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The lead Boxers get ready to attack.
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The cavalry face them as they send a messenger back to the fort.
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Suddenly there are loud noises behind the Boxers! Columns of smoke rise into the air around the curve of the hill!
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Disturbed by the passage of a noisy crowd of humans two dragons burst from their rest and engulf the column in flame!
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When the smoke clears five Boxers had been fried to a crisp!
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Confused, the leading Boxer unit halts in indecision.
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Panic! The Boxers flee in pure horror! (To stand, officer and standard bearer needed to throw 5 or 6, other ranks a 6. All failed!!!)
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The dragons follow up on the fleeing Boxers, forcing some of them to try and fight back.
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Mostly they ran...
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Treating all the figures as individuals, the Boxers are all down as Hordes (due to panic I've listed them as Hordes throughout, the Dragons as Dragons. +6 v +2. Using colour coded dice, in this battle 3 blue Boxers used blue dice, the red Boxers orange and the green dragon green. One Boxer did really well in this combat!
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With many of the humans dead or running away and only a couple of them still facing them, the dragons decided they'd had enough and quietly sauntered off.
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Faced with panicked Boxers heading towards them the British decided to charge!
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First contact with the standard bearer who died!
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Two Boxers promptly threw themselves to the ground and surrendered, a couple decided to fight and the rest scattered!
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One of the resistors died, the other managed to hold off three cavalry!
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Satisfied with the outcome, the British rode off with their prisoners leaving one Boxer with a story about how he defeated and drove off a whole regiment of British cavalry! Of course, they never saw the dragons so haven't a clue what happened!
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In fact, the Boxers finished up with four heroes, the other three being the ones who actually fighting the dragons - which, of course, they would later claim they killed...
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As an aside, I hate it when I read a detective novel and the detective solves it by introducing something they haven't told the audience about to solve the case. In this instance, there were enough clues and hints around that this was not a straight British/Boxer contest, though some were very obscure/hidden - I would be interested in knowing how many people spotted!
So, a few hints/clues. Nothing much, but here goes:
Firstly, right away through I have made a point of stating these are Pulp scenarios. The labels of all three of these posts include 'pulp'. The pulp side of my gaming has always been very specifically placed in the Newhaven universe (with 1897 extensions) and the single based figures (rather than element based) especially so.
Look at recent posts - the Airfix Foreign Legion 'done as pulp rather than 'authentic'', Couple of Chinese buildings '28mm individual ones should be finished for quite a while apart from
'monsters'. 20mm for larger scale battles - got a prototype hopping
vampire,', etc. Clear hints that 20/28mm single based figures are often for games with a supernatural element.
Now, the first of these three posts, 'Somewhere in China'. 'Between the Boxers and the British is my newly made village plus a
temple and large protective idol.Of course, the British fort is behind
the idol, which is probably why it didn't work' - so what direction IS the idol facing? Answer, towards a supposed threat. And of course magical idols are designed to ward off magical or supernatural threats. Didn't work against the British - not supernatural and came from the wrong direction. Seems to be working against the dragons - they're still outside the village!
OK, the dragons. Where did they come from? Never mentioned before. Yes, they were. Look under dragons on labels you get https://easterngarrison.blogspot.com/search/label/dragon -
They're well hidden, but they're there! And no, I didn't expect anyone to spot that one!
Then lets look at another point. The design of the board itself.
That is a very long section of woodland. Looks like a major waste of space if that's all it's used for. Yet at the other end, where a possible siege of the fort could happen:
It was stuck at the far edge of the table... useful as a source of misdirection of course, but if I had ever intended it to be a pure Boxer/British battle the forestry section would have needed to be shorter and the fort would need to have terrain on it's far side! Otherwise - a very poorly designed board!
Anyway, as said there were plenty of clues and hints... but no-one was expected to find them, any more than someone reading a detective novel should be able to work out whodunit before the detective explains everything at the end. The idea is that tthe clues are there but you aren't supposed to notice them!