The Brigadier's drinks cabinet

"Carefully chaps! Old Ma Finnigan's Agéd Port Wine is stored in that drinks cabinet."  To no avail.  We were back in the Middle East, facing the Turks  and General "Squitty" Farthingdale was spotted first, and off his blind, firmly at the rear.  Far too far to the rear!

Non the worse for being safe in the rear "Squitty" pressed on with his plan  I say "plan" but really ...

Forwards, but where are the Turks?

The Turks turn up in nasty looking trenches, but I'd ordered advance onto the hill, so we hunkered down barraged them and opened fire.

And brother Johnny Turk takes a proper pounding.

Although Farthingdale is so busy sorting out his mess and redirecting the guns he can't get forward.  Port anyone?

In a rare moment I roll a great dice score, only to be told " too many dice."  I roll again, confident in my Karma.

Smug?  Me?

The drinks cabinet inches forwards.

My left hand battalion have orders to occupy the rear of the hill, precisely where the Turk second trench line is now being bombarded. But they are exposed to the third Turk position now on their flank. 

And the pounding goes on.  If not for the rough taste of the Port I would feel sorry for Johnny Turk.

And the third Turk position wallows my exposed guys again.  So much so I pull them back planning to redirect the guns.  But Farthingdale is still rear echelon and can't see this position yet.

My vulnerable battalion pull back, but still suffer from machine gun fire.

The Turks flee the central hill, but Farthingdale can't yet redirect his fire.  Still he has managed to get the port open.

Good game, and a welcome return of an old favourite.

Blood up the Sudan

 A test game using Blood and Steel for a series of Sudan games.

And right from the get go it just looks right.

The Mahdists have the "Ambush" mission, and I push the Camelry up behind the central hill.  Its the Dervish Camel Death Squad.

And the Mighty Egyptians sneak some Anatolian Skirmishers up the donga.  Blame it on the Turks I say.

I unleash the camel juggernaught.  They are optimistic.

But with a "Trussian" level of competence it seems the Camel squal are all rhetoric.

And across the board the Egyptians have a vast firepower advantage.  It wears the Dervish down.

My sweeping attack on the left is swept backwards by the incoming fire.

Even when the Dervish succeed its a suicide mission.

I get them into contact but have no way to wear the Egyptians down.  Still the melees are close.

We damage the Egyptians but my ambush mission fails.  Wait a minute, that man, that Officer, Major Pea.  He's clearly running away.  Shame!  What would the Queen say?

But he claims it was his mission to run away.  Shame I say.  No wonder he is the only officer among the Petains to never win the VC.  Who has the club chicken Feathers?

The end game.  The Dervish can't win it, and have lost a third of their men.

Indeed, we figured out that the dusty bin basing system makes casualty counting difficult.  Apart from that the game really looked the part.

I'm keen on the idea of doing some "Sudan patrols" style games.  The 21st Lancers or the Camel Corps for instance.  A useful set of rules these.

Blame it on the Turks

It's up the Tigris for you Farthingdale, they said.  Of course in this game I was to be Farthingdale Pasha, commanding the Turks, with Richard of Arabia as my oppo.

Things unravelled almost at once, as we realised they had twice the numbers and twice the quality of our Turks.  Well the coffee would be good at the very least... Wait for it ...

The blinds go down, and we hold our objectives.

And the Imperials get their blinds down.

And we get our trenches out.

On they come, accompanied by whack-a-mole artillery stonks

We start spotting them

The advance brigade on our front left suffers from a series of artillery bashes.

And on the right I wait for my turn

What?  We have wire too?  I really must start listening to briefings.

And there are a lot of them coming at us behind those guns.

In fact they start massing for an assault.

And the forward left is almost broken.  Good photo, upside down.

Even the right is now suffering.

But here too the Imperials prepare to assault.

And a proper barrage falls onto the left holding brigades.  Shaking them almost immediately.

Nice to see the dice quality of the Imperials is of the same high standards as ever!

Game paused, but realistically we were done.  Still when it comes to numbers and quality... blame it on the Turks.

IF THE LORD SPARES US

 Sticking with the First World War, this week we moved the action to Mesopotamia, and an old favourite 'If the Lord Spares Us' by the TooFatLardies. It's scary too think that it has been about 15 years since we last played this, so it was interesting to see if this venerable rule set has stood the test of time.

Whereas,  in Square Bashing the player deploys a divisional size force, with units representing battalions, in ITLSU we're looking at a brigade size force, with the smallest sub-unit being a company. That said the figure requirement is almost identical and I can easily use my 15mm collection for both rule sets.

Also, it was nice to be able to use more naturalistic terrain, when not constrained by a grid (although with a bit more work, I think a similar effect could be obtained with a square grid). This was also a bit of a test of my Geek Villain fleece mat. We placed objects under the mat to create some nice realistic contours (although they're not easy to make out on the photos).

We played the Wadi Hu'ara scenario, from the TFL 2005 Christmas Special. A line of sand and grit marked the Wadi, on the table top. The scenario recommends a 7.5 by 5 foot table but, as my mat is 6 by 4 foot, that is what we went with. 

The view from the British lines.

Both sides deploy on 'blinds'.

The Turkish 2nd Tabur (26th Alay) are spotted in shallow trenches and scrapes (more grit!)

The first Tabur defending the date plantation.

The Dorsets advance on the date plantation supported by the Mahrattas on their left.

The Turkish guns deploy and are swiftly knocked out by counter battery fire.

The Turkish centre is pounded into submission by direct fire artillery..............

..............and breaks, fleeing the trenches.

The Mahrattas are halted by loss of their battalion command.

A British barrage pounds the date plantation.

A mob of local Arab tribesmen appear in the rocks and take pot shots at the British artillery.

Heavy casualties amongst the gun crews who limber up and retreat.

The 3rd Tabur, still on blinds, reinforce the 1st Tabur amongst the squashed dates.

British reinforcements arrive, in the form of the Royal Scots Fusiliers,
and storm the Turkish centre, now in full flight.

Unlike more recent offerings, ITLSU has no mechanism for judging the game end but it was obviously a British win, so we ended the game there.

A great game and, hopefully, the first of many.