Sikh War......coz I forgot the Figures!

 At Oldmeldrum Wargames Club we have lots of good terrain for games, which we keep at the club in the British Legion. However we don't have space to keep our figures which meant I had to humph mine down from my loft last night. It wasn't til I was laying out the figures for the next game in mini campaign that I realised I'd left a box at home.....the one with the mutineers in it 😫

Still I had the Sikhs instead so we improvised and the British found themselves facing down 2 units of Sikh regulars, a unit of Akali warriors and an artillery piece instead of the mutineers. What was going to make a bigger difference to this game, and the following one was that the Sikh players rolled decent stats for their officers, giving them a free re roll once per game and a free action for one of their units. All the British could muster was an inexperienced cavalry officer and a pleasant infantry commander for their BNC, BHA, HEIC Europeans and 2 units of BNI. 

Ross and Alastair commanded the British and started off in fine fettle moving across the table in fine form. The former taking the infantry down the right while the latter took the horse and gun down the left towards the Sikh held village, just over a river at the end of the table.  On they came in fine order, marching and trotting steadily, closing down the  distance to their objective...until the Sikh artillery, which had moved up to the rivers edge unlimbered and opened up on the Bengal native cavalry.  The first round of John's artillery crashed into them causing some fearful casualties and it went downhill from there. 

The 3 infantry moved up to the river and found the crossing contested by the 2 units of Sikhs commanded by Dave who had moved his men out of the village to oppose the British. The British took heavy fire as they approached, the pinning them  in place and it was the Sikhs who, making use of their free activation got the better of the firefight and crossed the river with bayonets fixed. They were supported by the Sikh artillery which has finished off the cavalry and were deprived of their own gun whose crew had been cut down by the rampaging Akali's. It was all over in an hour. John and Daves Sikhs had inflicted a heavy defeat on Ross and Alistair's British.

We still had time for another game from the campaign. So the table was swiftly rearranged and this time Alastair and Ross took command of a column of men marching across the table, British on the left under Ross and BNI and BNC on the right under Alistair, sandwiched between the two was their baggage and wounded. Their objective was to get off the table from the opposite end. Facing the, was an equal force of Sikhs. John had Akalis and Cavalry facing Alastair while Dave commanded his two Sikh regulars and an artillery piece against Ross's pleasantly led men. 

The second game was a close contest on the right. Alastairs men were able to see off the Sikhs and indeed were able to begin to sweep the cavalry round onto the opposite flank. General Smiley, aka Ross, wasn't having a good evening. Sikh musketry, bayonets and artillery had whittled away his force on the left and driven the remnant back on the baggage. Confusion reigned. Alastair's men moved through the train to try and stem the attack but it was to no avail and they too were hit hard. Dave seemed to have pleased the dice gods since last weeks poor showing. The Sikhs had won the day again, setting up the last game of the campaign.....a desperate last stand. But that will have to wait.

Figures from Foundry, camels from Empress. Wrong British used....compounding my earlier error I took my 1st Afghan War was stuff out of the box! A couple of topsy turvy games, but good ones😂