Indian Mutiny Sharp Practice Christmas Game

 We usually have a large fun game at the Barn in between Christmas and New year, followed by a late Lunch at the Duke of Wellington Pub.

Chris Flowers asked  Chris Charlton and I to put on the game and we decided it was an ideal opportunity to get his Indian Mutiny collection on table.  So the figures would mainly be Chris Charltons, Marks and a few of my irregulars.

We decided as there would be circa 10 of us to  if  Chris Charlton and I fancied organising something and we decided it was an ideal opportunity to get Chris's fresh Indian Mutiny collection on table supported by Marks Mutiny Highlanders and a fepsplit th table into two linke games divided by a river. One one side a British force would try to hold a walled village against a horde of Mutineers, whilst on the other a further horde would try to stop the advance of a relief column. Each table would have two British and two Indian players and its own Umpire and pack of cards to keep things moving.

At the last minute a couple of the guys needed to bail so we adjusted the first table to work for just two players.. You can see the table layout without figures below.

To help anyone who might want to pinch this for a game of their own I will put in the tables we had for each command. Firstly then the British defenders of the village.

Major Shorthouse, in the person of Malcolm, commanded a formation of twogroups of 8 company Europeans, 2 Groups of 8 Bhopal Contingent, a unit of Skirmishers, a unit of Volunteer horse and a gun.

Details below:

Richard would command his Mutineer opposition the.

The Khasi (Richard) had 5 Groups of 10 Mutineer rabble, two of Badmashes with big choppers, a skirmish unit and a Rocket unit.

Sir Sydney Ruff-Diamond led the, Rich Harris and John Smith relief column on table two with a unit of skinners horse, one native and one British skirmishers, a gun a foce of 3 groups of 8 Baluchi and 2 groups of 8 Queens Highlanders.

Facing Sir Sydney the famous leader Mustapha Leek had the better Mutineer forces, led by Chris Flowers and Rich Croisdale, with 3 groups of 8 well drilled mutineers, 2 grous of 8 cavalry, a group of skirmishers, a gun, two groups of 12 Badmashes with muskets, another group of 8 Matchlock bodyguard and two groups of 12 Badmashes with big choppers.

As I was umpiring the releif column game I didnt get to see much of the action on the other side. 

Chris Flowers with the irregular forces led by Mustapha Leek in his Elephant Howdah got his forces forward pretty quickly.

It took a couple of moves to get both sides anywhere near fitring ranges, allowign them all to get used the the card play system and how to use the rules and cards available.

On Chris's table Richard was pushing on with his tropps towards the village but taking some pain from the artillery.

Richard H pushed on with the forces under sir Sydney Ruff-Diamond hopign to push through on the right of the mutineer line against their irregular troops whilst Major Blunder (John) Led the Loyal Native troops and was tasked with keepign the better quality mutineers under Ricrad C busy.  A sound plan in theory.

Unfortunately for Chris getting forward quickly simply brought him into range of the Highlanders Enfield rifles whilst he was still outside of raneg with his matchlocks.

Malcolm seemed pretty rleaxed about the hordes of Mutineer rabble streaming towards him, then again he had a gun and their rockets were more than a little bit unreliable.

Wiht the game well pogressed a significant portion of Richards mutineers were still stuck ont he river line trying to get going.

Richard opens u at long range takign advantage of his troops rifles, forunately for Chris the firing is poor and only minimal damage to his main force, however his unit of Badmashes with big choppers takes some serious casualties.

Wiht John holding back with a view to keepign the Mutineers busy Richard C belts forward to occupy the village in the table centre. his troops now in cover its unlikely that John will move him. Everything now deends on the British regulars.

On the other side Riahcard closes with Malcolm but is takign significant casualties and shock at every step. Meanwhile the only casualties caused by his erratic rockets are on his own troops!

Chris Flowers finally gets his bodyguard matchlock men into range and insist on me takign a picture of the best dice throw he has made in months. 5 hits from 6 dice!

Richard Skirmishers take both shock and casualties.  And Chris badmashes with big choppers close with and destroy them.

On the mutineer left Richard C has swept his cavalry around and destroyed Sinners horse then swept on to hit and destroy the Gurkhas skirmishers and threaten the rear of the Baluchi firing line.

