When I agreed to run this week's game I hadn't realised it was going to be hotter than the Punjab back in Jolly Old Brixworth. Phew wot a scorcher, as the saying goes. So I pinned up some sun curtains in SHQ, opened the windows and doors first thing and put the tower fan in for extra cooling during the game.
Since the last Aliwal playtest a week or two ago I've painted some more Gorchurra so the Sikh flanks have more of a "cloud" of swirling irregular cavalry. I also downgraded their quality to offset their numerical superiority. I want the better quality British/HEIC cavalry to be able to charge through them whilst still suffering casualties.
Compared to the last game I rotated the set up through 180 degrees to give Phil the chance to play with the light cavalry. Chris partnered him with the Sikhs, and Tim and Steve took the Brits.
I didn't have the best evening umpiring. My brain has been full of "From Pike to Bayonet" which has some similar ideas for movement and so on and what with that and trying to sort out the transition to hexes I should have spent a bit more time re-reading the rules and taking some notes, rather than sitting in the garden eating ice cream and drinking cocktails.Or perhaps not.
Anyhow, Tim and Steve started off with a more direct approach than Chris did for the last game. I did them a disservice by deploying them in line instead of column, which slowed their approach.
With the sun streaming through the windows and into the camera lens they still got stuck in early with the cavalry, and had mixed fortunes.
I was regretting using my camera phone by this point. I really needed the SLR with long lens to pick up on the detail of what was happening.
Steve was wining two of the cavalry fights and losing one. He moved up his horse artillery to enfilade the village prior to an attack with the Gurkhas. Well, at least that's what it looked like.
Which meant I was a bit surprised when he swung the guns round in front of the village at close range, masking the Gurkha rifle fire and their approach to the village. I think this cost him a quick win on this flank.
Phil was doing his best to envelope the British cavalry on his right, as the Lancers drove deep into the Gorchurra, driving them back. The frontal assault on the fortifications was going quite well, with the white capped Gurkhas in the centre leading the way.
Screaming "Ayo Goorkhali" the Gurkhas were over the defences, forcing the Sikhs back.
Steve had lost badly in two of the cavalry melees on his flank, but the Governor General's Bodyguard were doing the business.
When I called time the Sikhs were probably on top, having got the upper hand on both flanks. On the other hand the British were over the entrenchments, and creating some mayhem.
Not an entirely satisfactory game. I need to refresh my memory on some bits of the rules and write up the scenario notes. The British suffered a high number of officer casualties, and as their command is one of the reasons they prevailed historically I need to look at that. I can't have them hanging back, but I can't have them dropping like flies. I also lost my way a bit with firing arcs and was accused of making things up as I went along. Sometimes a valid comment but in this case not true. It was a bit warm and I just got a bit befuddled.
Still, I got enough to firm this up as a COW session, so not a wasted evening.
Great looking game and an enjoyable read.
ReplyDeleteThanks. It looks a bit more open than it should do. It needs trees.
DeleteReally good looking game. It was nice seeing the long shots of the whole battlefield. I always have a hard time deciding what to focus photos on during a game. Should it be focused on narrow action or a broader view to give a sense of what's generally going on?
ReplyDeleteThere's not great science to what I photograph. Often I forget to point the camera at all. The wide angle function on modern phones is great for capturing the dull spread of the action, but I prefer the SLR for framing close ups.
DeleteFine looking game, this, and colourful too. The narrative and pictures paint a coherent story. That it concluded indecisively is probably a recommendation rather than otherwise of the rule set. On the matter of ossifer casualties, one has to ask: a rules glitch - or was that just the way the dice ran? Remember Granny Weatherwax's aphorism in respect of chance - very applicable to war games: 'million to one' shots crop up, nine times out of ten...
DeleteI can relate to the 'forgetting to point the camera' - I discover that in my recent Map Hundred Days (the finale yet to be written up) I forgot the early 4th (or was it 5th) day action between the French and Anglo-Allied I Corps that resulted (spoiler alert) in the demise of the 'Bravest of the Brave'. It took me quite a while afterwards to figure out from the pictorial archive what had happened!
Cheers,
Ion
It's good that you can follow a coherent story. We have talked in our group in the past about the narrative in wargames, and I do tend to think in terms of "what is this game saying" (except when playing DBA, when the game says "We can finish this in 40 minutes" and not a lot else). The officer %age chance of death goes from 12 on 2d6 ( 1 in 36 or c3%) to 11+ (1 in 12 or c8%) to 10+ (1 in 6 or c16%) if all the risk factors align (officer present in the square where combat happened, used a command action, accompanying unit hit). Problem is that all the risk factors tend to align regularly once the game gets stuck in, and with 4 or 5 officers aside (in fact the Brits have 7) the odds of someone getting hit in each turn get close to 100%. So not the dice. And I think it was Sargeant Colon or Nobby Nobbs, talking about Colon's "lucky arrow".
DeleteI think I'd be better on the photo record if I went back to the SLR, as that's on the table all the time, instead of being put in the pocket, but I'm glad to hear it isn't just me.
On game deliverables, the comment that “We can finish this in 40 minutes" is hilarious and telling.
DeleteWell, it wasn't intended to be hilarious, but accurate. The point about DBA is that it is played on a small area with small armies to a conclusion in a small period of time. In that respect it is a perfect piece of design. Getting grumpy about the compromises in the design (and the occasional lack in the historicity of it all) is to is to miss the point. It isn't meant to be a hyper-realistic model of ancient warfare.
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