Sudan: 2nd Action at Hashin - Black Powder Battle Report

Forces of the Black Flag make their way towards the Dihilbat Feature from the direction of Tamai.

It was a particularly blistering hot day near Hashin as the Indian brigade and elements from General Graham's second brigade made their way through the valley between Beehive Hill and the southern end of the Dihilbat Feature. As two huge palls of dust rose in the north, east and west of his position, he did not need the confirmation from the recently returned scouts to realise there were two large Ansar forces heading his way. It was time to deploy...

What follows was an excellent game with three good fellows from the Grumpy (old man) Shed Group who acquiesced to fight the Hashin 'what if' scenario previously reported.

Set up almost exactly matched the first battle only on a slightly larger game area, so see the previous post for maps. Also a couple of units were added to both sides.

Anglo-Egyptian Forces (Tim)
Indian Brigade: The 5th Ludhiana Sikhs, 17th Bengal Native Infantry, and 28th Bombay Native Infantry (3x Standard BP formations),  9th Bengal Lancers (Standard BP formation), a Naval Brigade Gardner and Tiny support formation, and 2 screw guns.

2nd Brigade: The Berkshire Regiment and Royal Marine Light Infantry (2x Standard BP formations), squadron of 9th Bengal lancers (Small BP formation).

Reinforcements: 1st Battalion Coldstream Guards, 3rd Battalion Scots Guards (2x Standard 'guards' BP formation, starting off table, available from turn three onward, and assigned to a brigade as the general sees fit).

Ansar Forces
Green Flag Rub (Mike): 6 x Hadendowa (Standard BP spear/sword formations)
Black Flag Rub (Stephen): 3 x spearmen/swordsmen (Standard BP formations), 2 x African Riflemen (Standard BP formations), 3 x Small rifle-armed skirmishers.


Green flag begins their advance through the low spurs of the Waratab.

Unlike last time, the Ansar came in from both the direction of Tamai (top photo) and the Low Spurs of the Waratab (photo above), from both corners of the board.


Indian Brigade deploys in the depression between Beehive Hill and the Dihilbat Feature, with elements of 2nd Brigade on the southern spur of Dihilbat.

Turn One
The Anglo-Egyptians held firm in their starting positions as the Ansar advance began, although the main body of the Black Flag rub failed to activate.

Squadron of 9th Bengals face the the advancing Black Flag skirmishers on right flank and take fire.


Green Flag after turn one, moving through the spurs and pausing at the edge.

Tim moved the Indian Brigade over to the left to make room for the 2nd Brigade, who came off the Dihilbat spur, causing dispositions to almost exactly match those of the actual battle, and sent the 9th Bengal Lancers forward into the desert.


Turn Two
One good command roll later and it was all on. The Green flag rolled well enough to rush across the board from the right flank, through the low spurs and into the Indian brigade.


After closing fire, the square held firm and the fighting continued into the next round.

On the left flank, again the Riflemen of the Black Flag forces failed to activate and were left at the northern end of the Dihilbat spurs, as the 9th Bengals raced across the board to get behind them.


Turn Three
British reinforcements arrive.

The Coldstreams took to the left flank Dihilbat spur and fired.


Causing the lead element of the Black Flag spearmen - who had shot forwards behind the left side of the Dihilbat Feature - to become disordered.


In the center the Scots Guards had joined the Indian Brigade and immediately closed the brigade square as the fighting continued.


Which was fortunate as even though the right-most Sepoy repulsed the first wave, the battalion succumbed to the continued onslaught and was destroyed.

Turn Four
The Ansar rushed into the gap, smashing into the Scots Guard in their flank...

... but were caught by traversing fire from the Screw Guns on the hill and retired from the battle.


Still the square held firm even though the Gardner had become Disordered...


... and was reformed into a 'harbour'/triangle/squarish thingy (the maths was too hard ((3x6)+1)/4=... triangle!) as fierce firing and fighting caused disorder amongst the Hadendowa and the 5th Sikhs to become shaken.


Meanwhile the Blag Flag spearmen raced up the left face of the Dihilbat, smashing into the Coldstreams, who held firm but were Shaken for their efforts.


The 9th Bengal Lancers, who had previously rushed completely across the board to try and flank the Black Flag, were finally reined in and turned around to hit the trailing Green Flag spearmen in the rear...

