Kweeziland Campaign

[Harry Faversham]

Quecumba Salad... that's priceless!!! 

[Bryanbowdell]

French reinforcements in Kweeziland

[pbjunky1]

Ok so now I'm really intrigued, how are the French going to use a candle, hairbrush and tube of 'dab me don't squeeze' in the campaign?

Oh you mean the  boat! It's ace, the picture doesn't do it justice. We'll have to work it into a game somehow.

[MaleGriffin]

I've always preferred campaigns to one off games; bravo sir bravo!

[pbjunky1]

Round 3  France v Ruga Ruga
We  are playing  the To the last Bullet scenario  for Round 3 and France after the emphatic victory over the Ruga in the last round were going for the perceived weaker  native  force. In the end it was a really close game , probably the closest we’ve had so far.
In this scenario the defender -The French have 18pts  versus the Ruga’s 24 points. The French took 2x irregular tribal units with an irregular gun and 2 x irregular Tirralieur units.
True to form commandant Rene Renault rolled drunkard on his leadership traits again  but unlike his previous ‘episode’  his leadership  now went from 7+ to 8+, clearly he was not  going to be an inspirational drunk in this game and the weight of leadership was going to fall on 2iC capitain  Jean Paul Gaultier.
The table:

The Ruga  fared little better with their leader   Innocent Jambutti ‘s value as 7+ but yet again 2iC and witchdoctor Luv N’more  performed better gaining  5+  leadership and  ‘the major generals favourite nephew’ trait  thereby equipping one unit with modern rifles. The Ruga forces were 5x units of inexperienced  irregular units (poor shots – hitting on 6+) and a tribal unit and irregular mountain gun.
Luv N’More impressing  his men by supplying a unit with firearms that actually shoot:

Innocent Jambutti impressing his men by rockin the ganj, clearly supplying rifles was more effective:


After a lot of moaning about the  distance the Ruga had to cover to get to the French the game commenced.  The Ruga gun actually managed to shoot – but it  caused no casualties, in counter battery  fire the French irregular gun hit the Ruga gun causing them to be pinned, a state that lasted for several turns thanks to Jambutti’s  dubious leadership.

The scenario  states  one of the game ending criteria is that the Ruga don’t cause  French casualties for 5 turns. The French  chipped away at the Ruga  causing  a few casualties and the odd pinning result  but  after 4 turns no French (or allied) blood stained the ground and they occupied the farmhouse with a Tirallieur  unit.
French irregulars sniping away at the Ruga

The Tirallieurs stalwart in defence (more so for being in hard cover):


 Victory danced on the horizon yet again for the French however  they’d left the irregular units  forward to snipe at the Ruga.  One unit failed its activation in the 5th turn and couldn’t fall back so that although in soft cover the rifle armed Ruga   caused a casualty.
The game would continue.

In the 6th round the Ruga tribals charged the  immobile  French and demonstrated their combat skills by killing them all- that was 11 casualties in one turn of fighting. It seemed that French casualties were like buses none for ages then they all came at once.


The French gun tried to withdraw but got stuck in trees and was overrun and the  remaining French tribal irregular unit took a couple of casualties for  2 turns rolled abysmally on  rally checks and fled the field.
One turn ago there were French allies in this wood- not any more:


Now it was the Ruga  who sensed victory however the Tirallieurs  kept  a steady fire on their units and  were taking few casualties in return . The Ruga  units arrived to assault the Tirallieurs  in the farm house (hard cover) severely depleted.

The other Tirallieur unit under the dreadful command of Renault  held off a Ruga unit under the almost as bad command of Jambutti. Everything was riding on the multiple Ruga assaults on the farmhouse.  Three assaults went in,  all were repulsed even though two were drawn.  The units were too depleted to try again. The Tirallieurs under Gaultier had also taken casualties but still had 7 men left and were hanging on.


The final  almost intact Ruga unit  threw itself forward in the last viable Ruga assault and won by one casualty pushing into the farm. Gaultier  fled as his valiant Tirallieurs were destroyed.

