Desert Forces

 

... or pretty much, what I did during New Zealand's second COVID lockdown.

So the goal was to do something with the hordes of 20mm figures that had been replaced by newer sculpts and companies and recklessly stuffed in a box, and had come home from far to many Bring and Buys.

The second goal was to find a game and a way to teach my stepson about losing during a game, especially your 'favourite' figure of the day.

The result was a Black Powder supplement - greatly simplified with the addition of heroes, magic, monsters and machines, desert scenery and the desert forces themselves - which were meant to be reinforced by Redbox's Dark Alliance Mummies and Anubis army, which have as yet, failed to show up from muster - international shipping being what it is.

Excellent Adventures - Black Powder Supplement

I grabbed Hordes of the Things, Warmaster Revolution and Black Powder V2 and munged the first two into the third. What resulted was an exceptionally fun, and funny, not to be taken seriously supplement which worked really well - with very little rule changes for core BP rules.

We had hordes, steam tanks, Giger-moths, stoic British infantry, and crazy magicians firing off their fizzing silliness all over the place. Instead of trying to 'win' the object was to tell the 'story' and not mind which side you were on or who won - I guess teaching how to lose before teaching how to win - sounds counterintuitive I know, but I don't think we've laughed so much in ages.

Terrain

Building upon previous desert escapades, we updated the Temple of Seth with a couple of extensions.

Then, 'build a pyramid' he said, 'from the bricks we made from das' he said, 'it'll be fun'.

Ten hours later and we have a small pyramid, which I have to admit, set the scene nicely, even for the pyramids in northern Sudan (who knew they had them???)

And of course you have to have an abandoned fort and a hastily erected stone defence robbed from said pyramid (see the 'good guy' photos for the stone defence).

The 'Bad Guys'

The bad guys, in a homage to Indiana Jones baddies, red and black theme and warriors from the Esci Set 238 Muslim Warriors and Italeri Set 6010 Saracen Warriors, flying horrors from Eagle Games Egyptian 'Age of Mythology' sprue, and a giant Djinn from the 25mm Ral Partha range.

Led by a great As-Sihr (magician) and hell bent on reaching the pyramid cemetery at Meroe to raise the dead and basically do 'bad things'.

Classic hordes of bad guys for your chosen heroes to fight, backed by a mighty Djinn hero.

The red and black certainly put colour on the board and the forces were finished off by further Eagle Games Egyptian sculpts of various monsters - used in a summoning/charm spell during the shooting round.

The 'Good Guys'

A lot of these were re-based from various HoTT forces and further photos can be found here.

Victoria's Forces

Stirling lads from various regiments stationed at Suakin, set out to chase and confront the As-Sihr forces. 

Mostly drawn from the old Esci Set 232Colonial India British Infantry and A Call To Arms Set 57 British Infantry Zulu War boxes of 1/72 awesomeness.

Including a regiment ordered to wear their red coats - one last time - to show the As-Sihr forces they were just as 'red' blooded as they were.

Inspired, many of the KRRC donned their old dark green for the coming battle.

The rest of the forces wore their new khaki smocks.

The special brigade (the only one with red epaulets) were led by their general.

Even a regimental chaplain volunteered to meet the As-Sihr and all their magical fizzing silliness, quoting "This maniacal fuddery-duddery just won't do!" - essentially a 'magician' that uses the Dwarven 'dispel magic' spell from Warmaster,

Envigoured by their comrades, the Camel Regiment joined in also, ditching their camels for local ponies - Italeri converted confederate cavalry.

Dismounted, the Camel Regiment loved to blow their own horn - Esci conversions.

Lost in the desert, a Major and his colleagues struggle on.

Some gas-powered Giger-moths for scouting and machine gun action.

A hero in a steam-driven armoured car joined the fray.

Along with a steam-driven tank (converted from Emhar, I think)

Sepoy Regiment

Worried by the rate at which the As-Sihr forces were drawing supporters from across the northern Sudan, the British dispatched reinforcements from India in the form of some Sepoys and cavalry. Drawn from the same Esci set above and Strelets Set 057 Bengal Lancers.

The general and some light foot troops.

A full regiment of Sepoys was a welcome sight given what faced the force at the Meroe pyramid cemetery.

