The Portable Colonial Wargame

After our success at playing a few games of Bob Cordery's Portable Wargame rules, Anthony and I decided to try out the Colonial version of the rules using our 54mm North-West Frontier collection.

We assigned 6 units plus a gun to the British and 8 units plus a gun to the Pathans. The British had magazine rifles with a range of 4 grid squares and rifled artillery with a range of 8 squares; while the Pathans had a rifle range of 3 grid squares and smoothbore artillery with a range of 6 squares. We classified all the troops as average with the exception of the cavalry on each side who were elite.

The initial deployment is shown here:






The rules have the interesting mechanic that native troops can double move on a 5,6 - they cannot fire after such a move but it does let them outflank their opponents.


We tried the exhaustion point rule from the original rules of 1/3 of the units but what happened was the native lost 3 units first and then couldn't attack. We decided this doesn't really work unless you are playing a scenario. We played on until one side lost 2/3 of its units - which meant a narrow victory to the natives.


Overall, the rules worked well, looked good and we both enjoyed the game.

The Portable Wargame

I have become slightly fascinated by grid based wargames over the last month after re-reading about Bob Cordery's The Portable Wargame and Bob's postings about the Joseph Morschauser's book on wargaming from the 1960s.

I picked up the Morschauser book and found it fascinating as a different style of wargame that didn't really seem to catch on, yet one that reflects a lot of more modern gaming.

So, I bought a gridded mat and Anthony came round this afternoon to give the Portable Wargame rules a go. We used my Little Wars Revisited figures, using 6 figures for infantry and 2 figures for cavalry units and played a simple "capture the crossroads" game.



British and German forces lined up ready to deploy.



The deployment made.



Anthony commanding the British (as always!)



The German cavalry get stuck in.

We found the rules very enjoyable and a very elegant set that worked really well with 54mm figures. Both of us liked the look of the gridded game and plan to play again soon.

Boer Long Tom

A quick picture of the first casting and test assembly of our new Boer Long Tom 155mm Creusot gun for the Imperial Miniatures 54mm range. Shown here with a British Sgt Major for scale.

This will come with crew and I am hoping to have it available in complete form at the April Toy Soldier show....

Mike

54mm NWF - Rescue Mission

Anthony and I played another 54mm North-West frontier game using The Sword and the Flame with half-size units.

The scenario was that an outpost were preparing to evacuate due to reports of advancing tribesmen. A relief force was on the way but they must save the wounded and the gun from falling into Pathan hands. There are 4 baggage elephants, the gun crew and a single British unit manning the outpost.

The relief force consists of 4 infantry and one cavalry unit.

Pictures:

The outpost at the start of the game:






The British Relief Force:




The tribesman have arrived



General shots of the battle:








Anthony did the sensible thing and loaded his gun onto the elephants immediately and moved them out. Two elephants were captured by the Pathans for a brief time but I was unable to cause enough casualties on the British relief forces and eventually British firepower won the day.

Mike

Army Black Additions

Progress has been very slow on Army Black due to other painting commitments (such as Imperial Miniatures) and general lack of time. I did manage to finish the 16 Bavarians that have been sitting on the painting table for the last 3 months...



Up next will be the command for this unit and the unit of Prussian Infantry already done. Then onto the artillery crews....

All the Queens Men Price List

I have added a full price list to the Imperial Miniatures website listing all of the AQM sets we have available with prices. I'll be adding sets to the online shop as fast I can photograph them but if there is anything you want to order from list then please just contact me.

http://imperialminiatures.co.uk/price-list/

I am expecting a large update of photographs at the beginning of next month.

thanks

Mike

First New Set Released

I have just released the first new set for Imperial Miniatures which shows the Mafeking Cadets being inspected by Colonel Baden Powell.

This is the original set that I had commissioned when planning Imperial Miniatures and before the opportunity to purchase All the Queen's Men arose. They are lightly larger figures (what I would class as 60mm) in line with Trophy and Little Legion. It seemed a shame not to release them anyway.