Buford In the Observation Tower

 

I do not have a 54mm (1/32 scale) Lutheran Seminary building for Gettysburg, nor do I wish to have one as it would be a HUGE model. So instead I used an observation tower made by Herb Gundt and placed an officer with binoculars up in the tower. The picture of the tower, previously posted on my blog, had a Union officer in a pointing pose. 

I found the officer with binoculars in the Armies In Plastic Union Artillery set of figures. The figures are all wearing long frock coats so I cannot use them. However, the officer figure can be used in my project. I have an idea to convert a mounted officer figure by swapping upper torsos and making a Union officer sitting on his horse and looking through his binoculars.

Berdan's Sharpshooters

 

Berdan's 1st US Sharpshooters form a skirmish line in front of the Union battle line.
These are 54mm Armies In Plastic figures.

Click on photos to enlarge

I had a little bit of spare time on my hands so I painted these 54mm First US Sharpshooters (Berdan's) yesterday. Yes, I painted all of the figures in one day!

These are Armies In Plastic 54mm figures. Because the uniform is entirely of green color, one large brush full of green acrylic paint gets you started, and then its just a matter of blacking in the belts and equipment, followed by some flesh tones, and then finishing off with the Old Gold and Aged Pewter metallic colors. Easy Peasy!

I have enough extra figures to increase the unit from 15 to 20 figures. Berdan's Sharpshooters were not involved in the third day of Gettysburg and Pickett's Charge. They did play a small roll in the second day as they went on a morning scout of Seminary Ridge. They found a lot of Confederate troops and so they high tailed it back to their own lines near the Peach Orchard.

Reinforcements Arrive!

 

About 10 bags of Armies In Plastic Confederates in 54mm

The other day a large box arrived in the mail from Armies In Plastic and it contained ten boxes of plastic 54mm Confederates. I opened up all of the bags and sorted them into piles of like poses. Some are advancing or charging, other are standing, kneeling, loading in a firing line. I got rid of the two useless figures that seem to come in every bag of plastic figures, no matter who the manufacturer is. The first is a standing firing chap without a hat, but he has the ubiquitous bandage around his head. The other fellow is kneeling and reaching into his cartridge box (so far so good), but he is wearing his kepi backwards with the front bill in the back. Who knew that Hip Hop style started in 1961?

So my painting plan is to paint all the figures of one pose and then move on to the next pose. This should quicken my painting pace as I become familiar with how to paint each pose.

I  have finished two 30-figure Confederate regiments and eight 30- figure Union regiments for a total of 300 figures to date. The project calls for nearly 1,000 figures so I am about a third of the way through the targeted number of figures needed for my Pickett's Charge Project.

More 54mm Sudan Pix

 

Beja warriors attack an Egyptian square.  Could it be the army of Baker Pasha?

The picture above is one of my favorites and so I thought that I’d share it with my readers.

Here are some more pictures of my 54mm Sudan collection that I snapped last week prior to packing it all away for its trip to Historicon. Over the past month I added 100 more Beja from the painting bench to give me a total of 300 Beja and 300 Dervish/Ansar warriors. I also have painted 36 cavalry and 60 Dervish riflemen. Having a larger Beja force allows me to game the battles of Osman Digna in the RedSea littoral.

I’ve checked into my room at Lancaster and we plan a day long visit to nearby Gettysburg. I will set up my Khartoum game Wednesday afternoon.

A New Square In Plastic

 

Armies In Plastic British and Egyptian soldiers in square.

I set up all of my Egyptians and British from Armies In Plastic on the game table to see how they look in square formation. Each side of the square has 40 figures with Gatling Guns in the four corners.

I will be doing some more rules testing and I wanted to know what my readers thought about some of the firing results. Firing ranges are short range (1-16” hit on 4,5,6); medium range (17-33” hit on 5,6) and long range (34 -48” hit on a 6). I’m finding, through several dice throwing iterations, that British are knocking off approximately one figure per figure firing over the course of a Dervish advance and charge starting at 48”. In other words 40 British are killing 40 Dervish before the Dervish contact the square and start a melee. Thus a 100 figure Dervish war band loses 40-50% of its figures before it closes with the British square.

Does this seem like a reasonable outcome or are the casualties too severe? Mind you, once in melee the two sides seem to chew each other up considerably.

One thought was to make any casualties at Long Range only count for half a figure. So if 6 Dervish are hit at long range only 3 of them are killed.

What do you think? Please leave a comment.