Firing at long range needing sixes against troops in hard cover has proved ineffective. Whislt Richard H has still the majority of his highlanders in good order he is not going to be able to break through and rescue the troops holdign the village on the other side of the river so as we approach time to go to the pub for chistmas dinner we declare victory to the Mutineers on this side of the river.

On the other side the Mutineers have taken a serious bashing and Major Shorthouse has comfortably seen them off with the mutineers loosing all of their morale points.

A nice bit of fun and silly bunkum we all went to to the pub for a lovely lunch at the Wellington.

Big thanks to Chris F for hosting, Chris C for umpiring and providing many of the figures and Msrk who couldnt make it but lent me his Mutiny collection anyway.

Happy New Year Everyone.

Indian Mutiny Sharp Practice AAR

Chris Charltons lovely Indian Mutiny collection is pretty much complete so we were keen to get them on table for a game of Sharp Practice. 

We are planning a large Indian Mutiny game for the Christmas game with two tables and inter-connected games so this would be a good test of how different troops worked.

I command a small British releif column and a tiny garrison of one unit of 8 holding a small village with some civilians.

The British forces consist of:

1 x 6 skirmishers

2x 8 British Infantry

3 x 8 Native infantry

1 x gun and cew

Cin C level 3

8 Sikhs in the village with a mixed bunch of Civilians who cant leave until my Cin C gets there.

A force of Natives advance from both table edges commanded by Chris and Steve respectively they have:

On the left Under Chris:

Cin C with Elephant level 2

2 groups of 10 Mutineer rabble with level 2 leader

2 groups of 10 Mutineer rabble with level 2 leader

1 group of 6 mutineer skirmishers with level 1 leader

On the right under Steve:

Cin C Tantia Topi Level 2

2 Groups of 12 Badmashes with big choppers each with level 1 leader

1 Group of 12 Badmashes with muskets with level 1 leader

1 Group of 8 Matchlock Musketeers with level 1 leader

Dark chocolate biscuits this week to fortify our spirits.

In the village Flashman is prominant with his pepperbox pistol and queens colours.

Chris sweeps his mutineers forward towards the village, throwign his skirmishers out onto his flank. The cloth of the elephant has been enhanced with some lovely nail art decals.

The British throw the European troops as quickly as possible down the road in column whilst the beautiful and colourful Baluchi's advance steadily in line to cover them supported by the gun.

Syeves Badmashes are less keen to get forward and hover about in the cover of some light woods.

His muslim Badmashes with big choppers set off down the hill to slow our reinfocements. They are almost immediatley hit by the gun which was deployed the move before.

My European Troops are almost at the Village and the Baluchi are swinging their line to cover the right of the village, Chris's Mutineers are making slow progress and Steves Badmashes even slower.

The Indians are taking some getting forward only the skirmishers swinging around my flank seem to be really getting anywhere.

Finally the Mutineers sort themselves out into a line and fire an ineffective volley into the compound whilst my Europeans now throw really poor movement dice and cant quite get themselves into a firing position.

The Badmashes finally step out of the wood to fire a further ineffectice volley and the Baluchi step forward to return fire, I have however not really got my Baluchi forward enought to get between the Badmashes and the compound. At long range and in cover the Badmashes take a surprising amoount of shock but little other damage.

The Mutineer after their ineffective volley now charge forward but dont quite manage to close with the compound.

The second formation of Mutineers get stuck in a slightly one sided firefight with the Madras Europeans and start to take casualties and shock.

The Mutineers try to break into the compound but are held off.

To the rear of the village the Mutineer Skirmishers have got into the rear of my Europeans and are causing double shock with every hit, they are however takign casualties themselves from my skirmishers takignt hem to half stregnth.

The second rabble of mutineers continue to take heavy fire from the Europeans and are strugglign to move or make any significant headway with their return firing.

Steves Muslm Badmashes keep moving to my flank so the gun doesnt get to fir at them, but they still struggle to close.

The first two groups of Mutineers finally break into the compound and massacre the civilians who are able to put up very lttle resistance.

The Hindu badmashes now charge into the front of the compound to be met by Sikh bayonets and quickley driven off with serious loss.

Hit by further devastating volleys the second unit of mtineer rabble begin to disintigrate.

The first mutineers now charge the Sikhs and are again seen off now having to retreat from the compound. The mutineers are pretty much a spent force but the civilians I have been sent to rescue have all been wiped out.

At this point we call it a day, it has ben interestign to see how Sharp Practice handles the mutiny and given me some insights for the forthcoming Christmas game.