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Let me start by wishing you and yours all the very best of the season,
wherever you are and whatever your beliefs. The world could do with a little “peace, love and understanding” at the moment, that’s for sure. Spare a thought for those Battlegames subscribers who may be in difficult and dangerous places at this very moment.
This is a momentous time at Battlegames HQ, as it happens, because the company celebrated its first anniversary on 9th November, and the next issue will mean that the magazine has achieved its first full year in production – not bad for a publication that some questioned the need for! This could not have been achieved without your help: the fact that we have grown from a standing start to a circulation of 2,500 copies each issue in less than a year, and without moving into the high street shops yet, bears testament to the loyalty and enthusiasm of our readers and contributors who have spread the word on our behalf. Thank you, and please continue to do so! If every one of you just persuaded one other wargamer to buy a copy or take a sub, we’d be competing on pretty equal terms with the Big Players (and we all know who they are...).
In addition, you will notice that we have the support of an ever-growing number of advertisers. This support from the trade is crucial and hugely appreciated and I feel flattered that something that started as just a dream is now being taken seriously by the industry. In turn, I would ask that Battlegames readers show their appreciation to these companies who are investing in our future in the appropriate way – particularly with Christmas coming!
Talking of gifts, I must take a moment to thank those companies who have sent me items that I simply could not fit reviews for in the Recce section this time: Tim at Frontline for his lovely Kubelwagen armoured car; Sean at Newline for his fascinating Sumerians and lovely 20mm ACW figures; Rob Broom at Warhammer Historical (who I hope has good news about new additions to his family) who sent us the stunning Showdown and Alamo additions to Legends of the Old West; Iain Dickie at Miniature Wargames who sent Hammer’s Anvils; and Cathay Games who have sent some extraordinary sci-fi kits for Dust. All these will be properly reviewed next time.
Have a great break, everyone – see you next year!
Editorial 3
A return to the Sudan 4Jim Purky, USA
One rule for one... 8Lee Swift, UK
Forward Observer 11Mike Siggins, UK
Snowballs at Brienne 12Arthur Harman, UK
Asquith’s way 16Stuart Asquith, UK
Larry Leadhead 17Eric Hotz and Douglas Hamm, Canada
The Wars of the Faltenian Succession 18Henry Hyde, UK
Modelling 10mm WWII Paras: part II 20Dave Robotham, UK
Table top teaser 23C.S. Grant, UK
Operation Sealion 26Bob Barnetson & Bruce McFarlane, Canada
From battle to battlegame 30Ross Macfarlane, Canada
Recce 34Mike Siggins, Stuart Asquith, Jonathan Wray, Greg Horne, John Preece, Phil Olley, Dan Mersey, Bob Barnetson & me!
To boldly go 40Guy Hancock, UK
Editorial Contents
Cover: Generals sheltering in a square – a small scene captured during the impressive colonial game staged by the Perry twins at The Other Partizan in Kelham Hall in September of this year. The sight of those highlanders in kilts is stirring stuff indeed! Beautiful castings available, naturally enough, from Perry Miniatures, photographed by the Editor.
No room for a competition this issue, I’m afraid, but our lucky winners of the “Legendary Warriors” crossword in issue 4 were subscribers James Holbrook, Mark Lowther and Alexander Kane, who all managed to get the right answers in spite of an error in the crossword! Their prizes are on the way. The answers were:[Across] 2. six 4. Oliver 5. Jason Connery 8. Heorot 11. Myrmidons 13. Bram Stoker 15. Long House 16. Heel 17. MacBeth 18. Stirling Bridge[Down] 1. Durham 2. Scots 3. Lincoln 5. John Cabot 7. The Impaler 9. Ossian 10. Conchobar 12. Green 14. Teulu
Honourable mentions in dispatches for the runners-up who also sent correct entries: Steve Williams, Arthur Davies and Jane Keogh.
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A return to the SudanRediscovering the joys of colonials in Peter Gilder style
by Jim Purky
The Sudan Campaign of 1884-1885 to relieve General Gordon at Khartoum from the Mahdi’s forces has held my fascination for a long time. Over a span of
more than 20 years though, I have managed to resist the temptation to purchase figures and build armies, knowing full well that once I dipped my toes into the waters of the Nile, that it would be hard to hold myself back and show any degree of constraint on my spending. My interest in the Sudan probably stems from watching films such as Khartoum (with Charlton Heston and Laurence Olivier) and several versions of The Four Feathers. It has also been fuelled by my collection of 54mm toy soldiers, which I acquired over the years before my discovery of the wargaming hobby in 1986. I still have a large 54mm square of Under Two Flags, Dorset and Trophy of Wales toy soldiers displayed at home, fending off a charging mass of Ansar and Hadendoa tribesmen. Stirring stuff indeed!