Battle of Abu Klea in 54mm

 

British square at Abu Klea
The figures are from the new Britain's range of 54mm collectors' figures.

Yesterday I took my 54mm Sudan collection of figures out for a spin and decided to refight the Battle of Abu Klea. The actual battle was fought on January 17, 1885 between the British Desert Column, commanded by General Herbert Stewart, and the Dervish army of The Mahdi.

The Desert Column consisted largely of the British Camel Corps, which was an amalgamation of a number of British cavalry regiments that were trained to ride camels. The approximate forces were 1,200 British and 14,000 assorted Dervish war bands (only 3,000 fought in the battle). Briefly, Lord Wolseley was commissioned with the task of relieving General Charles Gordon's doomed command in Khartoum, Sudan. Wolseley sent the bulk of his command ("the River Column") up the Nile River towards Khartoum. A second army, titled "the Desert Column" was tasked with cutting across the great bend in the Nile River, traveling from Korti on the Nile, across the desert, and arriving back at the Nile at the town of Metemmeh. There, the Desert Column would be a near 50 miles north of Khartoum and be in a position to advance and rescue Gordon.

Map of the Battle of Abu Klea from the 
British Battles web site. Click on link below.

Major General Herbert Stewart (on camel) and war correspondent Melton Pryor.
Note the baggage and camels in the center of the square.

Click on the link to the British Battles web site  here: Abu Klea for a very good overview and summary of the battle. For those who are interested in a more detailed analysis of the battle, I highly recommend Mike Snook's book "Go Strong Into the Desert".

There is, of course, the famous poem about the battle, Vitai Lampada, penned by Sir Henry Newbolt, the most famous part of the poem, shown below, that is probably well known by war gamers of the Sudan Campaign of 1884-1885:

The sand of the desert is sodden red, —

Red with the wreck of a square that broke; —

The Gatling’s jammed and the colonel dead,

And the regiment blind with dust and smoke.

The river of death has brimmed his banks,

And England’s far, and Honour a name,

But the voice of schoolboy rallies the ranks,

“Play up! play up! and play the game!”

OK then, we have got the potted history bit out of the way, so let's get on to the solo war game that I fought. Basically, Abu Klea is a classic battle of the British Square versus a mass of thousands of native troops. The British have crossed the desert and are in desperate need of water, of which there are water wells at Abu Klea. Therefore, the British Desert Column must defeat any Dervish that stand between them and the water wells. The Dervish objective is to prevent the British from reaching the water supply.

Here is a list of the forces that I used in my war game version of the battle:

British Forces:

60 x Lancaster & Yorkshire Regiment ("Lances. & Yorks." or "L&Y" in this account).

60 x British Camel Corps (dismounted)

3 x Royal Navy Gatling Guns

1 x Royal Artillery 7-pound screw gun

12 x 19th Hussars (mounted as scouts). - I substituted some Egyptian lancers

There are 3 British players: one each commanding one of the infantry regiments, and one player commanding all of the artillery and the cavalry.

Dervish Forces:

98 x Berber Dervish

100 x Metemmeh Dervish

100 x Beja warriors

50 x Dervish Rifles

30 x Dervish cavalry

There are 4 Dervish players: one each commanding the Berber, Metemmeh and Beja war bands, and one player commanding the rifles and the cavalry in the game.

RULES USED: Colonial Wars variant of Bill Protz's "BAR" rules. These rules feature big battalions, saving throws and lots of D6 dice.

The above forces are not absolutely historically accurate. For example, the Beja did not fight in the Nile River theater of war and the Dervish did not have/use cavalry at the battle. The cavalry charge in the movies is pure Hollywood. The British have more Gatling guns than they did at the battle, however, I wanted to have a machine gun or a screw gun on each corner of my square. Finally, I do not have any mounted Hussars so I substituted some Egyptian lancers from my collection.

Battle Account of the Game

The British were deployed in square formation with the Lancs. & Yorks. defending two faces of the square and the dismounted Camel Corps defending the other two faces. Three of the corners had Gatling guns and one corner had a 7-pound screw gun. The British players were informed that the Dervish could attack from any or all sides of the square over the course of the game. The Dervish players were told that they could only attack from any three of the four sides of the square. Of course, the British players do not know this.

The Dervish attack one of the faces of the British square.

Troop Deployments

Dervish: The Dervish deployed the Berber contingent on the west face of the square and the riflemen and cavalry on the east face of the square. The main attack would be launched by the Beja and Metemmeh Dervish on the North face of the square. The south face of the square would not see any Dervish troops deployed.

