There & Back Again, a Wargamer's Holiday

Whew.

I'm back from Metarie, LA (Louisiana) to Studio City, LA (Los Angeles), having attended the Colonial Barracks V convention.  It was quite a trip and the con itself was unforgettable, in large part because it came just days after the death of Larry Brom, author of the The Sword And The Flame and its associated rule books, and a longtime patriarch of Colonial Wargamers here in the USA and to a lesser extent around the rest of the world.

As has been discussed over the past days on The Miniatures Page, the convention went from a celebration of Larry Brom's rules to a combination celebration of his rules and memorial to his life.  His daughters Lori and Christy struck me as very happy to reconnect with friends and fellow gamers from near and far who travelled to join them for the event, all of whom shared a deep-seated respect, admiration, and even love for their dearly departed dad, may he Rest In Peace.  Stories were told, laughs were had, and tears were shed.

Meanwhile, the gaming went on, and it was impressive, and I believe much enjoyment was had by all, Lori and Christy Brom included.

I spent Friday morning setting up the 12'x6' table for my game, which went very smoothly thanks to a ton of Air Force logistics assistance from my friend "Last Stand" Dan Gurule -- you can visit his blog over at LAST STAND DAN BLOG and see an amazing AAR on his "Gunboats & Dhows" Sudan riverine warfare game at the con.

Since its inception back in 2011, Colonial Barracks has donated its profits to CJD Aware! -- a charitable ogranization founded by Larry's daughter Christy Brom to provide information to anyone facing the rare and challenging medical condition, Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, to help raise funds for research in the fight against CJD, and to network with fellow organizations dedicated to fighting CJD around the country and the world.  Creutzfield-Jakob Disease took Sara Perkins Brom, Christy and Lori's mother, and Larry's wife of 47 years, back in 2000 at the early age of 66...

(Click on this LINK to visit the CJD Aware! website)

Friday morning I unloaded the goods from my car...

...with aid from "Last Stand" Dan...

...who also provided vital assistance in helping me set up my 12'x6'

table full of terrain, which didn't take me as long as I was expecting...

I was happy to invite Terry "Hive And The Flame" Sofian

to set some of his "Bugs" up on my Charasiab table...

Friday's lunch: the best Jambalaya and sausage I'd ever eaten in my life...

...with a side of Jambalya.

A short time later...

Back at the con I was proud to see rocky "wood-chip" hills inspired by the ones I've been

 showing and posting tutorials on here at MaiwandDay for the past 3 or 4 years ON SALE...

Mike Lucas, AKA: Unlucky Mike (see "Gunboats & Dhows") below...

Some pics of my Charasiab table, which I enjoyed the wide open

views of, made possible by the ballroom, as opposed to my home office,

where the same table is much more claustrophobically hemmed in...

Hinduki Village near the North-West corner of the table,

with its irrigation canal connecting to the Kabul River...

The low hills, the Red Ridge, and beyond it the North edge of Charasiab village,

all visible from the Western OBJECTIVE POINT on the North edge of the table...

Right beside me was a very impressive table laid out for a game of 'The Sword In Gaul,"

featuring a Roman Legion defending an isolated fort against hordes of German Tribesmen...

Despite his top-notch Air Force-bred mastery of logistics, "Last Stand" Dan somehow did not bring enough riverfront real estate with him to Gulf Coast New Orleans from landlocked Denver.  Luckily for us all, the 18"sq. self-adhesive floor tiles he uses for the Nile are open stock at most Lowe's hardware stores, including one 5 minutes from the hotel!  Dan had them cut some 3'sq. boards of Masonite and then went to work on-site extending the river capacity for his game the next day...

Friday night, Mike Lucas, Jeff "Sgt. Guiness" Baumal, "Last Stand" Dan Gurule and I all played in Dwight Jones', "The Zanzabaris Must Go," game.  Jeff Baumal, Mike, myself and Jeff from South Milwaukee, Wisconsin (a very nice and charming guy who I'm happy to count as a new friend), were the Belgian Force Publique, attempting to prevent 4 ZANZABARI SLAVER players who'd spent the previous pillaging a village deep in the Congolese rainforest from exiting the table with their ill-gotten gain.  It was a tense and taut game, with both sides coming to fear the jungle itself as much if not more than the opposing forces!

I was blown away when I learned that Dwight Jones had bought this

plastic elephant FULLY PAINTED at a cheap souvenir shop back

in his home state of Florida and not done any work on it at all...

Some of the goodies which we succeeded in keeping our

Zanzabari bandit foes from looting off the table...