As fierce as any British soldier.

Drawn from all over India.

The Indian 'lights' were a welcome addition for scouting and flank duties.

Those Caught In-between

The Mahdi's and Local Forces

Forces to make up the numbers on either side, depending on who they choose to support.

The addition of Red Sea pirates never hurt.

Madhist rifle-armed forces to make up more numbers.

A company of 'imports' from the Northern Frontier.

Most Excellent Adventures

So, having reused many very old bits and pieces, some most excellent adventures were had in the northern Sudanese desert. I might cobble together the additional rules for the future and wasn't really surprised that the magic from Warmaster fit right in to Black Powder given the lineage of these rulesets.

The heroes, machines and monsters required an adjustment of thinking for unit sizes (We only used Small and Tiny units for 'company-level' units), but all in all a completely unexpected success and now these figures can be used by a subsequent generation - as well as this one :)

DBA 3.0: First Game & Review: Punics

Had my first game for a while and after last week's post, Nick came out to break in his Marians.


Must be our first game together for about six years - time flys!

DBA 3.0
I haven't played a DBx game for probably just as long and Nick agreed to help me through the changes. Instantly liking: spear support from side elements, fast warband, and the ease at which things happen now. We had a couple of games and both totally enjoyable.

After these few games I would say that double or triple DBA would be eminently more enjoyable than DBM x, DBMM, and FoG.

First Game: Straight DBA, 12 Elements Per Side
So first up Nick went Polybian and I went Carthaginian for a good historical Punic match.

Polybians: Hastati (3xbd), Principes (3xbd), Triarii (2xSp), Velites (2xPs), Equetes (2x Cv and General)

Lots of good blade, nicely painted HaT figures.

Carts: Poeni (3xSp), Gauls (2xWbf), 1x Elephant (oh yea!), Allied Italians (1x Ax), Lybians (2xPs), Numidian (1xLH), Poeni Horse (2x Cv plus General), all a mix of HaT and Italeri

I rolled as defender and chose compulsory ploughed field x 2 and a wood. Feilds rolling up good going in turn one - that was lucky given I deployed in them!


After turn one, Nick had moved forward his foot and wheeled out his cavalry on his left flank. I countered his cavalry by ZoCing it just as the sun burst through the clouds, and I pushed up my heavy foot and elephant...

...while racing forward with the light horse and light foot on my left flank.



In turn 2 Nick's foot continued their advance.


Securing the center and setting the battle line.


Nick un-ZoCed himself and smashed into my cavalry with his and added a blade overlap for support.


Which ended well for me, recoling both his cavalry and cavalry general.



I then diced poorly and because my light horse were in the way, could only continue the advance of the heavy foot and heffalump.


So that by Turn 3 the dastardly Nick was able to re-engage his cavalry and flank my general.


Which ended well for me, recoling his cavalry with my general and V.V.


In the next few turns there was great confusion on the battlefield as my center closed with his, with mixed results.


But on my left flank the Elephant and the Gauls minced through the blades.


The cavalry went at it repeatedly, mine now supported by some African spearmen, after which a gentlemen's agreement was reached as I recolied Nick's cavalry off the table without realising we'd pushed the table edge back, so a new table edge was agreed :)


But the battle continued to rage and Nick's center was hard pressed.


Great shot of the center mid-game - not bad for well painted plastic 20mm figures; the figures on the far right are Nick's dead pool of blades.


Must have been Turn 5 by now and centre was still ebbing and flowing.


Nick's supported cavalry finally took one of mine.


So I committed into the center again with another great shot of these figures.


And into the Hastati went the elephant, the Italians and Lybians having seen off Nick's Velites.


But Nick rolled well enough for recoils.

And then this happened...


Followed by this...


Followed by this...

Game to Nick as my general was gloriously defeated... it's how he would have wanted to go.

But for some reason to do with not remembering rules, we kept on fighting without any application of my troops being demoralized, and as I had just broken Nick's army in the center, there was a moment there we thought I had won. It was nice while it lasted :)

But a great game, a lot more fun than DBA 2.1 was previously. The hardcover rule book is well laid out with lots of diagrams now and a decent historical blurb on the trillions of armies listed therein.

Good job the Barkers!

We played a double DBA game next and I'll blog that separately.