cockerel has been “boffing” both Brenda the Pekin and Elsie the Silkie the odds are that these two are going to be Pilkie’s, but we’ll see.

But Broom I hear you cry aren’t you going to cunningly segue way back to the headless pikeman and the unintended consequences header using your skill with DJT’s “the weave” . 

Why yes ;-) 

Yes I am.

A prime reason to go back on the internet was to look up a YouTuber who I recalled had Silkie Pekin cross chicks themselves and while browsing I began to realise I’ve been following loads of YouTube channels that I barely visit anymore. 

One I ummed and ahhhed about deleting was a figure painters site (with a delightful West Midlands accent) who’d been doing Empress Miniatures 28mm Indian Mutiny range and had inspired me to start that particular project last year. Wouldn’t hurt to see what he was up to these days would it?

Oh bugger.

Yeah,  beautiful 15mm ECW sculpts from a company I’d never heard of. In light of the headless pikeman and the potential terrain already in the bag was this the universe sending me a message…? 

The question is, am I finally over my 15mm ECW colleywobbles? « Gives the matter 3 seconds of deep thought » 

Erm. Yup.

Order placed yesterday for some test pieces. Could be the next project I reckon. 

A fine body of men.

Toodleooh for now mes amis.

Hors de combat (temporairement)

Bit of a filler post this week cos I’m out of commission thanks to first world problems. 

The end part of our house has some massive wooden shutters front and back which make it comfortably zombie apocalypse proof but which require a degree of maintenance to keep in tip top condition. 

The shutters of doom, 3m square (whatever that is in old money) and that’s just one set. 

Long story short I’ve been using an orbital sander intensively for days on end and now have hands like cows tits. All of my fingers on my right hand are numb, in a way that I’d welcome if it were my brain, and that has meant no typing or painting in my so called down time. Some folks have the gift of being ambidextrous but I’m firmly right handed and it’s that one that’s copped the worst of it. I’d say my left hand is useless but it’s not actually that good. Come to think of it, along with my left arm it’s done little but flap lazily in the wind for most of my life. Ruddy useless, though I suppose it does add a certain symmetry to my ((coughs)) Adonis like physique.

I digress. The last game of the Brompton Campaign is sort of set up…but picking up toy soldiers and moving them around is a bit like operating one of those coin op amusement arcade claw machines, only the crane bit’s made out of ham. For my models sake I’m going to leave it a couple of days until I’ve walked this off. 

I think I’ll just move my Indian mutiny collection with all their delicate bayonets what could possibly go wrong?

Anywhoo. Seeing as typing this is a ruddy nightmare, what with sausage fingers and auto correct, here’s a bit of a post I’d prepared previously to pad things out against a dry blogging month, culled it must be said from correspondence intended for my granddaughter who hopes to live out here one day.

Soz if it’s jarringly out of context for a wargaming hobby blog but needs must when the devil vomits on your eiderdown n’est ce pas?

French Lessons #101

Everything you learned at school or in language classes about speaking French is wrong, and I do mean EVERYTHING. Don’t forget that the main use of the French language is to root out foreigners and only after that to transmit information. Subtleties and nuances in its usage abound, dotted around like linguistic land mines to catch out even those who’ve done 2000 consecutive days on Duolingo. (Bitter…moi…Non!)

Talking is of course essential and should be done through the nose at all times. But what to say? And how do you say it? You’ve assembled all the words for “things” in your intended sentence, remembered what their sex is so you can join them together with correct gender joining words, conjugated a Byzantine series of verbs and then altered the whole sentence structure so that adjectives describing ONLY beauty, age, goodness and size go before the noun (“le chat blanc” - the cat white in English, for example, versus “une belle robe”, a beautiful dress)… and after that, assuming you’ve managed it in the usual two second thought to mouth window, you’re good to go. Great you’ve managed grammatical perfection. 

Sadly, despite this mini triumph no one will understand you because you will have pronounced ONE of the words incorrectly and no one uses grammatically perfect french anyway… other than foreigners. Job done. You’ve been busted you filthy barbarian. 

(French people don’t say “oui” (wee) they say “oui” (way). Nous (we) is only written, in spoken French they say “on” and they never say the “ne” bit in “je ne sais pas” (I don’t know). Anything pronounced slightly off (even if the meaning is obvious) becomes entirely incomprehensible and must be immediately dismissed from the average mind Français.

Level two of language being used for rooting out étranger is the use of “Verlan”, the French version of Cockney rhyming slang.  How it should be used and when it is socially acceptable to use it is still a closed book to me but essentially it is taking a standard word like “fou” (crazy) and switching the letters around so it’s pronounced “ouf” (oof). I think it’s meant to imply that you possess subtle inner city wit or some such, but don’t quote me on that. It used to be pretty niche, but it’s even on tv now.

Last in this cautionary tale of vernacular mayhem are the words borrowed from elsewhere that don’t mean anything much but are just thrown into a sentence at random to indicate you are generally “hip”. Witness the new word… “wesh” which may or may not mean anything (it hasn’t yet made it to La Creuse where we live) and can be interposed between any words in a sentence with no apparent problem. I’m told it comes from North Africa if that’s any help.