Dwight's layout featured a number of dice-rolling platforms ingeniously built into the terrain...

During a break in the hostilities, Dan went back to add some

final touches to the terrain for his game the next morning...

Back in the Congo, the wildlife roamed free...

...while my Belgian Askari colleagues advanced on my right

flank, under the able command of "Unlucky" Mike Lucas...

There's my Belgian Naval Infantry with their Hotchkiss

Automatic Cannon, just visible through the triple canopy jungle...

Our two fellow Belgian commanders on the far side

of the table "Wisconsin" and Sgt. Guiness himself...

Wisconsin's own Naval Infantry enter a cave mouth... will they ever again be seen by light of day...?

The village which had been pillaged by the Zanzabaris...

It was quiet... TOO quiet --

But not for long...

The worst of the Random Events/Calamities were (properly!) visited upon our vile Zanzabari Slaver foes, but at a certain point one such card was visited upon me, the result: the officer leading my Naval Infantry force spotted a VULTURE flying above some trees in the distance... and for some godforsaken reason (apparently he took this to mean the spot below must be the site of valuable rhino horn or elephant tusk laden carcasses) ORDERED MY UNIT TO MARCH TOWARDS IT -- this despite the fact that our Zanzabari foes were occupying the treeline his current location and this newfound objective site!

 Luckily for me I rolled very low movement dice, thereby

saving the unit from almost certain annihilation...

Soon after this, another die roll determined my men had taken matters into their own hands and "relieved" the officer in question of command, putting an end to the pursuit of his "Scavenger's Treasure" and allowing me to return my focus to the mission...

I believe the explosion below occured when the Zanzabaris

attempted to fire on my troops with their antique cannon...

In the end, though we did not inflict heavy casualties on them, we did manage to

prevent the Zanzabaris from exiting the table with any of their ill-gotten loot, so

it was a victory for Belgian civilization, or at the very least Belgian capitalism!

After we were done in the Congo, Dan finished laying

out his Nile Gunboat game for Saturday morning...

Looks pretty amazing, doesn't it -- especially his homemade gunboats and

laser-cut Dhow kits enhanced with his extensive aftermarket customization!

PART II:

I slept in on Saturday, which sadly meant I could not take part in Dan's

"Gunboats & Dhows" extravaganza.  By the time I got down to the

convention ballroom, the river battle was nearing its epic climax...

Meanwhile the final stages of the large Franco-Prussian War game using

"To The Sound Of The Guns" were playing out on the table next-door...

The previous evening's tied-in cavalry battle had been a French

victory but the big infantry slog went to the Prussians...

Terry Sofian's "THE HIVE AND THE ASSEGAI" epic bug invasion game

was scheduled for the same Saturday time-slot as my Charasiab game...

Back to Nile River game for the "Hollywood"-esque finale of Dan's Gunboats &

Dhows extraveganza, in which "Unlucky" Mike advanced a bit too far up the river,

thereby leaving his gunboat susceptible to being RAMMED by its Madhist opponent...

All that remained of the once fine ship "Giza"...

The final stages of the Ancient Roman vs. German Tribes game, with the "Teutons In the Wire"...

Meanwhile back at the Nile, the game had resulted in a decisive victory for the Mahdist forces...

LUNCH BREAK -- which for me meant more Jambalya

and sausage.  Man, I'm getting hungry just looking at it...

ROAD TO VENGEANCE - the Battle of Charasiab...

My game was scheduled for 2 back-to-back sessions in the afternoon and evening.  I had 3 British players and 3 Afghan players show up for the opening Afternoon Session.  "Last Stand" Dan served as Afghan overall commander, Sardar Nek Muhammad Khan, assisted by Dwight Jones and "Unlucky" Mike Lucas, while John Murtaugh (of the Nomadic Old School Gamer blog) took the role of the British overall commander, General Frederick Roberts, assisted by Jeff Baumal as Brigadier Baker on his left flank and Mark Stevens as Major White on his right.

I apologize in advance for the lack of hi-quality pics of the game's progression, as I was so busy serving as GM for the game that I didn't have a chance to move around much and document the British advance and Afghan defense from all points of the compass, and I took most of the pics from my GM post at the West end of the table.

