French North Africa - A New Project

Having recently completed (for now) my 10mm ACW and WSS projects, I've been looking around for something new to do next. My mate Mark had been on at me for us to start a new project, he'd suggested some ancient armies for Sword and Spear, but we already had 5 or 6 armies between us which I didn't think we'd got enough use out of yet. I was leaning towards something asymmetrical, perhaps 19th Century colonial, but in 10mm or 28mm? Still puzzling, I played a couple of colonial games with guys at the Tring Wargames Club using Black Powder and thought it really worked and was a lot of fun, so I decided this was the way to go. Still wondering about what to actually do, we already had club members with both sides for the Zulu War and both sides for the Sudan. I could go North West Frontier, but that would need some new terrain, and quite big terrain at that!

As these things happen, that's when I discovered Little Wars Miniatures and their 10mm Beau Geste range http://lancashiregames.com/littlewarsstore/beau-geste.html (ironically I found them via a discussion on the Pendraken Miniatures Forum). I've already got 10mm desert terrain for my Sassanid and WW2 armies, so that's one less thing to worry about.
Spotting a really nice little fort now available from Dreamholme Ebay Desert Fort convinced Mark so off we go!

Looking at the army packs, which offered quite a good deal, I thought half a pack would give enough figures for a small basic game of Black Powder. So I ordered one of each and Mark and I split the contents. The Tuaregs are really nice, with a good mix of poses. The French are also good, but a bit limited as the range only has the Legion infantry and machine guns. It is missing mule mounted legionaires, artillery and cavalry such as Spahis and Chausseurs d’Afrique, but I think I can find suitable proxies in Pendraken's 19th century ranges.

This is my share of the haul.

I'm going to use 30mm frontage bases, the regular infantry will have 20mm depth and cavalry and irregular troops will have 30mm depth. In Black Powder terms, I'm thinking of using 2 stands for a small unit, 3 stands for a standard sized one and 4 stands for a large unit. My first thought was to make the French troops standard sized units and the Tuaregs a mix of standard and large units. But, given that a basic Legion unit will be representing a company I'm veering towards using small units for regulars and skirmishers and standard sized units for warbands.

So I'm starting off with some Tuareg warriors. Looking for painting inspiration online, blues are very common, with splashes of other bright colours like orange and green. This is going to be a colourful army!

 As they come out of the pack. These ones are fairly flash-free, others need a bit of trimming, but so far it's all been very easy to snip off from the figures.

 Undercoated in grey.

Painted riflemen. I painted the rifles and flesh in similar, but subtly different shades, but after a wash they have ended up looking pretty much identical.

A finished unit of Tuareg skirmishers.

ACW Action

After a bit of a hiatus, here's another 10mm battle report using Black Powder and the Glory Hallelujah! supplement.

The Rebs have cut the Yank's supply line and the General want's the re-established, fast! Each side start with two brigades on the table, the Confederates have two in reserve, the Union three. Reserves can arrive from turn 2, rolling a separate d6 for each brigade. In turn 2 they arrive on 4+, turn 3 on 3+, turn 4 on 2+ and, if they are really unlucky, automatically on turn 5. The Union (Mark) need to establish an unbroken road link from the road exit on the western side of the table to one of the three road exits on the eastern side of the table. The Confederates (me) need to prevent this.

 The battlefield viewed from the south. The small areas of woodland are classed as dense woods and the fence are linear obstacles and impassable to guns.

The Union brought both starting brigades on the northern end of the table, aiming to advance down either side of the northernmost road, and the Confederates deploy both brigades opposite them. This was a bit of a gamble for the Rebs, if the Union reserves arrived much earlier than their own, there was nothing to stop the yanks seizing the southernmost road and grabbing a quick victory. As it was both sides had reserves on the table by turn 3.

Whilst the starting brigades advanced keenly, the first Union reserve brigade advanced to take position on the road junction, forcing the Confederates to deploy their first reserves to the south, between the two roads and squaring up with the Union brigade. These two brigades took no effective part in the battle, just eyeing each other up with a little exchange of long range artillery fire (well a bit one-sided fire actually as the Union battery was quickly knocked out).

 The 4th Confederate brigade takes position covering the two southernmost roads.

Facing off against the union 5th Brigade.

At the northern end of the table the Union troops rushed forward, or at least the 1st Brigade did. Due to incompetent command (2 blunders in 3 command rolls!) the 2nd Brigade was rather tardy in their support. However, by concentrating on the far end of the line the Union 1st Brigade commander managed to line up his 5 regiments facing just 3 Confederate ones. Showing unusual aggression for a Northerner, he charged the entire brigade into the Reb lines. This could be an early breakthrough and a quick victory for the Union!

It was not to be as the dice gods were not kind to Mark. As the blue line charged in, my closing fire was devastating and inflicted heavy casualties. In the following melee all three units in the Union front line were repulsed and two units routed. In my turn a third regiment routed from the effect of my musketry. So at the end of Turn 3, after just one turn of combat, already one Union brigade was broken.

What's left of the Union 1st Brigade!

Leaving a brigade at the crossroads to pin down one of mine (in reality they failed 4 successive Command rolls and never got a chance to move) the Union threw all their reserves against the northern end of the Confederate line.

Their blundering commander had left the Union  2nd brigade somewhat exposed with the front two regiments taking fire from three Confederate units and a gun battery. With the troops in front of them broken, the Confederate  1st Brigade's artillery joined in and as the Rebel reserves arrived a third gun battery started pounding the unfortunate Yanks. Inevitably the front units crumbled under the barrage and a swift Rebel charge left another Union brigade broken for the loss of a single Confederate regiment.

The Union 2nd Brigade takes a beating!

By now the Union had rushed the reserve brigades forward for a final attempt to break through the Confederate lines. The Confederate centre wheeled across to fire into the flanks of the Union troops as they advanced. The combined fire soon took it's toll and a third brigade reached it's break point without even contacting the Confederate lines. A resounding win for the Confederacy.

The Confederate reserve plug the gap in the line.

The Union reserve prepare to advance for their last attempt to break the Rebs.

Interestingly I'd played the same scenario a couple of weeks before, this time taking the Union forces. On that occasion I attacked across a wider front and successfully isolated one Confederate brigade and destroyed it. That left a gap I could exploit and the game ended with a Union win.