The Colonel's Recovery Repeats: Seize the Bridge (Part One), A Battle of the Anglo-Russian War

 The action starts in the finest tradition of Hollywood movies. Originally published on May 8, 2021:

Major Elliott Naple-Cooper Stone of the Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment) has been given the local rank of Colonel and has been put in charge of disrupting the Russian supply lines by seizing a critical railroad bridge. Let the fun begin with rules The Men Who Would be Kings.

Major Elliott Naple-Cooper Stone.

The deployment and the terrain. The British Indian army as the attackers will go first. (Note: the British Indian Army unit on the left flank should say 14th Sikhs; I'm just to lazy to make the slide again since I did not save it.)

A deadly Maxim machine gun nest.

Turn 1 of a 12 turn game. Victory points for each player are +5 if holding the objective when the game ends and +1 for every enemy unit destroyed or forced off the table.

The Maxim machine gun is the slowest moving unit in the army and they successfully move their 4 inches.

The 19th Punjabis move an incredible 12 inches At The Double.

The rest of the army moves out successfully at the double to get across the open engagement area as quickly as possible. 

The Naval Brigade moves to the objective but cannot occupy it yet. Since it is an Obstacle they will have to wait until next turn before they can move onto the bridge.

The 21st Frontier Guards take up position behind the rail line as it too is an Obstacle. Both the bridge and the rail line provide soft cover. The Maxim just stays in place.

After Turn 1.

The British Indian Army continues to move At The Double.

The Maxim even moving at their maximum speed are starting to fall behind.

The 21st moves into Skirmish order as they cross the rails and fire at the 19th Punjabis . . . 

. . . and inflicts one casualty.

The 19th Punjabis are pinned and must attempt to rally next turn.

The Naval Brigade successfully occupies the objective . . . but can they hold?

Getting close to Russian machine gun range.

The 19th Punjabis fail to rally and must retreat 3 inches.

While retreating they come under fire . . .

. . . and lose 2 more figures to the riflemen of the 21st Frontier Guards.

I think we will just wait here.

Under the stern gaze and awesome mustache of the Havildar the 19th Punjabis rally.

The British Indian Army continues to advance (ho-hum).

Fire!

A brave Sikh falls but the unit is not pinned.

The Sikhs have now lost a third of their unit!

Needless to say, the 14th Sikhs are pinned down.

Next Time:

The fighting becomes bloody!

That Russian machine gun has to go!

British Officers start dropping like flies!

You Idiot!

The Colonel's Recovery Repeats: Seize the Bridge (The Preview), A Battle of the Anglo-Russian War

 Originally published on August 5, 2021, this was the second major engagement of the Anglo-Russian War near the Princely State of Chaimbellistan. This engagement the deadliness of modern machineguns and the finest traditions of Hollywood Battles:

Our second major battle of the Anglo-Russian War using the rules The Men Who Would be Kings will be the Scenario "Seize the High Road". Simply put the defender has an objective to protect and the attacker must seize it. The rail systems in Central Asia and India were critical for both the Imperial Russians and the British Indian Army so we thought seizing a key bridge would make and ideal scenario. The British Indian Army would be the Attackers and the Imperial Russians would be the defenders.

Building the Siberian Railroad.

The Battlefield

The battle will be fought lengthwise on a 6' x 4' playing service. The Russians as the defenders set up first in their third of the field and can be equal to or behind the objective. The British Indian Army will set-up second with at least one figure from each unit touching the edge of the battle field. Forces were actually deployed after we rolled for Leadership. In addition we added an optional rule: if a leader becomes a casualty, the next in command will take over, roll for a Leadership Value but will have no Leadership Trait. For British Units and Russians it will be an NCO and for the Indian Units it will be the ranking Indian officer.

The British Indian Army has now deployed.

One of the items I love about The Men Who Would be Kings is that you might have the Queen's Grenadier Guards on your side, but you don't know what kind of leader is leading them until after you have organized your field force. For this scenario the British Indian Army (the Attackers) get 24 points and the Imperial Russians get 18 points with some soft cover to make up for having a smaller force. The British Indian Army went with 3 Regular Infantry units (18 points) and 1 Machine Gun with well drilled crew (6 points). The Imperial Russians went with 2 Regular Infantry Units (12 points) and 1 Machine Gun with well drilled crew (6 points). But the Russians had some adjustments; the 21st Frontier Guards, a veteran unit, received the upgrade of Fierce (7 points) to make them better in hand to hand and the Naval Brigade was given Poor Shoots (5 points) to reflect Russian firing doctrine of concentrating on Volley Fire. What I like about the force composition that one of the major missions of the Independent Frontier Guard Companies was to guard rail lines.

Okay, too make things easier I made some unit cards with the stats and quick recognition with Microsoft Powerpoint. When we rolled for the Leadership Value (LV) and Leadership Trait (LT) for each officer we just wrote it down on the unit cards. For the Battle Report I went back and typed in the information. So . . . what kind of officers do we have? The British Indian Army went first.

A good start for the British Indian Army: He's the Major General's favorite nephew and gets a free upgrade for free. He chose Sharpshooter. The LV is above average. 

Yikes! Obviously no stiff upper lip; at least he has a great LV. I'm getting the feeling that this unit will be in a fire support role - it will definitely not be seizing the bridge.

A good steady officer which made his LV a better 6+ instead of a 7+.

Not bad for the British Indian Army with the exemption of the "Coward" leading the 19th Punjabis. Now for the Russians.

You have got to be kidding me! (Want to guess who is commanding the Russians?) With the Leadership Trait of "Idiot" every time the 21st gets ready to activate an order, roll one die and if it is a "1" your opponent chooses what order they will receive if they activate. They cannot shoot at or attack their own side. Well, a 1 in 6 chance with a good LV. We'll see. Thank goodness firing is a free action.

Oh this just gets better and better. Good LV - they better do some great shooting.

Thank goodness . . . and machine guns are deadly.

Next: Let the battle commence.