The game went smoothly and I think it benefited from the adjustments made in the aftermath of the two play-tests.  The British did better than they had before and when time ran out had succeeded in reaching the Western Road exit point with the 5th Punjab Cavalry, while at the other end of the table the 9th Lancers were one more movement phase away from doing the same to the Eastern Road exit point in the Sang-i-Nawishta Gorge.  However, there were still strong Afghan forces in place around the exit points of both roads, so even though the Brits had possession of one of their two objective points, I had to call it a narrow Afghan victory.  If we'd managed to play one or two more turns, the Brits might have succeeded in gaining undisputed control over the Western Road exit point, but I'm not sure they could have gained undisputed control of the exit point on the Eastern Road.

Some particularly memorable moments of the game included:

-- John rolling the pre-fire die for his Gatling Gun on the very first turn and rolling a 6 -- resulting in his Gatling JAMMING, just as both Gatling Guns jammed early in the real battle of Charasiab, which was the first time British forces had ever employed the new technology in action;

-- John launching his 8 remaining 5th Gurkhas to CHARGE the Afghan Regulars atop the "Red Ridge," only to have them all hit by Afghan fire;

-- British troops closing into combat several times with Afghan Tribesmen in the low hills between the Red Ridge and the mountains lining the North table edge, only to have the Tribesmen FAIL their Stand & Fight die rolls, RUN and then RALLY (with morale assistance from their Mounted Leader);

-- "Unlucky" Mike, commander of the Afghan left flank on the Eastern side of the table, inflicting fire casualties on the 92nd Highlanders and then, because Major White's HELIOGRAPH TEAM was located within 3" of the 92nd, getting a chance to eliminate the Heliograph by rolling a 6 on a six-sided die... WHICH HE ACTUALLY DID!!!  It was the first GOOD luck moment of Mike's gaming at the entire convention and caused a raucous cheer from his fellow Afghan players, though understandably was not celebrated by his British opponents;

-- John's Army Hospital Corps bungling the treatment of his WOUNDED figures one turn and, thanks to very poor die rolling, turning 6 of his wounded figures into "Died From Wounds" figures.

Before we get to the 150 or so pics of the game, I want to take this opportunity to thank two people for providing indespensible help without which it would not have been as good: my friends Michael "Reggie" Davis of Laguna Niguel, California, who provided the 92nd Highlanders, the 9th Lancers, and half the 12th Bengal Cavalry, as well as one of the three 61 figure Manuever Elements of Afghan Tribesmen, and my friend Jeff "Sgt. Guiness" Baumal, of Coral Springs, Florida, who contributed one 20-figure Wing of the 72nd Highlanders which perfectly matched the 20-figure Wing I myself own.  Thanks again, guys!

Here's a pair of LINKS to Michael HORSE-&-MUSKET blog and Jeff's SGT. GUINESS blog:

HORSE-AND-MUSKET BLOG

SGT. GUINESS

The game kicked off with a briefing for all players, both British and Afghan, and then a brief Q&A session with each team.  I shoed the Brits away and allowed the Afghans to confer amongst themselves and mark down on a scratch map where their three 61-figure Tribal Manuever Elements were hidden, in either rough terrain areas or on the reverse slopes of the large rocky hills.

Then turn one commenced, with the British players all allowed to make unopposed moves bringing all their units onto the table and setting them up anywhere up to 12" in from the South table edge and between the East bank of the Kabul River on their left and the West edge of the Khairabad Swamp on their right...

Major White's Heliograph Team, extending his COMMAND

RADIUS by 12".  Unfortunately for the British they would

make news later in the game, and not in a good way...

General Roberts rolls movement dice for the brigade under

his direct command and gets the maximum possible distance...

A series of my custom game cards laid out as a turn progresses...

General Roberts sends the 5th Gurkhas to CHARGE

the Afghan Highland Guard on the heights above.  As

to be expected, the Gurkhas took casualties from the

defenders, cutting their ranks down to 8 effectives...

And then... the Afghan BONUS FIRE CARD was flipped... 

Again as to be expected, "Last Stand" Dan (now known as "Afghan" Dan),

gave the Bonus Card to his sub-commander General Muhammad Afzai Khan

(AKA: Dwight Jones), who of course assigned it to his Highland Guard...

...whose 14 shots landed EIGHT ADDITIONAL

CASUALTIES, hitting each of the remaining Gurkhas.

Ouch.

Casualty cards were flipped for the Gurkhas: 4 KIA, 4 wounded...

Further to the West, one of the two Squadrons of 12th Bengal

Cavalry skirt their way past the Western Spur of Red Ridge

and head towards the farmland to the North...

...where they link up with the 23rd Bengal Native Infantry (Sikh Pioneers)...