This left Renault and his now few remaining Tirallieurs to be mopped up leaving the Ruga victors of a hard fought  engagement.

[Sunjester]

A great write up for a fun-sounding game. This campaign is really inspiring.

[Bryanbowdell]

It was a very enjoyable game, Rene Renault is going to have some explaining to do in his dispatches!!!

[chicklewis]

Great games, great photos, fine-looking minis, and dandy write-ups !!

[ushistoryprof]

What a fun campaign, hope more battle reports are coming in the near future.

[Traveler Man]

Great stuff! Nice to see The Forces of Empire don't always have it their own way. That's what I like about ongoing campaigns.

[pbjunky1]

Round 3  British v Zanzibari. Last Bullet scenario.
The British were the defenders in this scenario falling back on an adobe compound in the face of attacking Zanzibari.
The  British took a regular unit of Sikhs & Punjabis with a mountain gun,  the  Zanzibari force was 2x train guard (better quality militia), a mountain gun, Baluchi matchlocks and  Zanzibari irregular cav.
It was on leadership that  things started to fall apart for the Zanzibaris, Quecumba Salad managed a 6+ and his 2iC Mustafa Fag a 7+ with neither one having any benefit from traits (I think one had Bald as a Coot).
The British on the other hand had 5+ leadership all round with 2iC Captain Pickles   being a ‘Sporting Umpire’ and Colonel  Chips Fanshawe, obviously  cowed by being outnumbered,  was ‘Yellow Bellied. Whilst neither of these traits were particularly positive they weren’t a hindrance in this scenario where the British would be falling back and on the defensive.

The board at the start of the game, this was the only time the Zanzibari  started with their units lined up.


On their first move the Zanzibari cavalry set off at a gallop down the right flank  trying to cut off the retreating British however Salad who led this unit seemed unable to urge them forward with any haste, three moves the at the double roll being +1.



Things weren’t going much better in the centre with  Mustafa Fag’s two units  moving once and not at all in three rounds. The Baluchi did get forward however and in the second and third rounds effectively sniped  the British gunners who were  stalled moving their mountain gun.

The Zanzibari advance, they’d be ok attacking left to right unfortunately they were attacking bottom to top.


The largest slice of misfortune was however reserved for the Zanzibari gunners. Quecumba Salad had taken a mountain gun to batter the  British when they were in their compound (hard cover)  chipping away at them at long range and helping accumulate casualties.  This was a sound plan which reckoned without the random appearance of a lion. As we now have a lion model we’ve got some stats for one appearing randomly  once per game if troops are in soft cover. With the mountain gun setting up in soft cover ranging in on the British  the lion appeared  and attacked the crew killing three in the first attack and  finishing of the remaining crew man in the next round.
The British claimed it was Clarence the  mascot doing his bit for the regiment!

Clarence or Leo or whoever snacking on Zanzibari gunners.



With the Baluchis being the only effective attacking force for the first few turns  they took quite a lot of return fire and were considerably whittled down.
The militia units eventually got going but suffered the odd casualty and failing  pinning and rallying tests  repeatedly eventually fled the board  even though they were almost full strength.

Whilst this debacle unfolded the Sikhs fell back in  trees to the left of the compound and the Punjabis occupied the adobies. The mountain gun was lost as its crew were finished off by the Baluchi sniping.


Lining up with the tattered remains of what was left of a once proud force the Zanzibari cavalry attacked the Sikhs and over three rounds of combat killed all but one man and Captain Pickles. Pickles rallied his man however and as the Punjabis provide covering fire pinning the cavalry they fell back out of range of further charges.

Quecumba Salad  leads his cavalry in a victorious charge, its a shame he forgot about the rest of his force.