British: The British Camel Corps occupied the North and East faces of the square, the Lancs. & Yorks. the south and west faces of the square, and the cavalry patrolled the south face of the square.

Berbers open the game with the first attack

The Berbers launched a premature attack from the east and pitched into the face manned by the Lancs. & Yorks. There were 98 Berbers and 12 riflemen facing off against 30 L&Y soldiers and the screw gun. The Berber attack was a total failure as they lost 87 of their 98 figures and never made it to the zariba of the L&Y. This informs me that it probably takes at least 150 Dervish to attack a face of a square and have some chance of success in breaking into the square. 

While all of this was going on, the Dervish riflemen were peppering the Camel Corps soldiers on the opposite side of the British square.

I forgot to take pictures of the Berber attack so all of the pictures are of the attack on the Camel Corps sides of the square.

The Dervish main attack goes in

Next, it was the turn of the Metemmeh and Beja to launch the main attack on the north face of the square. Having seen what 30 men and a screw gun could do to 98 men, the two contingents ganged up and launched a combined 200 figures against the north face of the square. The rifles and cavalry would tease the the Camel Corps soldiers on the east face and only demonstrate a potential attack.

The Metemmeh Dervish charged right into the teeth of the Camel Corps while the Beja focused on hitting the corner on the Northwest corner of the square, where they would only face a Gatling gun.

Camel Corps soldiers and a single Gatling gun send a hail of bullets the Dervish' s way

The first 50 Beja aim for the corner of the square.

Freddy Burnaby and the Royal Navy Gatling Gun crew are about to be overwhelmed by the on-rushing Beja.
Note that if the Beja crash through the corner they will start hacking into the flank of the Camel Corps soldiers.

That didn't turn out very well for the Camel Corps. The Gatling gun crew fired off their gun and legged it out to the protection of the reserve line of troops in the center of the square. The Camel Corps soldiers on the left have fallen back and reformed into a second line in the middle of the square.

A Short Tale of a Cavalry Charge

Oops! I didn't follow the rules correctly. The Royal Navy gunners went on the lam back to the protection of the camel baggage. So there was no melee, thus the Beja could continue to advance and they hit the flank of the Camel Corps on the east face of the square. So I had to return the CC figures back to their place and conduct a melee with the Beja.

I forgot to mention that on this particular game turn, the Dervish army decided to go "all in" and send everyone, including the cavalry, into a charge against the square. The Beja unit that over ran the Gatling Gun were astonishingly defeated in their melee with some of the CC men on the flank. Thank God, better yet, thank high pips on the dice rolls for the British. So the Beja unit had to fall back, but it elected to charge yet again when the rest of the army went "all in".

The overhead view from the observation balloon. You can see that everyone is charging  the two sides of the square that are defended by the Camel Corps (the poor sods). The red chip on the Beja unit in the middle indicates that it is disordered from the previous melee, which it lost.

The cavalry charge did not go very well for the Dervish horsemen. They were mowed down by Gatling Gun fire and rapid fire volleys from the Camel Corps. Only 5 of 27 figures even made it to the zariba, and they routed off into eternity.

This time the Gatling Gun did not jam and the Dervish horse stopped short of the zariba. That's why you build a zariba.

The Dervish send in everyone this time.

The Dervish cavalry are a sight to behold. Charging infantry armed with rifles
and deployed behind a zariba is not a smart thing to do.

Here they come! Fire! Reload!
Independent fire at will!

And Now For The Finale - Ferocious Beja Charge

The cavalry charge had failed, but more importantly, the Metemmeh Dervish charge closed with the Camel Corps but were repulsed. The Dervish had one more card to play. It came in the form of a fresh, unblooded Beja war band. 

The Beja hit the weakest point in the square - at the Northeast corner
which is thinly defended by an ever smaller force of  grey coats.

At the other end of the square, on the Northwest corner General Stewart (on camel) shouts encouragement to his men.
Meanwhile, Colonel Freddy Burnaby is always there in the thick of things.
You can see some British khaki clad soldier in the background. These are men of the Lancs. & Yorks. regiment which has sent every other man to the center of the square to set up a second line of defense in case the Camel Corps breaks.

The CC vs. Beja melee lasted for three rounds. In each round, the Beja won the melee, but the CC soldiers had were made of iron and they refused to fall back to safety behind the L&Y regiment.