When Peter Gilder’s Sudan range of Connoisseur figures hit the market in the early 1990s, I was fascinated by his accounts of the campaign, the colourful pictures of the games, and the magnificent figures that he sculpted. However, I was able to stave off mass purchases of Sudan lead, knowing that it would always be a near-run thing if I even purchased a single figure. More recently, the equally magnificent Perry Miniatures Sudan range tested my will power to the limit, but it was the opportunity to see the Gilder collection in person and actually touch the figures and move them about the table in a game that finally pushed me over the edge. Yes, playing with the Peter Gilder collection was my downfall, my wafer-thin mint, if you will. [A Monty Python reference, in case you didn’t know - Ed.]
Bill Protz and I had the opportunity to revisit the Gilder Sudan Campaign on the occasion of our invitation to the home of American wargamer Keith Leidy to play a game with the Peter Gilder Sudan collection of figures, as shown
in the now defunct Wargames World Issues 1 through 5. Keith acquired this collection from Gilder many years ago (Keith used to be the North American distributor of Connoisseur Miniatures). The experience was quite a treat for me and it stirred my longing to build such an army ‘in the grand manner’ as Peter Gilder would have said.
These are gorgeous figures, both in painting style and sculpting poses, and many of them were modified and converted in some manner. For example, the British hussars all had a piece of brass rod drilled into the top of the helmet to form a spike. All of the hussar officers had lanyards added to the pistols that they were holding in their hands, while the hussar troopers all wield deadly pin swords. (We had a friendly wager as to how many minutes it would take
before one of us was impaled on said pin swords – ouch, I lost!). A squadron of Bengal Lancers had the bamboo detail painted onto the lances, while wire lanyards were added along with lance pennons.
There were numerous vignettes on the table top, including an oasis that featured a group of peasants washing clothes. One could actually see jibbas lying on the rocks, drying in the sun. Presumably
these were cut out of cloth or card/paper and glued and draped over the stones. Water was depicted with black paint with a varnish glaze and it looked nearly perfect. The hand-made buildings were amazing as was the Nile paddlewheel steamer. I am told that Mr. Gilder was offered a rather handsome sum of money for just the paddle-wheeler, but he preferred to keep the collection (terrain pieces and miniatures) together. We are grateful that he did.
DECIPHERING THE RULESWe initially spent an hour poring over the original Gilder Sudan rules, trying to figure out certain procedures. We had Gilder’s original hand-written play sheets and notes, but found that there was a lot of information missing. Three heads are better than one, so we put on our thinking caps and were able to glean the nuances of the rules. In a couple of cases, we cross-referenced to the articles in the Wargames World magazines to ascertain how a particular
A lovely oasis scene crafted by Peter Gilder. №te the clothing left to dry on the rocks. Great water effect! Part of the Gilder Sudan collection owned by Keith Leidy. Photo by the author.
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rules mechanism worked.
Subsequently, we learned that the ‘Rosetta Stone’ for the Gilder Sudan Rules was a set of rules called Pony Wars, which were designed for encounters in the old American West between the Indians and the US Cavalry. Gilder borrowed many of the concepts from Pony Wars, including the one where the game judge operates the Indians/Natives using a “Reaction Table” and dice. Thus, the Mahdist forces appear at random each turn and behave in a random and unpredictable manner, depending on what visible friends and enemies are doing. They tend to shadow forces that outnumber them, remaining outside small arms fire range, or they may roam around the table, looking for other friendly units to join. This leads to large groups of Mahdists forming and when these see enemy forces that they outnumber, they attack. Those units that are shadowing automatically join the attack.
Consequently, all the players command brigades of Imperial forces and fend off the attacks of the natives, who are controlled in a random fashion by the game umpire. Attacks may originate from any direction and in a variety of strengths. Every bit of cover is a potential ambush site. This puts the Imperial commanders on edge, as they have no idea what to expect. We found ourselves forming square almost immediately and moving at a very slow pace down the table. This made it difficult for us to achieve our objective of attacking the town and supply base down river.
ORGANIZING THE UNITSHaving done that, we gave it a go, with Bill commanding a brigade of two British regiments and one Sudanese regiment, some Gardiner guns, the aforementioned squadron of Bengal Lancers, and the Nile paddlewheel boat (with swivel guns
and Gardiners attached to the deck). I commanded a brigade of two British regiments, one Egyptian regiment, two squadrons of British Hussars, three field guns and three screw guns.
Bill brought along his own personality figure, the ubiquitous Colonel Pettygree who shows up in all of our games, to take personal command of his brigade. Thus challenged,
I will have to come up with my own personality figure and tabletop name for future expeditions in the Sudan. There is something about Colonial wargaming that lends itself to the creation of table top personalities that do heroic deeds, or villains who always slip the noose and run away to fight another day. I’m reminded of some friends in Lexington, Kentucky, in the US who have been trying to apprehend the notorious Wino Khan of the Northwest Frontier (circa 1880s) for well over ten years.