Meanwhile at the other end of the table, 92nd Highlanders,

supported by a Field Gun, with the other Wing of 23rd Sikh

Pioneers, advance on the first of the two Conical Hills...

SPECIAL NOTE: these 92nd Highlanders, perhaps the very best

looking of all the troops I brought with me, came courtesy of my

generous friend MICHAEL DAVIS, for which I thank him once again!

Once again, the exquisitely painted figures standing in for the 9th Lancers

in the photos below, came courtesy of Michael Davis.  These figures got a big

compliment from Mark Stevens, a talented figure painter in his own right,

who was impressed by the accurate detailing of their curduroy breeches...

The last two Afghan defeners of "Red Ridge" -- Dwight Jones's Mounted

Leader figure representing General Muhammad Afzai Khan, and the

NCO who was Last Man Standing from the Afghan Highland Guard...

Dwight and his wingman engaged and defeated by 72nd Highlanders...

Over on the British right flank, Major White directs the 92nd and a

limbered Field Gun to skirt the West edge of Khairabad Swamp and

advance in support of the 23rd Sikh Pioneers who are close to

clearing the enemy from the first of the two Conical Hills...

92nd and a Field Gun train their sites on Khairabad Village...

23rd Bengal Native Infantry (Sikh Pioneers) with a

Mountain Gun in support advance onto the Conical Hill...

Heliograph Team in place to extend Major

White's COMMAND RADIUS by 12"...

I believe this is about where we took our DINNER BREAK between Afternoon and Evening gaming sessions.  When we reconvened there was some new blood at the table, as Jeff Baumal had to leave in order to make his flight back to his family in Florida.  Though no one could ever replace "Sgt. Guiness," his big shoes were ably filled by Tim Chadwick, who took on the role of British sub-commander Brigadier Baker, while Mike Lewandowski joined us as the 4th Afghan Player, taking command of the first TRIBAL MANUEVER ELEMENT to appear from its hiding place in the rough terrain...

Lone survivor of the Afghan Highland Guard (who ROUTED away from

the melee with the 72nd Highlanders) routes North towards Kabul...

12th Bengal Cavalry round the Western Spur and gallop towards the road North to Kabul...

Heliograph Team in place atop the spur, a perfect place

from which to extend Brigadier Baker's Command Radius...

One Wing of the 72nd Highlanders marches down the North

side of Red Ridge, having overcome this major terrain obstacle...

One Squadron of 12th Bengal Cavalry CHARGES Tribesmen atop one of the sandy hills...

Trio of Afghan commanders confer in the distance...

"Afghan" Dan prepares to return to the miniature battlefield...

In the background the Tribesmen atop the sandy hill ROUTE AWAY...

More Tribesmen pop up behind the tree-line just North of

Hinduki Village near the North-West corner of the table...

23rd Bengal Native Infantry (Sikh Pioneers) and 5th

Punjab Cavalry head North towards the Tribal forces...

Limbered Field Guns and Mountain Guns, followed by

5th Punjab Infantry head North on the road to Kabul...

72nd Highlanders "Crown the Heights" of the Red Ridge...

Custom game card deck in action...

One of "Last Stand" Dan's CHARGE MARKERS in use to mark 23rd 

BNI (Sikh Pioneers) charging the Tribesmen lining the tree-line...

Somwhere around this point in the game, Mark Stevens' -- in command of the British right flank and still in the midst of a hard-fought slog against "Unlucky" Mike Lucas, who for this game alone was earning the replacement monicker "Lucky" Mike, had to depart the convention floor with his lovely wife, so we found ourselves in need of another player... this is when BRIAN LEWANDOWSKI came to our rescue -- THANK YOU AGAIN, BRIAN -- and having just finished playing in the gorgeous looking "THE SWORD IN GAUL" game, agreed to take over Mark's command without hesitation!  Of course, part of this may have been due to the fact that his father, Mike, was already commanding troops on the other side of the game!  In fact, though on opposite sides, Brian and Mike were also on opposite ends of the table, so they never engaged in direct hostilities with one another.  I also must add that the next day Brian won -- by popular and I believe unanimous secret ballot -- the GUNNY AWARD for "Most Congenial Player" at the Convention.  A very well-earned award  from where I and all the players in my game were standing!

Afghan regular infantry occupying the second Conical

Hill, prepare to exchange fire with the 9th Lancers

as they race towards the Eastern Objective Point...

The FIRE PHASE arrives, a card is drawn 9th Lancers get to FIRE first...

