Egyptians vs Ethiopians, 1875 - (TMWWBK)

[Happy Wanderer]

Gents,

Please feel free to pop on over to the blog and read the AAR for out latest engagement - a clash between the Khedive's Egyptian army and the Ethiopian forces of King John.

All spiffy stuff with lots of good looking lead...plus a few afterthoughts of TMWWBK rules.

Enjoy

Happy Wanderer

https://wp.me/p1YrZG-1AE

[marianas_gamer]

Very nice game with well painted minis. I wonder if the Ethiopians would have done better in more rugged terrain that bloked line of sight. Great AAR! Thanks
LB

[Happy Wanderer]

"I wonder if the Ethiopians would have done better in more rugged terrain that blocked line of sight. "

I think they would certainly be helped. However, artillery reduces cover by 1 so being fired on by artillery even in terrain is rather nasty.

From small arms, it helps but 12 shots down range are still likely to cause a casualty and thus a pin test and...well, you get the idea.

I think that firepower into any terrain is still effective enough to stop a unit and inflict the possibility of a pin...eg at 5+ to hit that is...12/3=4 hits @2 per model loss in cover ie 2 models dead = pin test at -2drm @morale of 7+ ie you need a 9+ to pass the test else pinned ie 27% chance of passing...so goes the math

 Then starts the possible rally-pin-rally sequence. Hence my idea of 'rally with elan'.

...regardless, it was a top clash and mixing things up with unit characteristics will also help...we just like the idea of mixing it up with rally with elan! 

HW

[Traveler Man]

Great AAR, thanks for sharing. 

[Marine0846]

Love your battle report.
Excellent terrain and figures.

[DintheDin]

I enjoyed your AAR, it was really thrilling! Very nice minis and terrain, it must have been a very enjoyable game!
I second your "Rally with Elan" proposal, I'll introduce it to the fellas and try it for our next TMWWBK game! Cheers!

[juergen c. olk]

Great idea or game..beautiful figures as per your usual talent..Well done.

[Plynkes]

Pics look great. The words will have to wait until after work, I'm afraid. I think it is unreasonable that they won't pay me to read battle reports. 

[Happy Wanderer]

...bloody unreasonable! 

HW

[jambo1]

Great looking game and lovely figures. Nice to see some other armies get a look in, really good to see.

[commissarmoody]

A great read, and I enjoyed all the photos.

[Hupp n at em]

Great report! 

[SteveBurt]

I like the 'rally with elan' idea as well.
In our games we found the tribal player ended up with pretty much all his units pinned after a few turns, which is pretty frustrating.

[Happy Wanderer]

Thanks chaps,

It seems we are not the only ones to find the ‘all tribals pinned’ effect being more common than perhaps it should be.

The current consensus seems that you end up with the Omdurman effect where Tribals never close with firepower troops. Whilst this isn’t ‘wrong’, in a balanced game it seems a bit off when the Tribal player has to get everything right to even have a chance of closing into hand to hand.

Other AARs I’ve read emphasise the need to soften up troops before combat, particularly if they defend obstacles which is impossible for tribals to ever be able to do..this IMHO is the tilt too much toward firepower.

If you can neither close with, nor if you do, you then have a very low chance of inflicting sufficient casualties then that does make you think a bit about the balance. To be fair, we must not forget the variable scenario and leadership characteristics which mixes this up, but at its core you do have to wrestle with this aspect of the rules.

We do after all want to defend the barricades but the poor old tribals never seem to get to them! If there were twice as many tribals vs firepower foot then this would be OK but in a game where generally tribals only exceed equivalent point firepower troops by a factor of 1.25 to 1.5, perhaps 2.0 at most, then you end up with the Omdurman effect even when there is terrain on table.

As long as firepower can be delivered into terrain then the chances are a pin will eventually result. To be fair, in our game we did use oversized armies on the same table space so perhaps this exacerbated the firepower-pin effect, but we have seen this in standard 24pt games.

Hopeful the rally with elan idea will just moderate this a bit and produce slightly more balance in an equal point game. I’m inclined to think it might be best reserved for non firepower equipped troops only, idea being that these troops need to close to contact to have any chance whereas firepower troops are less likely to seek that need perhaps keeping the 'roll 12 and you always rally' rule for everyone.

The other historical option is simply to double the number of units of tribals and see how that goes...but no one would propose a game where 70 odd firepower troops take on 250+ figures on table...though it would probably provide the right effect and look great...but you can’t sell a game like that. That off course would apply perhaps to a specific scenario such as a frontal assault vs a defender position, or something like that...the Rorke’s Drift situation.

Bottom line is that it’s only a minor tweak of an otherwise great game and if it if increases the enjoyment of the tribal player and increases the stress/tension for the firepower player, then that seems a good thing.

...interesting thoughts.

HW

[Plynkes]

A splendid treat, HW! Great visuals and an interesting battle. Nice to see bashi-bazouks on the field. It's a toss-up between them and Ruga-Ruga for the prize of Plynkes' Favourite Irregular Troops (a coveted award). I think it comes from reading Tintin as a child, as that was one of Captain Haddock's favourite insults. Even though little Plynkes didn't have the vaguest idea what a bashi-bazouk was, he was intrigued by the sound of the words and imagined all kinds of things. At last I get to see them in battle. I've been waiting rather a long time. 


Seems we are a growing faction, those of us who like TMWWBK, but grumble from the sidelines about certain aspects of it. I think your observations are pretty well identical to my own. I'm looking forward to seeing how the various tweaks that you've been suggesting play out. I've found your ideas very interesting (and hopefully they'll be helpful too), so thanks again for that.