This was the first battle in The League of Extraordinary Kriegspielers new African Opus – ‘Return to the Heart of Darkness’.
The campaign, which kicked off a month ago, covers East Africa from Abyssinia to the borders of South Africa, and all points inbetween (and Belgian Congo for good measure). It is set in 192?
This game takes place in north east Somalia, on a spit of land known as Ras Hafun, where an Italian garrison was under attack from a Bukharan/Somali alliance.
Bukhara in our game is a fictional central Asian state formed out of the chaos of the Russian revolution. It is a ‘what if’ Enver Pasha had realised his dream of a pan-Turkic nation. In my head it looks and feels like the Republic of Hatay as portrayed in ‘Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade’.
We are still painting troops for this campaign, which culminates in a four day boon-doggle in my house in early August, so there is a lot of improvisation in this game (e.g. german mortars and british artillery crew portraying Italians and fuzzy wuzzy’s as Somalis). It will, as always, be alright on the night, and I for one cannot wait to get further south!
Hope you enjoy it!
Steve
The Attack on Ras Hafun, or Colonel Corleoni’s Last Stand Italian Brief
You are Colonel Vittorio Corleoni, soldier of the Alpini and scion of an old Piedmontese military family.
You never liked the idea of Somalia as part of the Italian Empire. Unlike say, Libya, where Italy was merely coming back home after an absence of 1,500 years, the Roman Empire never stretched to this barren, godless fly ridden strip of rock on the Indian Ocean.
And now here you are, facing an enormous army of musselmen, all with modern weaponry, and your tiny garrison with its back to the sea......
Objective
Get as many of the civilian population and garrison away on the steamboats as you can to the edge of the seaboard where they will be picked up by Italian shipping.
Three victory points per female civilian, two per male civilian and one per soldier will be awarded for each figure who makes it off the board.
Inflict as much damage of the Bukharans as you can. Rome has demanded that honour be saved by giving ‘The Beast’ a bloody nose. 2 points per enemy soldier killed, 20 points per field gun and/or HMG destroyed, 50 points per armoured car or other military vehicle or machine.
Forces
1 coy of Alpini. 10 figs, T2 M3, rifles and bombs, 1 LMG
1 coy of Arditi. 10 figs, T3 M2, ferocious , rifles and bombs. 1 LMG
1 Lancia Armoured Car T3 M3, 2 HMG’s
1 X 75mm M1911 field gun, T3 M3
2 X HMG’s T3 M3
1 X heavy mortar T3 M3
2 units of armed male civilians, each 10 figs, Irregular M4 armed with rifles, no bombs
1 unit of unarmed females 6 figures, Irregular M5
In addition there is a company of Askaris trying to break through on the Mogadishu road:
10 figs, T3 M3, rifles, bombs and 1 LMG, in trucks/vans.
They are escorting a missed unit of unarmed civilians to safety: 10 x irregular M5’s.
You can designate three buildings or objects to be wired with explosives. These can be detonated at any time there remains an Italian solider on land, and will go off on anything but a 1-2 on 1D6.
The Attack on Ras Hafun, or Colonel Corleoni’s Last Stand Bukharan Brief
Africa!
The commencement of Phase II in your dream of global domination and the implementation of a world-wide moderate Islamic state.
Objective
Secure the port of Ras Hafun which can then act as an initial supply base for your conquest of Africa.
Destroy the Italian defending forces and civilian population to teach the West a lesson.
You will receive 2 victory points for each Italian killed (military or civilian), 50 points for securing the town and 25 points each for securing the two light naval craft in the harbour intact
Forces
2 x 10 man units of Bukharan regulars, T4 M2, stubborn. No bombs
2 x 10 man units of Bukharan reservists, T4 M2. No bombs
1 x 10 man Bukharan stormtroopers, T3 M2, ferocious, bombs, 1LMG
1 X 10 man Bukharan ‘Emirs Guard’, T3 M2, bombs
24 Basmachi irregulars, M3, modern rifles
27 Somali allies, M2 single shot rifles.
2 armoured cars, T3 M3
2 field guns, T3 M3
1 HMG T3 M3
6 rounds of off table HE, tactical 4, MUST BE PREPLANNED BEFORE DEPLOYMENT.
Deployment
Field guns and static HMG’s can deploy upto 12” in. All other troops must deploy onto through the table edge.
Units can deploy onto the left table edge on a throw and with a delay. For each tile add two moves and you need to throw over the units tactical factor, e.g. to deploy on the tile with the brewery, this would take till move 8 and you would have to throw over a units tactical factor.
Table view before the game kicked off. Bukharans were attacking from the left down the length of the board. Note the essential umpires malt whisky at the top left hand side of the table!
Julio and Ernesto Bang, a.k.a. the perfidious Bang Brothers, wire a trap for the advancing Bukharans
Opening manourves. The Bukharan plan was thrown into early disarray as 'The Beast of Bukhara' called off with a heavy cold (hardly 'Beast' like behaviour!!) However Sulemin Pasha, an able deputy, stepped into the breach. The idea was to left hook the Italian postion with his best troops, feint on the right, and use the Somali allies in the centre as machine gun fodder. However a surprise was sprung when an Italian motorsied convoy, carrying a compnay of Askaris and two van loads of civilians suddenly burst through the Bukharan lines on the Mogadishu road.
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November 18, 2008, 01:55:24 AM