The North West Frontier in 54mm

 

 

 

A NWF game in progress using the Portable Wargame

The North West Frontier has always appealed as a period ever since reading Donald Featherstone's Solo Wargaming book which has a number of atmospheric black and white photographs of NWF games in progress.

The collection started as a joint one between myself and my regular opponent Anthony Morton.  Anthony took the British (which he has a tendency to do!) and I collected the Pathan opposition.

We chose Armies in Plastic 54mm figures as they covered all the figures we needed, were fairly cheap and were in the 54mm scale we had decided the fight the period in.  The original idea was to use The Sword and the Flame rules.

                                                A Sword and the Flame game in progress

Anthony doesn't paint his own figures and I painted the British for him, using an undercoat of PVA, a mix of Coat D'arms paints and Coat D'arms Dark Brown Super shader to shade the figures which were then sealed with Matt Varnish.  The Pathans were painted in a similar way.

Anthony used the British army for the 2013 Little Wars Centenary games held at Sandhurst and added a general in a car as the leader.

We fought a number of games with The Sword and the Flame and then tried out the original Portable Wargame Colonial rules when I first became interested in grid based games and started experimenting with them.

 

Since then we have also used The Men Who Would Be Kings from Osprey with 1/2 size units which works well on a 6' x 4' table and which give a balanced game. 

The terrain was made from broken up polystyrene packacing stuck on irregular shaped MDF bases and then painted various shades of grey.  The rocks were arranged so that there are plenty of standing places for the figures to occupy.  The game mats are from an Irish company (who's name escapes me) who supplied mats made from the material use for sound deadening in cars and caravans.  It is a thick, robust material and I have 2 6' x 4' desert mats from them meaning I can make up an 8' x 6' table when I need to.

I have the Airfix Desert Outpost which serves as a small ruined fort and I also have the AIP Fort Kandahar building which I am part way through painting with textured paint and finishing off.  That should provide some good siege games.

Eventually Anthony decided he wanted to sell on the British (rather than duplicate his Little Legion 1879 army in 54mm) and so I bought them from him to keep the collection together and to make sure I had two opposing forces.

The current forces are:

British

102 British and Indian Infantry
25 British and Indian Cavalry
1 Gun and Crew
1 Gatling Gun and Crew
1 general in car
4 x elephants with loads

Pathans
60 x tribesman infantry
5 x Cavalry
1 x Gun and 3 Crew

Unpainted
5 Pathan Cavalry
2 boxes of Pathan infantry

As you can see, there is a disparity in the sizes of the two forces as I tended to paint more for Anthony than for myself as it was paid work!  I need to paint more cavalry (at least) to even the sides up and to balance the forces.

We very rarely use anywhere near the total number of British in a tabletop game but they are useful as forces for Funny Little Wars.

North West Frontier Portable Wargame

On Wednesday afternoon my regular opponent, Anthony, and I met up virtually for another game using The Portable Wargame using Zoom video conferencing software. This time I setup a small North West Frontier scenario using my 54mm AIP collection of figures.



The screen setup was the same as last time with a mobile phone suspended above the table to give an overhead view and a laptop position on the other side of the table to give the illusion of playing across a table with an opponent.



The table setup was a little larger than before with a grid 8 deep by 12 wide. There was plenty of rocks providing cover and ruined fort which was the objective for the game. Whoever held the fort at the end of turn 15 was the winner...



The Afghans had 9 units including a 2 cavalry and 3 units armed with firearms. The Afghans have a fire range of 2, but can double move if they roll a 5,6. They are rated as average.



The British had 7 units including a gun. They have a fire range of 3 and count as elite.



The British deployed first and also took the first move, concentrating their Infantry on the fort, the Afghans deployed with a diversionary force on the other side of the river. The river is fordable but you have to stop when you enter it.




In the first turn, the afghan cavalry charged a double move hoping to score an easy early victory but forgot that they wouldn't be able to retreat, lost the melee and were destroyed..



The Afghans evened up the score after that with a British unit who enter the fort taking hits and also being eliminated.







The melee and shooting are inconclusive for a few turns with just one Afghan unit being eliminated and noone holding onto the fort. But the Afghan diversionary attack on the flank manages to eliminate the British gun without losing a unit.



The British have taken the fort, but how long can they keep it?





The British unit outside the fort are surrounded and finally their luck gives up as they are also eliminated.



There is just one British unit left and they are driven out of the fort by concentrated Afghan fire.



And the Afghans manage to gain control of the fort. Surely it is all over for the plucky British?







But no, on the very last turn (turn 15), the British charge the fort and push the afghans out - thereby winning the game!

It was a very close and exciting game in the end with the British just taking it on the final move.

I have a copy of the new Portable Colonial Wargames book but have some reservations about the new rules as written, so we used the original Portable Wargames rules with sudden death elimination and the ability of the natives to move twice if they throw a 5,6 after moving.

I will put together a post on my throughts about the Portable Wargame and why the original rules seem to suit our style of games rather than the newer ones... We are planning on trying out the new rules in a full game to see how they play.

Garrison Abandoned!

We played a 4-player NWF 54mm game at the Guildford Club this week. It pitched Anthony and Alistair as the British attempting to relieve a Garrison against Andrew and I as the Afghans. We used The Sword and the Flame rules with half size units.



Slightly blurry view of the garrison awaiting their relief column.



Anthony and Alistair looking confident - this didn't last too long...

We set up with the Afghans using hidden movement and with a rule that they would be placed on the table if they fired, moved in the open or the British came within 12 inches of their concealment.



The game at the start without an Afghan in sight!

The British advanced cautiously onto the table. In fact, very cautiously as for the first few turns the Halt card came up in the movement phase and Alistair hardly moved his troops at all. The Afghans skulked from cover to cover waiting to see what the British planned and happy to leave the British Garrison to their own devices.



The first troops to engage were the horse on both sides but neither proved conclusive with the Afghan horse refusing to close.

Eventually, a Pathan sword unit charged the British flank and killed the majority of the unit sending the rest running to the rear.



On the their flank, Andrew's Pathans finally closed and repeated their success by polishing on another British unit.



At this point the British decided that discretion was the better part of valour and withdrew.

To be fair, the British fire power was poor and then Alistair threw 6 1's out of 9 throws in melee which really didn't help!

It was a fun game and everyone seemed to enjoy it.