Winter War 192......? Part 7

Got my first game with these figures (well two games actually) at Tring Club on Friday. Great fun, The Men Who Would Be Kings is an excellent set and work well for games like this. Each game took less than an hour to play, we could have managed a third game but Bill had an early start as he was running a game at Salute the next day.

The Scenario

The RCMP have picked up a convoy load of American bootleggers they had been tracking, but all the trucks were empty. A local farmer reported seeing a group of vehicles parked up by a river crossing, so they must have hidden the booze somewhere nearby. Perhaps they had realised that they were being followed. A group of Mounties have been dispatched to collect the evidence so that the gangsters can be charged accordingly. The area is close to the border and frequented by American patrols, so a military escort has been provided.

The Americans are making a routine patrol across the border when a scout returns to report seeing a group of men burying the contents of four trucks along a stream bank. Presumably they are bootleggers hiding illicit booze. Standing orders are clear, any bootleg liquor is to be destroyed, so the patrol set off to destroy the stash.

On a 6x4 table, the two forces enter along the short edges. The table has a stream running across the middle of it, 4 markers are placed approx 6" from the stream, 2 on either side of it. Roll 1d6, the highest scorer is the attacker, the defender deploys first and the attacker takes the first move.

In order to recover/destroy evidence a unit must spend a Stand To action in contact with the marker. Once this happens the marker is removed and the player draws a chit (we used a set of 6 chits marked from 1-6). This is the value of the evidence gained/destroyed. At the end of the game the winner is the player with the highest score of evidence.

The Forces

Canadian
Army Infantry - Regular Infantry + Veteran
RCMP - Regular Infantry
Naval ratings - Regular Infantry + Unenthusiastic
Lewis Team - Crewed weapon +  Well handled

American
Army Infantry - Regular Infantry
BAR Team - Crewed Weapon + Poorly Handled
3 x Militia - Irregular Infantry + Modern Rifle

I am using the Skirmish Level of TMWWBK, which does not usually allow for crewed weapons, but I am allowing lmgs. These are as per the rules for machineguns, with a 2-man crew, but I do allow them to Skirmish and move At The Double

We played the scenario twice, swapping sides for the second game. Both were great fun. Both games finished when one player conceded and said that he would withdraw because he had too few men left to achieve anything useful. In the first game the Canadians withdrew after searching two stashes, but won on victory points 8 to 4. In the second game the Americans withdrew when they were down to 6 men, but only destroyed one stash so lost on victory points by 10 to 1.

                                          American Infantry advance supported by the BAR

                                                                 American Militia

                                                Canadian Lewis gun team

                           Canadian Sailors take a pounding from US militia, down to half strength

                      Canadians attempt to cross the stream under covering fire from the Lewis gun

                                                                                           
Kudos to Bill for taking the character of the RCMP to heart. As his unit of Mounties splashed across the stream, the BAR team rushed up the other side of a rocky mound and took position right in front of them. With a cry of "A Mountie always gets his man!" he charged up the slope into melee.
It should have been a walkover, 6 men against 2, the Mounties fight on 5+ to hit, the BAR team need a 6. Both sides lost one man so the Mounties went tumbling back down the slope and the surviving BAR man cut down 2 more of the redcoats when he activated!
The Mounties passed their Pin Test, so decided it was safer to just shoot the Yank in the head, which they did in the next turn.

                               The Mounties prepare to charge (the second BAR crewman is hiding in the rocks).

                                          And the view from the American perspective