Causing a surprise outcome for both sides.

Where'd everything go - total destruction in the center of the board.

Turn Five
The center held firm for the Anglo-Egyptians with the Sikhs repulsing the wave of Hadendowa, making serious inroads towards breaking the Green Flag rub.


But on the left flank the Black Flag began its attack in earnest as the 2nd Brigade moved up in support positions.

African Riflemen begin pelting the Berkshires, who in turn returned fire, disordering the riflemen.


The Coldsreams took the brunt of the continued assault, supported by the Royal Marine Light Infantry (RMLI) and Berkshires below.


They succumbed to the prolonged fight but pushed back the attacking Ansar horde before they too fell back.


Turn Six
The Black Flag assault continued with a fresh wave of Beja spearmen rushing headlong into the RMLI.


Who immediately crumbled under the assault after the Beja re-rolled missed H-2-H for six hits.


The Blag Flag skirmishers took up positions on the Dihilbat to continue to rain fire down on the Berkshires.


Meanwhile back in the center a wave of Hadendowa raced up Beehive Hill to assault the artillery position...

...and ended up completely annihilating it.

Turn Seven, Eight, & Possibly Even Nine(?)

Not sure what happened, it was the heat of the battle and seem to have missed a few photos. Suffice to say that the Green Flag Rub - almost broken - ended up entirely pressurizing the Indian Brigade.

The Black Flag skirmishers and Riflemen continued to harry the Berkshires from the peak of the Dihilbat Feature...

... until they too succumbed.


While streaming over the Dihilbat, this was one of the last things the Coldstreams saw...


This final Black Flag assault entirely decimated the 2nd Brigade, leaving the Indian Brigade battling on in the center, but now completely enveloped.


And in the last round of combat, the 5th Ludhiana Sikhs fell, taking a body of Hadendowa with them, and the game was called.


This was another well fought and close game, 2-1 to the Ansar.

Mike and Stephen ended up enacting classic Ansar skirmish and envelopment tactics, much to the glee of this SOG.

The battle provided a good demonstration of why General Graham, forces over-extended and without the close and mutual support of full brigade squares, chose to fall back on the 21st March 1885.

So hats off to Tim who endured especially well given he had no choice but to fight, faced two opponents, overwhelming numbers, and alls I did was hang about making umpirish noises and cracking jokes 👍

Once again Black Powder more than delivers to period expectations, a totally excellent ruleset!

AWI: The 3rd New York and Sherburne's Additional Regiment

Gaming Black Powder at 1/72 scale, when buying plastics at least, means often compromising when it comes to the number of figure poses available in a set. You either get too few or - like me - buy as many boxes as you need to produce regular BP units. But then you're left with figures left over of the poses you like and the poses no wargamer should ever be seen fielding.

So the first answer to the question 'what do you do with all the spare figures that aren't terrible poses' is simple; reserves.


First up a small New York regiment from Revell's Seven Year's War set 02572 Prussian Infantry. Grey coats with green facings and cuffs indicates the 3rd New York from 1775-1776.


I bought three boxes of this set and produced the Hessian Brigade posted previously. The left overs include five of the marching pose and three sets plus a spare NCO, provides the perfect number for a small BP battalion.


The paint job is by Fernando Enterprises from years ago - facings touched up with a brighter green - and again was excellent value for the money. The likely role for this small unit is as a cheap(er) support element for a brigade. Despite its size and poorer fighting stats, it'll be as good as any standard sized unit in the support role.


Next up Sherburne's Additional Regiment from Revell's Seven Year's War set 02574 Austrian Infantry, in 1779 uniform - brown coats faced yellow, laced hats, with green trousers and waistcoats.


I think I bought two of these boxes to create the Jagers for the Hessian Brigade. Hmmm, you get eight poses receiving horse, unlikely in the AWI, so these guys are 'going low' to avoid bouncing cannon balls while the left over firing poses do their thing.


Again the paint job is by Fernando and is OK - because I provided vague instructions; the cross straps, facings and turnbacks aren't right and the shading needed some touching up but - meh - this regiment can take its place at the back somewhere also in support. The common 'Don't Tread on Me' flag is off the internet, using MS Word to produce a 'double sided' flag and converting the moulded flag on the standard bearer.


