A Little Trip to Sicily (II) - The man who didn't want to be King!

Last night we continued our Sicilian adventure and tried out The Men Who Would Be Kings from Osprey. Although these are written for colonial warfare they perfect for the period in question and the regular and irregular troop types allows for conflicts between European armies as well as those involving native forces.

The Garibaldini were split into Redshirt units with Veteran level discipline - giving them an ideological boost which holds them together a bit longer than would otherwise be the case - and the Picciotti, bandits from the hills who gained the Fieldcraft bonus allowing them to find cover and hide! Both groups were armed with obsolete rifles.

Facing them the Neapolitan regulars were treated as unenthusiastic - propping up an unpopular regime and fighting fellow countrymen took the edge off their effectiveness. However the "elite company" of grenadier and light infantry remained as normal regulars, giving them a slight edge.  The line units were armed with obsolete rifles too, but the elite unit was given modern weapons. The choice for how units were armed was as much about their ability and training  as it was about the firearms actually issued. On the Garibaldini side you can imagine what variety there was until stocks of equipment were captured and some uniformity achieved. The bourbon troops were equipped with the same weapons but I wanted to show a difference in training levels rather than actual fighting capability so allowing one unit a longer range seemed the best way to do this. Either way the points for three units aside came out as about the same.

The table was simply set up with a crossroads in the middle. The winner being the side which held that point at the end of the game.

Both sides kicked off from opposite baselines - my Regulars activating a little quicker and moving up the table ahead of John's Redshirts. The elite coy were able to reach the cover of a stone wall while one of the line companies got into an olive grove, but the company on the furthest right was unable to reach cover before coming under fire and took casualties. Under steady fire it was whittled down and driven back, only to recover and move up to to its previous position.





John's redshirts soon took up position commanding the approaches to the crossroads and another firefight opened up between his men and the regulars in the olive grove.




On the left the Picciotti had been halted by fire from the elite coy and were slowly losing men. The rules mean that cover and long ranges increase the number of hits required to cause a casualty. With both units hunkered down behind stone walls the longer range of the regulars picked off men a little easier then the bandits could and soon they were down to the last few, however they held their position and it was time to clear them out at the bayonet. The grenadiers and lights changed across the small field and through a few desultory shots which left them unscathed before engaging the enemy. More bandits fell and the remaining few legged it.






However in the middle of the table and on things were not going so well for the King of Naples men. The furthermost unit had become pinned again and was now under half strength - it failed a rally check and turned and fled. In the olive grove the center unit had fallen back a little but was now coming under fire from two redshirt units. John attempted to get them to close and attack their enemy bu had a couple of activation throws go amiss. However a poor Rally test meant the unenthusiastic regulars deciding that life in Sicily was a little hotter than they liked and they too turned and followed their companions down the road in flight.

Since that only left 10 men of the elite company we decided to call it quits and evaluate the game.

Overall the MWWBK rules flowed better the Smooth & Rifled and the casualty mechanism was more straightforward. We had to flick back and forth a few times to the rules since they are laid out as per the action types and had to check the worked examples a couple of times, but both of us felt they just "clicked" a little better. Had we had a little more time I would have thrown some cavalry and perhaps a gun in to see how they work but we were both happy with the result. Next time we aim to try something with native forces......!