Camel Corps soldiers from the far left face of the square reinforce the melee, but keep a thin line of defenders just in case.
The British second line, amid the camels and baggage, can be seen in this picture. You can also see how the L&Y regiment has thinned out its lines at the zariba and have redeployed in the center of the square.

Note the thinned out line of Camel Corps soldiers on the left hand side of the square.
Most of its men have hived off to reinforce the melee over on the right hand side of the picture.

The Final Curtain Comes Down - What Happened?

In the Colonial BAR rules, melees can last up to three rounds, after which the attacker must fall back one full charge move (18" plus 1 D6 die roll). The Beja vs. Camel Corps melee went the full three rounds. The Beja won each melee round, but British morale was sky high and they never broke into a rout, thus they could continue to fight another round.

They have been repulsed. The remaining Camel Corps began to realize what they have accomplished.

The Beja have retreated. General Stewart and his men are frozen
in a stunned silence  as what they did begins to sink in.
Colour Sergeant (bandaged head): "It's a miracle.
Colonel Burnaby: "If it's a miracle, it's a short chambered Boxer Henry point 45 miracle."
Color Sergeant: "And a bayonet, sir, with some guts behind.

The aftermath of the battle. The Camel Corps took a hard pounding, but they prevailed.
Cue in the music "Rule Britannia."

Men are detailed to attend to the wounded and pick up the debris of the battle. A roll call will be taken to determine what the Butcher's Bill will be.

British Casualties:
33   Camel Corps soldiers. 16 of these would be saved by D6 dice roll. Thus 17 men died.

60  Lancs. & Yorks soldiers. No casualties.

16  Royal Artillerymen. No casualties

Total British killed: 33 (before recovery saving throws)

Dervish Casualties:

Berber Dervish lost 87 men out of 98,  11 survivors.

Metemmeh Dervish lost 61 out of 100,  39 survivors.

Beja lost 44 out of 100,  56 survivors.

Dervish cavalry lost 22 out of 27 horsemen,  5 survivors.

Riflemen lost 8 out of 52,  44 survivors.

Total Dervish killed: 222

Comment:

I intend to fight the follow on battle of Abu Kru with the remaining British figures, so casualties are deducted from the Camel Corps for the next battle. I did a die roll for each casualty. A 5 or 6 brings them back; a 4 is wounded; and a 1, 2 or 3 is a fatality.

The Dervish do not need to do an army casualty save because they are replenished with an entirely new Dervish army. The Mahdi has so many men flocking to his banner that he can afford such battle losses.

I played the game over the course of two days on my home pitch (field) and the Colonial BAR rules proved easy to use, even though they are a bit heavy on the charts. However, I have played these rules so many times that it is easy for me to negotiate my way through the movement, firing, melee and morale charts without too much effort. The rules worked very well for a solo game.

It was really spectacular to see so many large 54mm toy soldier size figures on my game table. I am really quite taken with 54mm figures these days. They are easy to see and to paint and their size almost gives each figure its own personality, which adds to the fun.

HISTORICON 2023 GAME

This game is a play test of one of the games that I will be hosting at Historicon 2023 in Lancaster, PA. I expect to run four or five games at the convention, including the assault on the walls of Khartoum, Abu Klea and perhaps another scenario to be determined. If you enjoyed this game report, then I think that you will enjoy seeing it in person at Historicon. Better yet, sign up and play in my Khartoum! series of games.

52 Weeks To Historicon - the Sudan Project

 

NEW PAGE ADDED TO THIS BLOG - CHECK IT OUT!

Here is just a quick note to let everyone know that I have added a new page to this blog. If you look at the top of the page, underneath the headline picture of Frederick the Great, you will see a "Home" button and a "52 Weeks to Historicon 2023" button that takes you to page two of this blog.

My regular posts will continue to be on the Home Page so that part doesn't change. The "52 Weeks, etc." button will have a weekly update on my Historicon 2023 game preparation. My Historicon game will be "Khartoum!" in case you haven't figured that out yet.

So every Friday or Saturday I will post a summary of what I did or accomplished for the Khartoum game. Blogger does not seem to allow me to post more than one post on the second page so the weekly summary is one very long post. You will have to scroll down to the end of the post each week to read about the progress. I will likely add some additional pages as the weeks pass by because 52 updates in one post is going to be difficult to follow. I may divide the 52 week period into quarters or thirds, which will allow me to shorten the overall length of the post

CAMEL CORPS WEEK UPDATE

Camel Corps week is going very well as of today, Friday. I have painted 12 camels and 6 riders are completed and glossed. I have 6 more riders to finish and hopefully they should be finished by this evening.

