Battle of Omdurman -- Historical -- The Better Part of Valor

 So this right here is my idea of grabbing HL's Anglo-Egyptians by the belt.  With each unit weighing in at 400-700 troops, that's a sizeable mass of men under which I've buried the zariba.  The problem is that, like a dusty Eye of Sauron, any place the A-E's want to turn their gaze, they can unleash an amount of firepower that makes mock of any stack of Mahdists.  "Remember Gordon!" uses a very elegant firepower system that has only a few modifiers and what I'm sure was for the time an unusual ten-sided die to resolve combat.  A-E fire typically doubles or, in the base of artillery, triples at close ranges.  It doesn't take much to reduce my lads to a red mist. 

I took the shot below to demonstrate that Osman Digna was not afraid to close with the last of the Fuzzy-Wuzzies.

I ran one more A-E turn (top of turn three of the four allowed by the game) just to see how much damage my rifled troops might manage to pull off.  As matters turned out, I snuffed out five to  HL's 100+ leading, under the knowing victory conditions, to an A-E Tactical Victory.  I might have pressed matters to see if I could reduce that to marginal, but we're both ready to try the Fall of Khartoum mini-scenario and the formal, allegedly more balanced, campaign game.

Squad Battles -- First World War -- Attack on Pope's HIll

On and off for the past several months my friend Charles and I have been making our way through the Gallipoli scenarios in the "Squad Battles: First World War" game from John Tiller Software.  It's a grossly underappreciated game including a remarkable number of scenarios across the entire span of the war and which clearly had a designer who thought about the effects of technological evolution on the course of the conflict.  The Gallipoli scenarios, though, are a very grim business.  Take these notes from the latest:

1915 May 19, Gallipoli Front. 0900 hours.

Size: large (battalion)

In the early morning hours of the 19th, ANZAC forces were awoken to the sight of a massive Turkish attack along the whole of their perimeter, an attack that the Turks intended to as a decisive blow that would drive the ANZAC into a the sea.

In the Pope's Hill sector, at the northeastern tip of the ANZAC line, the Turks advanced under the light of flares into an Australian force that was ready to meet them.

MISSION:

(Allied Powers) Hold our forward trench line at all costs! Fall back to the strong points (bunkers) if necessary, but do not let Turkish forces advance through our position to the west.

(Central Powers) Capture the enemy forward trench line and, if possible, break through to the west. Doing this will overrun their front line in this area and will cause their whole ANZAC position to collapse.

NOTES:

*Historically the Turks advanced bravely and were shot down en masse. In a couple of hours, the Ottoman attack along the whole front line had failed, with over 10,000 dead and nothing to show for it, although Pope's Hill came under serious threat of overrun.

*Allied forces in the campaign had no hand grenades because high command did not plan on any trench warfare occurring. The Turks on the other hand had a seemingly endless supply of hand grenades, which they constantly lobbed at allied lines. In the ANZAC sector, there was nothing to be done by to try to throw the grenade back before it exploded. Allied forces met this threat by making improvised hand grenades which they called "jam tin grenades". These improvised grenades were made from ration cans of jam, explosive filler and any steel fragments they could find.

I honestly don't know if the the Turks can win this one -- I try never to judge a scenario in which I'm getting pantsed for fear of being accused of "Fox and Grapes".  That said, my boys are having it handed to them:  I am far more likely to be elected Pope than I am to get to those VPLOCs at Russell's Top.

We're actually doing a good deal better here at the spot labelled the "Bloody Angle" (what is it with battles and bloody angles?) but my casualty levels are so high (I'm at -190 VP) that seizing all the ground in the world isn't likely to make much of a difference.

Omdurman -- Historical Scenario -- Yeah, Like It Says On The Tin

The rule book warned me that the historical scenario for "Remember Gordon!" was a slaughter for the Anglo-Egyptians (actually, they're the slaughter-ers and the Mahdists are the slaughter-ees).  I ran my Mahdists straight at the zariba built on the banks of the Nile and the truth of the matter sank in quickly.

Very few of the Mahdists have rifles and you cannot melee across the zariba so, especially for the savage Hadendowa, my major advantage is taken away.  Add to this the fact that defensive fire comes before offensive and that HL's improved gunboats and Maxim guns may fire twice each player turn -- four times each game turn -- and the recipe for ugliness is clear.

This is the field at the end of turn one. Note the conspicuous absence of an entire horde of camelry:

Where'd they and Sheikh Yakub go, you may ask?  Well, the dead pile, of course.

I figure we'll run another turn, just to let my rifle-armed troops to take a crack at him, and then try the Khartoum mini-scenario.

Oh, and HL's dead pile?  One disrupted Maxim gun.  One.

One more turn 'til morning...

In what some may judge as a moment of weakness, I chose not to cut off MB's Prussians completely pending the coming of dawn.  I actually like the supply rule and MB definitely ought to have skated from Ligny sooner, but I don't get the logic of wiping out 2/3 of her force with a couple brigades of horse.

I am, however, going to judge these matters in hand and have sent the Guard -- soon to be followed by D'Erlon -- to assist Ney in his efforts to push straight up the Charleroi Road.

In the lulls between "Napoleon's Last Battles" turns, I've decided to set up a game of a later era and far less well known, "Remember Gordon!".  A product of Phoenix Games (now, I presume, defunct) it depicts the battle of Omdurman and, as a little aside, a mini-game of the fall of Khartoum under Maj. Gen . Charles "Chinese" Gordon.  The former is broken up into a campaign game intended to be more balanced and to give the Mahdist player a shot at victory.  I, however, want to study the game's approach to the historical battle -- as the campaign notes indicate a Mahdist wipeout -- so I've taken control of their armies and given the Anglo-Egyptian force under Kitchener (yes, that Kitchener) to His Lordship.