The British and allies are 60 figures strong with six figures per stand and ten stands per regiment (two stands representing a company). Figures were mounted very closely together in two ranks of three figures on a stand with a frontage of 45mm and a depth of 40mm. The cavalry was mounted on the typical two per stand on a frontage of 50mm and a depth of 45mm. Light guns (Gatling, Gardner and Screw Guns) have a 45mm frontage and as much depth as you need for the crew (three crew for the machine guns
and four crew for the artillery). You may also add a skirmish company of twelve figures for each regiment, with four figures per stand (each stand measuring 100mm by 45mm).
The Dervish and Fuzzies were mounted ten per stand, but here is where Mr. Gilder was very clever. Each stand represents ten figures, but there weren’t necessarily ten
Mounted emirs on customised scenic bases in the magnificent Gilder Sudan collection owned by Keith Leidy. Photo by the author.
The famous British hussars with brass rod spikes and deadly pin swords! Part of the Gilder Sudan collection owned by Keith Leidy. Photo by the author.
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figures on every stand. Sometimes there were little vignettes with seven figures crawling over rocks or hiding within shrubbery, and in other cases there were nine Fuzzies charging or even ten figures in some cases. Regardless of the number of actual figures on the stand, the stand was ten figures. I liked that for irregular native armies. Dervish cavalry would be mounted on the same sized stands as the Imperialist forces, while camelry consisted of five figures on a stand with a frontage of 75mm and a depth of 90mm.
THE INITIAL PLAY TEST OF THE RULESOur mission was to advance down the length of a table, some 30 feet long to destroy a supply depot in a distant town. Needless to say, we didn’t get very far, as the Dervishes and Fuzzies came at us immediately. The referee runs the natives, and they react to what is happening on the table via dice throws and tables that indicate whether the unit is simply ‘shadowing’ the Imperialists, retreating, advancing towards a friend, charging or staying put (there were many other choices as well). In some instances, I would come upon a patch of zariba bushes, we would roll the dice, and nothing would appear. I subsequently discovered, after re-reading one of the accounts in Wargames World, that once one native unit reacts with a charge, that all shadowing units automatically charge too!
The dice and the Dervishes all seemed to be attracted to Colonel Pettygree (Bill) like a magnet, as he had all of the action on his side of the table. We diced each turn, and the high roller then rolls again to test for the Mahdists’ reaction – so Bill was winning the dice-offs with me, but then rolling scores that allowed the Mahdists to appear on his side of the table.
Although we didn’t advance very far, we were really more interested in trying out the rules to see how various situations worked. Bill’s Bengal Lancers got involved with the Fuzzies almost immediately, and he was able to drive them off. The Lancers retired in the face of a new mob of 60 figures charging over the ridge, so the mob kept charging until
it reached a Sudanese infantry square. This enabled us to give the mêlée rules a good workout. The Mahdists wiped out the Sudanese after three or four rounds of hand-to-hand. I’m not sure that we did this part correctly, but the results seemed to be realistic.
Before concluding, just for grins, we set out a large force of about 100 Dervishes and had them attack my brigade square, so that we could see what would happen. I managed to get off two rounds of fire into the mob (we didn’t use ‘rapid fire’ rules, which double the casualties but deplete your ammo, because we weren’t keeping track of ammo – this would have doubled the Dervish
casualties). They then closed and hacked their way into the front of my square, wiping out all of the stands on the front edge. Holy cats, shades of Tamai!
We stopped here and held a brief post-mortem on the battle and we were generally satisfied with the way that the rules seemed to work. In the future, I will be certain to send out scouting parties into every speck of bush, rock and brush before advancing my square near such potential ambush sites.
SOME RULES QUESTIONS STILL REMAINThere were a couple of questions that we are still trying to resolve:
[1] In mêlée, the Mahdists have a reaction table that only has the choices of “losing” or “losing badly”. There didn’t seem to be a reaction for “winning”. So we assumed that the Mahdists did not have to take a reaction test if they inflicted the most casualties on a particular round of mêlée. This gave them a considerable degree of staying power, but I suspect that we were doing something wrong. Perhaps the Mahdists check every round of hand-to-hand and use one of the other reaction tables such as “Enemy in the Open” or
A wonderfully naturalistic market scene, covering several bases, that can be configured in several ways. Part of the Gilder Sudan collection owned by Keith Leidy. Photo by the author.
British infantry in characteristic square formation prepare to repel the onrushing tribesmen. Part of the Gilder Sudan collection owned by Keith Leidy. Photo by the author.
