Have a Kit Kat

Some of you might remember the old Cadburys advert…Have a break, have a Kit Kat? 

Can’t get hold of a Kit Kat over here…but I can take a break…which is exactly what I’m going to do for the next few months.

We’ve got the builders in shortly, knocking a way through from the cottage to the barn, and that means precious little hobby money for the balance of the year. Hey ho. First world problems to have and all that. Truth is, the wife is finding it increasingly difficult to use the upper floors these days and with more spinal surgery on the horizon that’s not going to get any easier. What used to be the gîte will now become a downstairs living room (our main one is upstairs to take advantage of the view) and a downstairs bedroom she can use if her condition worsens

On the hobby front, the first batch of blue moon ECW lads finally turned up as you can see below and as usual the conundrum  becomes one of basing. My old 15mm collection from PP was based on 8cm stands, but here I’m experimenting with 4cm bases so I can put them in column on my hexon roads. There’s 60 figures to a battalia here which hopefully gives an impression of “heft,” or at least it should do when I add the pikes to the pile block. Lol. The steel watchamacallit miniatures samples arrived several days before the blue moon stuff and crikey they’re tiny. Beautifully sculpted. But like I say ruddy tiny. They actually put me more in mind of my 10mm Pemdraken AWI collection than anything. I’ll consider that a bullet dodged.

Here’s the boys in column. Don’t judge me on the state of the desk.

And here they are in line. Note they’re only stuck down with blue tack at this point. 

I was so chuffed with my previous AI portrait in East India Company uniform that I asked for another as an ECW officer. In the interests of authenticity I gave chat GPT a more up to date photo in which the old barnet has gone the way of all things.

Declare Sirrah! Be ye for King or Parliament? I consider this proof, if proof were needed, that the internet can be usefully explored for other things than porn or cats. 

Testing of my Mutiny rules continues as you can see from the picture below. So far there hasn’t been any significant revision work required - which is encouraging, or worrying depending on your viewpoint. 

Company lads from the 64th storming a sepoy position.

I plan to come back to the blog in late September when I’ve got something hobby wise to actually write about, so in the interim I hope you all have a belting summer and get to kick back yourselves at some point.

Toodleooh.

P.S. Since I won’t be about to remind you, don’t forget to put the sprouts on to boil in July. 

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.