Tuesday 13 September 2016

Slaughter on the North West Frontier

Off to Guildford last night for a game of The Sword and the Flame...one of those rulesets that everyone seems to have played but which have always passed me by.  We were using Mike and Anthony's very nice Armies in Plastic 54mm figures which has prompted me to get back to painting the ones I bought earlier this year.  Of course there are some outstanding Congo natives to paint... and some Aztecs to rebase.... and some ACW ships to paint...


The game pitted our brave boys in khaki against some doubtlessly unscrupulous Pathans as we tried to relieve a  small force holding out in a fort.  TSATF is card activated and thanks to the frequent appearance of the 'HALT' card, which ends the turn sequence, I spent quite a while holding behind a small wood drinking tea and watching Anthony's cavalry gallantly charging the Pathan Horse.  To be honest it was probably the safest place to be...over on the other flank Anthony's troops were mauled by the Pathans and eventually when I did advance I also took a hammering from Andrew's tribesmen who had been skulking in the rocks waiting for their chance to pounce.  The only troops that were happy and undisturbed were the ones in the fort.







It all looked quite rosy at this point..in a couple of turns there were
bloody scraps of khaki in the dust and the survivors had run away...


The rules were fun and intuitive, although it helped that Mike and Anthony have played them quite a bit previously.  Definitely 'old school' skirmish style and very entertaining.

Incidentally Mike has set up a rather spiffy Forum for all things 54mm.... http://littlewarsrevisited.boards.net/

There's also a write up on Mike's blog...



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