French Lessons #102

Table manners. Essential knowledge. Never leave your baguette upside down on the table, it’s bad luck (it’s the one left out by the baker for the towns hangman, apparently). Never slice your baguette with a knife (what are you some kind of animal?) it should be torn into chunks, with your hands. I’m told it was because back in the day cutlery was considered insanitary, but to be fair, I’ve never seen a Frenchman actually wash his hands…

Cheese. There are officially 246 different varieties of cheese in France and apart from the blue and the Comte they all taste the ruddy same. If you are tired of life you might like to make this observation at a dinner party. On the other hand if you wish to curry favour, mutter that it has subtle notes of hawthorn or camomile. Never EVER take more of some you’ve taken a liking to. Another piece of cheese would be “seconds” and “seconds” implies the host did not feed you well enough in the main course (either that or you’re a glutton and should be socially shunned). Don’t forget to look askance at the host if the cheese board has an even number of cheese selections on it. For reference 5 varieties is considered the perfect number, anything more is just vulgar and showing off.

Cutting cheese (not a euphemism) is a science and again an opportunity to sort the social wheat from the chaff. Pie shaped cheeses should be cut into wedges (#obvs), log shaped ones should be cut into cylinders and triangular slabs of Bree are a bloody etiquette nightmare. Basically it seems you have to keep cutting pieces off at an angle till you are mid-way then you can cut perpendicular to the rind so that everyone gets a bit of the rind.  This way no one is left with just a firm piece of rind at the end. There you go. Crystal. Oh yeah, never claim to have had a nice cheese from Brittany. There is no such thing. They’re only good at salted butter up there.

Cheese do’s and dont’s.

Don’t say: “I reckon you can’t beat a nice bit of cheddar.”

Do say: “Have you tried the Ol Sciur with its fragrant blend of raw goat milk cheese, hibiscus, berries and rose petals?” (It is of course Italian, but you’ll be demonstrating your sophisticated European cheese palate to an approving audience).

There you go a wall of text, totally out of context with the blogs raison d’être. Blogging suicide according to those in the know. I must have a death wish.  

Righto I’ll be off now, but be warned, if you’re naughty I’ll know, and I’ll post another few snippets of this crap. lol.  

Heck, who knows, it may even prove useful should you ever find yourself on La Continente.

Leave us a comment if you can be arsed.

À la prochaine mes amis.

Yvonne Ryan’s Express - The batrep

Okay cards on the table, I’m sort of phoning this one in. I played the game a week go and the details are already starting to fade. For someone that’s ostensibly retired I’ve been having a ruddy busy time of it this last few days, so apple bogies in advance. 

Anywhoo

A better title for this playthrough should probably have been, “sometimes you can’t catch a break,” because the dice gods pretty much abandoned one side from the start. 

The target. Two BUF lads attempt to get the locomotive up to steam while the Spanish volunteer Hotchkis team guard the main approach.

To make matters worse for the attackers in the scenario the BUF had occupied both the engine shed and an adjacent factory in the previous mission and were ready and waiting.

The BLDV plan was simple, Solomon’s Rotary Club Rifles would keep the factory defenders busy…

While The Major, the Lewis gun and a flame thrower team headed off around the flank to clear the engine shed.

Up on the carpet factory third floor a Rotary Club sniper kicks things off.

Solomon’s lads leg it towards the lea of their target building. A smoke grenade was thrown which went off course but ended up providing more cover than it would have in its original target point. Fun fact. A smoke grenade of this period would burn for two minutes and produce up to 250sqm of coverage. My smoke grows by one template for three turns then disappears again one by one.

The BUF needed to roll two sixes in order to get the loco up to steam and rolling. This one was close…but no cigar. 

I don’t allow grenades to be lobbed through windows from a distance, I insist the thrower is in contact with the building. I’d forgotten what a well placed grenade can do in a confined space. The BUF lads are stunned and flee to the far corners of the factory.

The BLDV sniper gets his eye in and wounds a BUF guy in the engine shed. There he is look, up in the top window. Coooeee.

Not wishing to be caught by more grenades the BUF withdraw from the factory, but hope is at hand as they roll the first six indicating the loco is finally at full steam. Now, which lever to pull to get it moving? Can they roll another six?

The stunned BUF stragglers from the factory don’t get far. The Rotary Club rifle chaps are on them in a trice. It’s literally backs against the wall.  Bodies begin to fall.

Lady Luck is a fickle bitch. The Brompton boys secured a random event which resulted in the arrival of Unlucky For Some. 

The armored car was great but the icing on the Brompton cake was the arrival of the flame thrower team on the blind side of the engine shed…with predictable results. 

Surely things couldn’t get worse for the forces of corporate fascism? Actually…erm…yes they could. Where one faction has armour and the other does not I’ve added “tank shock” to the FFOL rules. Infantry with 6 inches of the armour suffer one level of shock, making their fire less accurate and their movement more cautious. Gomez and co decide to up sticks.

Sensing the way the wind was blowing and anxious to preserve some of his force for the next battle, Action Group leader Hartwell orders a quick retreat. The lads on the train failed to roll another six to snatch a last minute win and that was it…game over.

The final activation belonged to the Brompton lads, but out of perverse curiosity I wondered what the BUF might have rolled if they’d had another chance…and yes naturally it was a six! Doh.

I was pretty sure the BUF would win this one. I began to suspect that the scenario was too weighted in their favour. They held strong defensive positions and only had to roll two sixes during the course of the game to win outright. 

So, Hartwell has now lost his positions in the factory area and will be forced to fall back on the government defences at the Stour river bridge and the last mission of the campaign.

Cheers for wading through this lot, unless of course you just skipped to the end because batreps are boring, in which case boo - you suck. lol. 

Toodleooh mes amis.