Hard not to love this.

The Anglo-Egyptians are, mostly, "pinned" behind a zariba up against the banks of the Nile.  In this shot, everybody not on the river belongs to me.

And, if I read the rules correctly, HL has me right where he wants me.  The units on the river are gunboats possessing either guns or, if the newer models, guns and Maxims.  Oh, I should mention, only the red units to the left of this shot and the line of green units in the center rear are armed with rifles.  Everyone else is sword and spear.  For those that know the era, the Hadendowa, Kipling's "Fuzzy-Wuzzies", are the small group of white units to the left and Churchill with the 21st Lancers is buried behind the zariba at the bottom.

Napoleon's Last Battles -- Campaign, Summer 2016 -- 5

We've now made it all the way to nightfall on the 16th.  My dice rolling has been nigh catastrophic as a couple exchange results against Reille's II Corps have left that body only four SPs short of demoralization.  And both were long odds exchanges, one at 4:1 and the other at 5:1.

On the better side of things, with the coming of nightfall, MB's Prussians have a difficult choice.  I've marched D'Erlon's I Corps decisively Southeast to wind up at the North end of Ligny.  Unlike, of course, Napoleon himself who, with Ney's assistance, marched and countermarched these lads all day.  When the 9 a.m. dawn turn comes (it's 2400 hours now) the Prussians will have to establish supply or be eliminated. As MB herself texted me after completing this turn while I was at work, her boys are on a but if a "B, double e, double r, u, n".

Finally into Ligny for 'boney.  Even if it didn't exactly come at the point of a bayonet.

The race for the flank East of Ligny.

Meanwhile, HL's Anglo-Allied are holding serve and waiting for a truckload of overnight reinforcements.

Napoleon's Last Battles -- Campaign, Summer 2016, 4

 And now the push for the Four Arms begins in earnest (above).

Below, is the far right of the French lines.  A little cavalry doesn't get done a fraction of what I think I need to.  Especially as Grouchy can only awaken two corps.  The II corps cavalry is one corps too far.

Still at arm's length from the Prussian right.  Marching the Imperial Guard around to the left.  I will say that the rule that punishes French morale if the Guard is committed and fails in the attack can make one sheepish about their use.

And these things are everywhere...

Napoleon's Last Battles -- Campaign, Summer 2016, 3

There's much to admire in this system.  The relative simplicity of the rules and the low unit density, neither of which comes at the expense of verisimilitude, would certainly be two.  The command system as well is an elegant mechanism by which the game forces commanders to choose their fights.  Napoleon's left, the bit marching on Quatre Bras, is commanded by that basket-case Ney who is, justly I think, granted the ability to order only one corps and one unit.  Grouchy can handle two corps, but his command sprawls all along the length of the Ligny line.

And then there's the question of what to do with D'Erlon's I Corps.  More on that, though, in a bit.

Committed to the march on Quatre Bras.  The campaign starts late on 18 June, so I've definitely got to keep their fee moving before it gets dark.

As the tag suggests, I got bounced, despite having a 3-1, by that stack just west of the river bend.  We'll be back.

Napoleon's Last Battes -- Campaign Game, Summer 2016 -- 2

 I certainly knew where Quatre Bras was and knew I'd further have to get through it.  Perponcher and his lads would seem to like to keep that ridge.

I will, again looking to the past from the present, learn to hate that bend in the river.

Napoleon's Last Battles -- Campaign, Summer 2016 -- 1

There are very few games I like more than Zucker's classic Napoleon's Last Battles.  Now, with the game 40 years old, I finally laid hold on a copy of the designer's edition that I've looked for for quite some time.  I've had at the counters, sorted them, laid out the maps, and challenged MB to play the Prussians and HL to try the Anglo-Allied.

What follows are the results.

 Prepared for the march to Quatre Bras.

 The Allies, of course, have ideas of their own.

 Boney waits to call the men to the march.

Looking through the wrong end of the telescope, this fight for Ligny is going to be awful.

Neu Gemischt

Friedrich is one of those games that it's honestly hard to praise enough.  The map is a joy, the rules wondrously simple, the piece count as low as can be, and it has that card-driven combat system that's both maddening in its "Can't Stop" way and realistic as it makes you choose carefully amongst both your ground and your fights.

HL chose to play the Great this time around, MB was the Austrians and the HRE, and I was the Franco-Swedish-Russian alliance.

For those unfamiliar, there's a clock built into this game that all sides can here ticking.  At some point, the major players drop out of the game, whether their controllers wish them to or not.  The eponymous king of Prussia is doing the best he can to make it until game's end.

In the event, my Swedes and Russians ran from the field within two turns of one another.  My French, though, combined with MB's Austrians, were able to seize the VPLOCs they needed and get us a joint win.  As is so often the case, though, the game really came down to one battle where both sides burned through what seemed like decks of cards.  MB beat HL by literally one card.  Great stuff as always.

C'mon.  Be honest.  You're surprised to see Hanoverians running from French troops.

Because I didn't have a club in my hand, no less than three armies of Russians were held at bay by one rotten Prussian.

Two Reprobates Race for Messina -- And An Inebriated Speedhump

Having a good deal of fun with Doug (panzerde) and Charles (Boggit) using Tiller's Sicily '43.  This is the "Race to Messina" scenario that the Wehrmacht isn't supposed to win but is supposed to speedbump the Allies on their way to the Northeast corner of the island.

I won't lie.  I've been getting it handed to me for the past couple days of game time.  It's still a good time, though, and I'm curious to see whether Patton or Monty marches first in procession through the streets of Messina.