Having botched together smaller or less than regular units, the other answer to the question above is simple, swap or give away spare decent poses to mates and for the crap poses, pilfer the guns and hats for conversions or dump the figures in the recycling. Its only cheap plastic after all.

Next up on the painting table is this 1/1 scale cat, nearly finished and which - even if I say so myself - looks incredibly realistic. It'll take its place along the other reserve units for BP AWI.

AWI: Lee's Legion Infantry

Something a bit different and more obscure. Had this unit coming on in the background and finished it in a sprint of impatience. I like the idea of the legions of this era so just couldn't resist including the other principal organisational unit of the period - typically made up of horse and foot.


The trick was finding the right clothing and helmet for these guys as they adopted the 'Tarleton' helmet, as many other 'light' units did as the war progressed. But this is where Plastic Soldier Review really excels with its period based listing of 1/72 plastics. A quick look at the French Revolution and Revolutionary Wars section provided both foot and horse for the AWI.


So the Strelets Set M071 British Light Infantry in Egypt has been used for these guys and will be used for: 16th British Dragoons, Lee's legion dragoons, British legion, Continental light infantry, and other American dragoons. Only minor 'adjustments' to the uniform for the cavalry figures in the form of shaving off some buttons and shaving off the shoulder 'wings' for the foot during prep is necessary at this scale to produce fairly accurate uniforms.


Fortunately the sculpts are good in this set, as Stretlets sets have varying quality in this area generally. The moulding however produced a lot of flash, some 5mm high, and I'm not sure I got all of it when prepping these figures. Apart from that these guys have come out OK, if a little darker than I expected and their purple/lavender uniform is set to provide another wash of colour on the table.


The colour scheme is taken from various pictures of the Legion's infantry on the net, apparently based on a painting mentioned here on the Tarleton's Quarters blog - the rest of the legion was issued green and buff cloth.


Although notable for being light troops, I have based them as a line regiment for BP as Lee's legion troops are intended as line fill and mounted/skirmish elements for a Continental brigade.

AWI: Virginia State Infantry/New Jersey Regiment

Finished the next American Continental regiment for Black Powder using 6060 Italeri American Infantry set.

This time the regiment was chosen for its bright colours and checking the BP: Rebellion! supplement again, indicates that this unit can be used as Virginia State Infantry or possibly one of the New Jersey regiments - post 1777.


In the previous Rhode Island State Infantry post I covered the many issues with the Italeri set, but again these figures have painted up really well and have superb detailing which made painting them a breeze. Although some of the detailing on the muskets had to be painted on because of the position of the weapon in the mould.


Again the flag is from Warflag.com and I have taken the liberty... :)... of using one of the speculative flags, mainly because of its colour. So not historical at all.


This is another decent unit and looks great beside the Rhode Island unit finished previously - two down, seven to go.

Why Sci Fi Rulesets Make Me Grumpy

Space Demons - 'not aliens' from Khurasan Miniatures

Apart from a few Epic EA games my Sci Fi figures have been sitting in boxes for years, I haven't even bothered finishing most of my armies.

I've spent mountains of dosh on 6mm, 15mm, and even retro 25mm science fiction figures and vehicles, but to my mind no one has come up with a genuinely good, independent and comprehensive Sci Fi rule set.

More space demons, swarming out of a processing plant because someone said 'lame' and they thought they said 'game'. 

There's always something, always, which does my head in: basing the rules on modern warfare - or even previous periods, using fistfuls of different types of dice or needing 'special' dice, having general phases, wiring up army lists so tight even the most casual brush causes the entire system to implode, over-engineering the rules so that muchkins turn it into Chess and meta-game the experience, or just making things so unfeasibly unrealistic that its just nonsense.

Just stop it all of you!

"We're in the pipe, five-by-five..." - Retro Denizen 25mm Miniatures

Not only that but a recent stint in defense has now completely ruined the current Sci Fi rule sets, mainly because warfare today has already conceptually outpaced the majority of rule sets on the market.

Mandatory preliminary bombardments as doctrine - no, not since the fifties. Phasing at army level (move, shoot, combat) - no, not since WWI. Having to stop to shoot from a stabilised weapon platform- what? Come on! Having units take individual actions - yes, but having a rigid initiative and 'victory condition' tournament system with fixed objectives - yawn.