The Baluchis were having no luck shooting with reduced numbers against the hard cover so made a death or glory charge to cover a cavalry attack against the Punjabis in the compound. Neither attack went well and Salad’s  cavalry were all but wiped out whilst a round of shooting  saw off the Baluchis and gave  the British a solid win.
Colonel Fanshawe will doubtless regale anyone he comes across with tales of his exploits though the most telling intervention was probably from Clarence.
Baluchis  making the wrong choice out of the death or glory options

[marianas_gamer]

Very Fun Go Clarence!!
LB

[Ignatieff]

What a cracking campaign, great battles and a rollicking write up. Well done chaps!

[Sunjester]

Another great game! I really must get my last two units of Belgian askari painted up to give me the fifth force so I can get on with more multi-player games.

[pbjunky1]

Thanks for the kind comments we are enjoying playing the campagn.
Without further ado here's the final round 3 results:

Round 3 German v Tribals Last Bullet scenario.

In the final round 3 game the Germans took on a tribal force. This seemed a bold option  bearing in mind the hiding they suffered in round 1 against a tribal force but they not only took that option but decided to spend their points  on two elite regular units with fierce and sharpshooter. The tribals took 4 regular tribal units and 2 x elite tribal  units. A massive outnumbering of the colonials  by the tribals.
In past games (not just TMWWBK) the player who commands the German’s  is one of those who  is frequently on the losing side- ok pretty much always. Well laid plans  cruelly  fall apart at the last, sometimes there aren’t  even well laid plans. However it sets out the result is the same as witnessed in rounds 1 & 2 of our campaign – resounding defeats by the tribals and Zanzibaris.
This time it was going to be different, this time the dice gods would smile on the benighted  Germans, their tiny force wouldn’t be swamped by the massed tribal hordes- like we all believed that would happen. However  lo and behold on this occasion  the constellations aligned the dice gods smiled and the Germans bathed in a golden glow of invincibility.
Things started with the command rolls, Oberst Haidenfahrt – that famous hider in his tent in round 2 rolled  5+ leadership and ‘Hero of the Empire’ trait moving to 4+ leadership. This was followed by his newly appointed  2iC (the last one was killed by a Zanzibari cannon ball) Kapitain Schotemup  who rolled 5+ leadership and ‘destined for greatness’. You could almost see the German troops little metal chests swelling with pride to be led by such heroes.
Then came the tribals leaders, Abel T’lickit rolled a woeful 7+  but worse still his trait was ‘Idiot’. The 2 iC, Hunka Burninluv rolled 8+ and  very helpfully for a force containing no shooting ability ‘musketry buff’.  All of a sudden the numeric advantage enjoyed by the tribals didn’t seem so overwhelming.
To ensure the tribals could reach the farmstead we allowed them to set up 5 x standard moves  away. This gave them some chance of inflicting a casualty in 5 turns which if they didn’t do they would lose the game.

The tribals line up in good order, the only time this happened in the game.


For the first few rounds the  Germans fell back from the centre of the board to the farmstead  and adjacent woods whilst the tribals  moved forward.  Some attempted to move at the double- it didn’t work and both flanks ended up stranded behind the advancing centre instead of ahead of it.
Worse still  in two rounds  Abel T’lickit’s  idiot trait came into play (for the same unit) and they were moved to the rear twice.
A complete debacle was ensuing with half the tribals stuck near the back of the table and half racing forward.

Tribals mass in the trees , they wouldn’t be so confident if they knew their comrades on the flanks were lagging far behind.


As turn 5 loomed with no German casualties caused the tribals threw all the forces  in the vicinity forward. It wasn’t enough, the poor leadership caused delays across the board and in the final round they were met with deadly fire from the elite Germans.
German  units  stand tall (well at least 28mm) awaiting the tribal onslaught in quiet confidence.


The incompetent  tribal leadership ensures only 3 tribal units manage to carry out that difficult action - moving across the board  (and two of those are pinned).

The game ended on turn 5 with no German casualties taken  and the tribals pinned and scattered all over the board.  The scenario is a difficult one for tribals with no long range shooting ability  but made next to impossible  in this game by the dice gods bestowing  their leaders with unfortunate traits/ leadership.
Despite their stunning victory however normal dice service was resumed as the Germans rolled on the  post game results table and ended up taking no victory points off the tribals!