A North West Frontier mini campaign

 Over the past few weeks I have been running and playing a loose North West Frontier mini campaign with the Oldmeldrum Wargames Club. This set around the time of the First Afghan War and is a series of linked games based on the advance to, and retreat from Kabul in 1830-42

Using The Men Who Would Be Kings, I've tweaked some of the stats for troop types, giving the British/HEIC troops muskets and allowing the Afghans to add some jezail armed snipers. I've classed the Sepoys as regulars, but made them unenthusiastic, so they lose the +1 discipline. We also used one or two leaders per side with a 4" command radius and lowered the activation score to 7 for units without leaders. We have a house rules that a pinned unit may withdraw rather than needing to reform. 

This made for some interesting and challenging games. Some where units frustratingly refused to do quite what was asked of them, other where units melted away when we needed them in place. Units cut down to the last man when ammo ran out and positions captured with the lightest of casualties....in short a series of decent, fun and fulfilling games. The British just scraped through with most victories but each battle and moments where things could have gone either way. 

The club can now put on large games using these rules with multi players per side for the NWF, Sudan and the Zulu War, so I can see similar sets of games in each location coming next year. I'll be sticking to India and in particular the campaigns up to and including the Mutiny....but not just in the 19th Century...