Sheese!

"Me and my squad of ultimate badasses will protect you! Check it out. We got tactical smart missiles, phase plasma pulse rifles, RPGs. We got sonic, electronic ball-breakers! We got nukes, we got knives, sharp sticks..."

And to add to this we've had two heartbreaking teases with Gates of Antare from Warlord and Warpath from Mantic recently, but which turned out were just similar things to stuff already on the market, done slightly differently.

Hudson: Hey Vasquez, have you ever been mistaken for a man? Vasquez: No. Have you? 

Alls I want, alls I want, right, is to turn up with whatever scale and world takes our fancy, with miniatures from whatever miniatures producer captured my attention that month, sit down with a mate and enjoy a game with a richness of feel and simple mechanisms that don't take a lot of brainpower. My job is unfeasibly complex, it requires a lot of brainpower and in a Sci Fi game I just want to eat chips and drink Coke or beer, talk bollocks and have a laugh with mates, and forget about thinking too hard.

It's simple, I want a Sci Fi movie on a tabletop.


A veritable legion of 6mm EA Terminators - currently on gardening leave. 

It's not hard either. Even in today's military, we have capabilities, nodal forces connected by networks, and stuff that goes bang from miles away. There is nothing else. No heavy doctrine, no 'WWII' limits. Just the ability to deploy specific and tailored capabilities into specific theaters, to achieve specific objectives.


6mm EA Space Marine Tactical Platoon -  permanently on stand-by.

Once in-theater it comes down to command, toughness, training, and - of course - blind luck; no matter how bad-arse your technology. Where initiative changes sides during a battle due to environmental influences, micro-victories and cock-ups; not because it's the other player's turn.


EA 6mm Thunderhawk squadron - at present re-tasked to undertake sight-seeing trips for tourists. 

To support this this particular moan, I have played: Warhammer 40K, Epic 40K, Epic Armageddon, Future War Commander, Stargrunt II, X-Wing, Star Wars RPG, Battlefleet Gothic, Inquisitor and read Gates of Antare, Warpath Firefight, and Warpath, but was so disappointed with the basic mechanics and mini-bias that I'm not going to game them.

And just to be fair I have really enjoyed myself at points during the games I've played. But because my opponent and I were having a laugh, or randomly made an experience that was like a movie, and I have even spent a decent amount of time writing up a set of rules with a mate - so close, whatever happened to that? (Oh that's right, we got 90% of the way there and then had a fundamental difference of opinion of what we wanted from a Sci Fi game 😏😝)


Khurasan 15mm Space Demon king and retinue - never seen a game, some say they are waiting on a planet near you! 

Please, someone write a set of rules that's fun, easy, and one day can do army level and the next support a semi-RPG firefight.

Where on Tuesday night we reproduced the awesome sequence from Riddick where the Mercenaries planetfall down to the abandoned way station using 15mm and on Saturday we went nuts and got all our 6mm out to battle for a space port.

Where the balance of the armies was based on capabilities not fluff or the fact that the rule set is a thoroughbred, so highly strung that a small change upsets the munchkins. How hard can it be?


Beautiful 6mm Warhound Titans from GW - last seen chasing Squat trains to pass the time - here boy!

If I sound bitter its because in 2003 Games Workshop released Epic Armageddon which had everything you could feasibly want to make your miniatures behave. It had: a unit action sequence with decent actions, rules for aircraft, spacecraft, things that hovered, things that fired indirectly, things with tracks, wheels, and grav-shoes, and things that crawled, slithered or ambled, a blistering and simple combat system, suppression and attrition, and awesome minis.

I was even involved with the development and play-test communities - those were heady days - I like to think I had a hand in the Sniper special ability... mainly because I don't get out much.

But in the almost fifteen years since its release: it was abandoned by GW, had its minis go OOP, and never reached the heights of its potential - for scenario based wargaming. Although its supported by a band of ardent fans and hard-out supporters at Net Epic Armageddon, the tournament rules however, make it much akin to chess - achieving standardised objectives within a strict turn sequence. I want to say it sucks but it doesn't, it's still an excellent set of rules but the tournament set up is not what I want to be doing of a weekend - whether I'm playing a difficult army or not.


