Fortescue and the Buttercups: A minor British military disaster. Being a brief account of a recent battle game set in the 1st Afghan War using the excellent Triumph and Tragedy rules.
Apologies for the quality of the images, on the day the skies were sombre and overcast and your humble correspondent, working with inferior photographic apparatus, found himself obliged to maintain a safe distance from the unfolding events.
Kalat province Balochistan, September 1839. A 5 man party of British Officers with a weak guard have been trapped by troops of a Pashtun Warlord and have to escape or hold until reinforcements arrive.
Captain St John Fortescue, 16th Light Dragoons (seated with sketchbook) and his unwise companions established their overnight camp in the riverside ruins.
All seeming quiet and peaceful the party begin exploring the ancient ruins watched over by their escort. However things were not as peaceful as Fortescue believed.
Agha Aleed Khan, the local Pashtun warlord had learned of the presence of the weak British party on his lands and gathering friends and supporters determined to capture the officers and hold them to ransom. Advancing from the foothills he intended to catch the British with their backs to the impassable river.
Agha Khan had sent a band of fanatical Ghazi mercenaries ahead of his own warriors and they were about to hurl themselves against the British troops when the sound of gunfire to the west of them indicated the arrival of more Redcoat soldiers.
The arriving British reinforcements caught Agha Kahn and his own tribesmen as they were preparing to attack Fortescue's camp from the opposite side to the Ghazis.
The British musketry forcing him to abandon his assault and take cover in nearby rough ground.
At this moment the young Officer leading the reinforcements, an adjutant from General Elphinstone's staff by the name of Harry Paget Flashman, should have aggressively attacked the Pathans ahead of him, pushing them away from Fortescue's camp. But instead he elected an attempt to reach the camp and reinforce that position and began moving towards the river.
He was to learn that on this terrain it is not possible to outmanoeuvre the wily Pathan.
Khan responded by moving through the rough ground maintaining a harassing fire against Flashman's troops, causing steady casualties on the redcoats. He ordered the Ghazis to attack Fortescue's camp from the eastern flank, through the ruins rather than as originally intended from the front. His own warriors moving toward the front of the camp ensuring the troops there could not move away.
The Ghazis charged into the camp just as Flashman and his battered relief force arrived. The Highland troops guarding the camp attempted to throw back the fanatical attackers but although fighting bravely were overrun.
While the fighting was going on in the camp Agha Khan charged his warriors against Flashman's
remaining troops who, leaderless (Flashman himself having evaded the onrushing Pathans), were able to offer little resistance.
In a stirring, but hopeless, last stand the remaining few Highlanders and Infantrymen were cut down trying to protect the British Officers whose condition and situation is as yet unknown. This correspondent believes the bloody and beaten prisoners later marched off by the Pathans were Fortescue and at least one of his companions.
I will post the full scenario used for the game on the Triumph and Tragedy board for anyone interested. With a little work it would be equally suited to other small unit/skirmish blackpowder era rules such as Sharp Practice.
There are better pictures of the troops used in this game on my site:
https://sites.google.com/site/robsmiscellany/28mm-colonial-gaming
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April 19, 2024, 02:03:39 AM