I did an inventory of the number of dismounted Camel Corps figures that I have and the number has grown to a staggering 64 figures! My plan is for each soldier to have a corresponding soldier riding a camel. When the Camel Corps reaches a destination or is forced to dismount for the purpose of fighting, then I will remove the mounted camels from the table and lay out the dismounted figures on the table. I will place maybe 6 camels laying down in the center of the Camel Corps square to represent the camels of the regiment.

So I will have 40 mounted Camel Corps by tomorrow, which means that I have another 20 to 24 mounted CC figures to paint. I may limit the CC to 60 figures (15 figures on each side of a square).

It’s Camel Corps Week!

 

This week’s fox is the painting of a dozen Armies In Plastic British Camel Corps figures. These will bring my mounted CC contingent to 40 figures. My goal is to eventually have 50 to 60 mounted Camel Corps figures to align with a similar number of dismounted CC figures. 

The idea is that my mounted Camel Corps will move across the wargame table. Stop and dismount. Then form square to fight the Dervish attack. Below are some pictures of the AIP Camel Corps that I painted back in 2020.

CC troops did not fight on their camels like horse cavalry, but rather, the camel served as a vehicle to quickly move from Point A to Point B. There the CC soldiers would dismount and fight on foot. By the way, the CC soldiers did force their camels to the ground to be used as protection from Dervish bullets. The camels were collected and held in the center of the battle square.

I am looking forward to painting more camels this week and adding them to my forces. I primed the figures last night so that I will have them ready to paint today.

BLOG UPDATE!

I have added a new page to my blog, titled "52 Weeks to Historicon '23". Click on the page tab at the top of this blog so that you can see a weekly summary of the progress that I am making on my Sudan Project and Khartoum game for Historicon next year.

Sudan Eye Candy & Project Update

British Camel Corps on Parade.
Armies In Plastic 54mm figures and Trophy Miniatures metal officer in the lead.

Click on all pictures (or twice, if you dare) to enlarge.

Over the weekend I finished painting 8 Camel Corps and 5 Dervish cavalry, bringing those forces up to 24 and 25 figures, respectively. I am halfway in building up both units. I currently have 4 more camel corps on the painting table, work in progress at this time. It should take a day of painting to finish them. There are three more boxes (4 per box) of CC yet to be painted.

I did a little rearranging of the game table to set up a vignette of the Camel Corps riding out of Khartoum. I know, the Camel Corps was never in Khartoum, but they look cool emerging from the town gate.

General Stewart leads the Camel Corps out of the city.

Close up view of the camel caravan departing Khartoum.

Let us not forget the Dervish either. Bad things can happen in the Sudan when one forgets the Dervish.

The Dervish cavalry now has 25 riders after the completion of 5 more figures.

Close up view of the flag bearer.

A view of the cavalry from the front.

I have to place an order for three more boxes (5 figures per box)
so as to build the Dervish cavalry up to 40 figures .

The whole hoard of plastic Dervish cavalry and foot. There are 275 total figures in the picture.
I have been painting these since the beginning of March 2020/

An overview of the table display. I have it set up in a 6ft by 10ft size,
although it actually has two more feet of length just beyond the rock outcropping .

The Camel Corps is probably my favorite unit in the Sudan Project.
I like the Egyptians too, because no one seems to use Egyptian or Sudanese allies
in their colonial games.

OTHER NEWS AND UPDATES

Richard Ansel sent me pictures of the greens for the AWI Morgan's Rifles at Saratoga. These are really nice looking figures that can be used for Saratoga and other AWI theaters of war. I will post the pictures within the next couple of days.

I primed my first 38-figure Saratoga British regiment yesterday and will get to them after I finish four more 54mm Camel Corps figures. It will be the 21st Regiment in blue facings. Flags from GMB Designs are on order.

Fierce Dervish Cavalry

Armies In Plastic 54mm Dervish Horsemen

Yesterday I finished and gloss coated the final 6 of 15 new Dervish cavalry to my 54mm Sudan Project. This increases the Dervish cavalry to 20 figures.

I have another box of 5 cavalry that I will work on next. I think that they look pretty good in mass, don't you?

Here are some pictures of the 15 horses that I painted prior to painting the riders:

Armies In Plastic horses.

I think that a unit of 40 cavalry would look particularly nice, so that means another three boxes (5 per box) need to be ordered. At around $10.00 per box, plastic figures are quite economical.