AT Razorbacks - 6mm EA IFVs presently moth-balled... I didn't even know moths had balls!

EA is simply not a narrative based wargame and playing a tournament game means rigidly sticking to a fixed game sequence time after time, after time - which is fine if you're OCD, lack imagination, or a munchkin; and you won't find rules for your 15mm stuff in EA, or non-GW 25-28mm stuff either.


A small portion of my EA Space Marine army.

And I guess that's the last point of my rant, companies producing Sci Fi games are hampered by the fact that they are also pushing a line of figures to go with their rules. So their rules are always biased towards a certain universe, set of army character doctrines, and ultimately miniature sales. I don't mind this, companies need to make profits, and I didn't mind it for EA and Epic 40K (which kicked it all off for me) but once is enough - actually three times is enough, I bought Space Marines, Orks, and Imperials...

In short I have an awesome 15mm mechanised hover company from Ground Zero Games but it won't see the light of day, let alone get painted, until there's some actual rules to game with.

But that's my whine over - I hope you enjoyed the pictures 😀

18/01/2018 PS: have subsequently put my money where my mouth is and produced a full set of independent Sci-fi wargames... 07/06/23 they're done but what do I do with them next....

AWI: Rhode Island State Infantry and Italeri Set 6060 Review

Occasionally I actually get inspired by the boxart of a set of figures or a picture in a rule set or reference, like with my Empire Warmaster figures - painted to the Emprie style in the rulebook - and I try to do my best to reproduce what I see, as was the case here.



These troops are the first batch from the 6060 Italeri American Infantry set and the boxart shows a regiment of blue coats and yellow facings, carrying either the 1775 or 1777 'national' flag.


A quick flick through the uniform tables in the Black Powder: Rebellion! supplement indicates that the only unit with these colours was the Rhode Island State Infantry. As it lists them for the period 1777-1783 with this uniform, I grabbed a 1777 flag from Warflag.com.

The figures have come up a treat using the painting style covered in a previous post and I think are some of the best figures on the market for this period/scale. But I have to also agree with the comments from the PSR review.


So, continuing on with this period/scale ran aground when I started searching for American Continentals. The only plastics available were in this set and in summary here's the problems with it:
- you only get three of each figure in each set
- some of the poses are not great and there's only one advancing pose
- one of the firing poses depicts a man with his hat flying off in the wind (why???)
- the standard bearer has a sculpted flag that covers the majority of his body
- all figures are sculpted with their stockings down - as common only on the hottest summer days

This was not a well thought out production.

To add to this, and something PSR actually missed, is that two of the other firing poses have their hats sculpted sideways. A niggle to most perhaps but the soldiers would probably have been flogged for wearing their hats in this way - regardless of how silly it would look in real life. [Edit 2021: subsequently read that this was actually a style of wearing hats as they progressed into the bicorns that followed this period - still be after the war though, so 1790s - but good enough for me]

Hat issues with the set, pic from PSR review of the set.

Considering the faults in the production of the set nearly derailed my entire AWI project. The resolution required 'thinking big', planning the associated assaults on the bank account and an acceptance that at least 3 - 4 units would include some serious 'hat handling' with Exacto knife and superglue.

So several years and 8 set purchases later and happily the results speak for themselves, for 'arms length' standard wargames figures, I'm really happy with the finish because of the bonuses of this set, which are:


1. The good poses are very good, so that when there's 24 of them together, they provide a decent, regimented feel to a BP unit.

2. The sculpting and details are excellent and lend themselves well to painting.

3. The negative 'you get as many officers and musicians as other poses' at this level of wargaming becomes a positive, because you get heaps of officers and musicians for BP command options and I think these figures offset the 'regimented' figures really well.

4. Unlike the PSR review, not one box of the eight had any flash problems whatsoever and the mould lines follow the sculpting detail well enough that it only takes five minutes to prep a BP unit for the undercoat.



Given the caveats above these are good figures and paint up well.



Yes this set has some fairly hefty issues but when considering each standard sized BP unit has 24 figures, and for a decent game you'll want several brigades worth of figures, of 3-6 units a brigade, then 'thinking big' pays dividends.

So all in all a good result and the eight boxes needed to produce decent BP battalions seems to be paying off - I may have different feelings should my knife slip during one of the 72 upcoming hat conversions!