The Tribesmen occupying the tree-line FAILED their Stand And Fight

roll and routed North onto the Road to Kabul, but ANOTHER UNIT of 

Tribesmen popped up in a nearby cropfield to FIRE on 23rd Sikh Pioneers...

5th Bengal Cavalry OCCUPY THE OBJECTIVE POINT on the Road to Kabul...

72nd Highlanders, limbered guns, and 5th Punjab Infantry

visible in the background, moving North to join them...

RALLIED Tribesmen redeploy onto the high

ground East of the Western Objective Point...

Afghan regulars open fire on the nearing British forces of Brigadier

Baker's brigade as in the distance a British NCO carrying the Union Jack

leads one wing of the 72nd Highlanders through the low hills towards

the Afghan forces occupying the mountains on the North table edge...

This is where time ran out before the game was truly over.  Another turn or two and either the British attacks on one or both flanks would have met an untimely end or the Afghans on one or both flanks would have failed morale checks and routed off the table edge right behind them.

In truth, either result would have been possible.

As it was, the Afghans earned their MODERATE VICTORY by really not making a single mistake throughout the long and very hard-fought game.  Whenever they were faced with a choice between duking it out with the higher-quality Anglo-Indian forces or withdrawing towards the North side of the table, they refused to succomb to the appeal of a mad charge or even a defiant stance, and chose the latter.

On the other side of the table the Brits also did an excellent job, moving forward without hesitation, knowing they needed to take their twin Objective Points 6' across the table in order to emerge truly victorious.

During the first part of the game it really looked like it was going to be a major British Victory, so much so that I was about to adjust the artillery ranges so the Afghans -- whose guns I decided to give slightly shorter ranges than their British counterparts, in order to help address the abundance of built-in Afghan advantages in the scenario as shown in the play-tests -- would be able to engage the British artillery at the exact same range... but then things shifted in a big way and the worm began turn, with the Gurkhas being decimated by very lucky rifle fire as they charged the Highland Guard atop the Red Ridge, then being decimated again when John Murtaugh rolled for their wounded (as another way to even the odds up for the Brits, I used a home-brew rule that allowed British and Indian WIA a chance to return to the ranks of their unit every turn on a roll of 6, sit in the "HOSPITAL" on 2-5, or EXPIRE FROM THEIR WOUNDS on a 1) and they almost all ended up dead at the hands of his Hospital staff.

Then "Lucky" Mike dropped the "Un" prefix from his nickname by taking out the Heliograph Team attached to Major White's brigade, and I decided things were well enough left alone and I would continue to allow the Brits their slight edge on the artillery range front.

As the game went on, advantage swung back and forth a few more times, which was great, as my main reason for devising this scenario was my hope to keep the set-up historically accurate while also making it an evenly balanced game which both sides had a decent chance to win.

The only criticism I would lay on the British would be their sending Brigadier Baker's pair of Mountain Guns immediately into action against the Afghan regulars cramming the Red Ridge, rather than bringing them on limbered and racing them to the top of the Western Spur, where they could have spent the remainder of the game pounding away at both the Afghans atop the Red Ridge and then a variety of Afghan targets at all points to the North on that entire Western side of the table.

I believe I came up a bit short as GM this time by not finding a way to speed the game up a bit as I should have.  A little more pace and we would have been able to get in that one or two more turns which I'm pretty confident would have resulted in an absolutely definitive conclusion.

Still, nothing's perfect and the game went well and everyone who played seemed to really enjoy it, so I'm not going to be too hard on myself.

Here's a bunch more pics I took after the game was over, so I could get more views of the other parts of the table which I'd been absent from during most of the proceedings...

Michael Davis's beautiful 92nd Highlanders

march down the far side of the first Conical Hill...

23rd BNI (Sikh Pioneers) and 92nd Highlanders visible as they

overtake the first Conical Hill, from the Afghan regular

infantry position atop the second Conical Hill...

On the British left flank, the one remaining HELIOGRAPH

TEAM continues its advance, extending the reach of General

Roberts' COMMAND AND CONTROL by an additional 12"...

Packing up troops and terrain, again with vital help from

generous "Afghan"* Dan Gurule -- THANKS, Dan!!!

*I will go back to calling him "Last Stand" Dan soon enough, but he did

lead the Afghans to an impressive if moderate victory at Charasiab.

Packed & prepped to load up for the 2,000 mile drive back home...

Until the Colonial Wargamers and TSATF devotees

gather at the Metarie Sheraton again next year...

A safe trip home,

good gaming to all,

and

R.I.P. Larry V. Brom.