I ACTUALLY PLAYED A GAME!!!

It may seem odd for a wargamer to get excited over such a thing here on his wargaming blog, but it has been far too long since the last time.

It was a very simple scenario, based on the „Battle of Chamla Valley“ from the pages of the original The Sword And The Flame rulebook, also included in the 20th Anniversary Edition, which as many readers of this blog will know, pits a single basic unit of British Infantry tasked with entering at one far end and proceeding to recconoiter an abandoned outpost at the center of the table, opposed by 2 units of Pathan Tribesmen laying in wait hidden amongst the various hills and rough terrain areas.

My new twist on the scenario replaced the abandoned outpost with my recently-completed HILL TOWER, occupied by a British HELIOGRAPH TEAM, which has inexplicably lost touch with its base-of-operations, across the nearby Kabul River.

I took the part of the local Tribesmen and my older daughter, Isabella — who goes by „Izzy“ — took the part of the British commander.

Given a rather wide ranging choice of British troop types, including khaki and redcoat clad Line Infantry, kilt and trews wearing Highlanders, and all manner of Sikh, Punjabi, and Bombay troops — all of whom would be treated virtually identically for game play purposes — Izzy paid great attention to their respective aesthetic details and chose the Gurkhas: largely because a one-time Gurkha security guard works for a character in one of her favorite popular novels, „Crazy Rich Asians.“ 

Centuries may pass but the martial prowess of Gurkhas remains the same.

The terrain layout, prior to action commencing:

The view from behind the British start-line to the South, across the Kabul River bridge…

View from behind the pine-covered rocky hills to the west…

View from the North-West, looking back towards the British start-line…

TURN 1 & 2:

Izzy rolled her dice and brought her platoon of Gurkhas over the bridge to the far side of the Kabul River, dispatching 2 SCOUTS to check the various rough terrain areas up ahead…

The Scout to the left discovered a full unit of 20 Pathans hidden in the rocks, half armed with rifles, half with sword-&-shield.

Izzy put her full platoon — aside from the Scout on the right — into 2 rank OPEN ORDER with an eye on bringing maximum firepower to bear on the foe.

Seein this, despite being her father, in my role as Tribal Leader I CHARGED, hoping to take advantage of the Gurkhas‘ lack of a close order defense melee bonus…

I rolled for STRAGGLERS: just 2!

The Gurkhas opened fire, but despite their „Rifle“ status, their die-rolling wasn’t so hot, the 20 shots (2 at close range for the Officer’s pistol) inflict only a couple of casualties on my charging Tribesmen, who then proceed to pass their „CLOSE INTO COMBAT“ morale die roll, and of course the Gurkhas passed their own ‚STAND AND FIGHT“ roll (hard for them not to, as British troops w/leader present pass on a 1-6 roll on a D6 — as it should be, I hasten to add)…

Well the melee was fast and furious, with 19 Gurkhas standing against 18 charging Tribesmen, all of whom received a „WIN TIES“ modifier, as per „TSATF 20th Anniversary Edition“…

In the end, the last Gurkha forced the last Tribesman to turn tail and fall back (loss of D6 roll-off with a 3-6), then ROUTE AWAY with the other defeated survivors from his clan, giving the melee victory to the Gurkhas and allowing their many „FALL BACKS“ to rejoin the heroic son of Nepal…

Sadly amonst the Gurkhas casualties from the melee was their NCO, SUBEDAR BAHADUR GURUNG, who was KIA, losing his melee roll-off with a natural „1“ die result. 

Shaken survivors of the routed clan, racing farther down the road towards the table edge…

Predicting the other 10 Tribesmen — probably armed with rifles — would be hiding across the road on the Tower Mountain, the Gurkhas set up astride the road itself, in postion to potentially bring fire to bear at either flank, though with the Tribal Swordsmen so close, this time they went into CLOSE ORDER, as a number of them could not fire anyway as they’d spent the turn carrying wounded comrades, and if the Swordsmen did charge, this would afford the defending Gurkhas a +1 melee modifier… 

Meanwhile, across the field of battle, the Gurkha’s regimental Bhisti, somehow failed in his land navigation and wound up watering some goats on a low sandy hill instead of the wounded…  

Back at the foot of Tower Mountain, the 10 Tribal Swordsmen — whose ranks included their all-imporant Clan Chieftain (aka: basic unit Leader) CHARGED the Gurkhas, and then during the FIRE PHASE, after the Gurkhas fired at them, the Tribesmen brothers reveald they were indeed hidden exactly where the Gurkhas commander predicted they would be, atop the rocky hillside leading up to the Tower itself…

The Tribal rifles opened fire, scoring 2 hits, each of which had a chance to be inflicted on their own comrades rather than the enemy — but as it turned out, BOTH HITS landed on the Gurkhas who they were meant to…

After receiving another 3 hits from Gurkhas fire, the Tribal Swordsmen passed their CLOSE INTO COMBAT roll and another melee ensued, from 

With their Sword-&-Shield brothers routing away down the road, their rifle-armed brothers on Tower Mountain (from the same Basic Unit, and without a Leader present) were forced to check their own morale… and failed, sendng them scurrying off chasing after the rest of my command, down what might be dubbed „The Road of Glorious Victory!“ as, despite having arguably been defeated and routed away, my Tribesmen had indeed managed to bloody the Pagan stooges of the Imperialist British dogs!

…or so I told my daughter.

…as she sent her Gurkhas racing up the mountainside to gain firsthand intelligence on what had become of the out-of-touch Signal Team…

Sad to say, as might be expected under the circumstances, they were nowhere to be found.  Whether they had gone to meet their maker… or been spirited away to serve as hostages for further parlay, I am not at liberty to say.

Though it only lasted 4 turns, both Izzy and I really enjoyed this game.

Both melees were „close run“ things — with the first being literally as close as it possibly could have been.  Had the last Gurkha rifleman not won his last roll-off, the game would have been entirely different, with the British probably being run out of the valley back across the bridge after one or two turns.

Izzy took a chance setting up in 2 rank Open Order to bring more fire to bear on my charging tribesmen, but then rolled pretty poorly (as she did throughout most of the game) on her firing dice, and paid for the decision by suffering heavy casualties and coming as close as possible to losing the melee, which would have been devestating and led to her total defeat.  

But as it turned out, she got through it and pushed on to success, achieving her objective of reaching the Tower and checking on the disposition of the Heliograph Team.

So despite suffering somewhat heavy casualties, the game resulted in a full BRITISH VICTORY.

With her brother home from college for the Summer, there is a rumor afoot that a full brigade of British troops — with the Gurkhas joined by 2 other Infantry units along with cavalry and artillery — may be reentering the Valley under combined dual sibling command, with an eye on inflicting punitive action on the VILLAGE located on the far side of Tower Mountain.

If anything comes of this rumor you will learn all about it right here…