Hi folks,

It’s been a few months since we last posted what we’ve been up to the site; however we’re going to try and do this more often as we go forward.

This week Stuart, Dave & Ross played out a “pick-up-and-play” game of “The Men Who would be Kings” (TMWWBK) by Osprey.

Scenario:

Set against the backdrop of the Indian Rebellion of 1857 the British Forces had caught a Mutineer column in an ambush shortly after they had left the relative security of a small village. They were tasked with defeating this small force to quell the rebellion in this valley.

Forces:

Dave was on the defending side with 18pts of Sepoy Mutineers (selecting 3x units of Sepoys and unit of Oudh Irregular Cavalry).

Ross had 24pts of British and allied forces (selecting 2x units of British Regulars, 2x units of “loyal” Sepoys and a unit of Irregular Cavalry)

After Action Report:

The British forces activated first but were slow to act (they failed 4 out of 5 activation checks) which allowed the defending infantry to make a dash for a dry river bed running alongside the road they were travelling on and the supporting cavalry to form on their flank behind some scrub (activating 3 out of 4 units).

With the maximum range of the muskets on both sides this only 12″ this meant the British had to advance forward for several turns before getting close enough to do any damage (3x hits required to score a kill at long range along with the soft cover provided by the river bed).

Due to several activation failures and light casualties causing pinning, the British Regulars arrived piecemeal in front of the Sepoys who were more than capable of trading shots with them.

The British did manage to combine their fire against a single slow moving Sepoy unit that was caught in the open and dealt enough damage to force them to rout.

At this point the impetuous Sepoy commander launched an attack on the slightly thinned out British regulars and managed to defeat one in detail and reduce the other to a single man (in a moment of almost unheard of luck Dave managed to roll 8 hits out of 12 dice)!

However this wild charge came at a cost and the loyal Sepoys and irregular cavalry, with the British Commander attached, swept in on the flank and butchered the mutineers to a man (a more predictable turn of luck Dave only managed to roll a single hit from his 12 dice).

That single loss resulted in a leadership check for the British Commander which he survived with ease (rolled a double 6 where a double 1 is a casualty); however while riding around exalting his troops to victory he was shot while proclaiming something about them being unable to hit an elephant from 10 paces (very next casualty check resulted in a double 1 being thrown!)

With the loss of the British Regulars and their commander and the mutineers entrenched in their defensive position the “loyal” Sepoys lost their impetus and withdrew as night fell leaving the remaining defenders to slip away in to the night.