Larry V. Brom

Eight Hundred Fighting Englishmen
TSATF Variant

by Steve Winter

“The Sword and the Flame” is without doubt one of the most successful sets of miniatures rules ever published. The game is probably more popular now, more than 20 years after its first publication, than ever before. How many wargames have survived, and thrived, for over two decades? Such longevity is a tribute to the rules’ simplicity, flexibility, and high romance quotient.

TS&TF is, however, a skirmish game at heart. The scale is personal, as befits desperate clashes on the fringes of empire. Games work best with 2-4 players and 10 or fewer units (100-200 figures). Players being what they are, there has long been a desire to scale things up and play big, pitched battles like Omdurman involving many hundreds of figures and a dozen players. Attempts at such adaptations were sporadic and enjoyed mixed success, and none of them could ever claim to be “official.”

Finally, the game’s author, Larry Brom, has stepped up to the plate and taken a swing with an official The Sword and the Flame big battle wargames variant. The result should be a home run.

The full name, as these things go, is “Eight Hundred Fighting Englishmen (The Colonel and the Band): A Radical Variant of The Sword and the Flame by Larry V. Brom.” Once again the title is drawn from a Rudyard Kipling poem (“Route Marchin’”), and the link is appropriate. Like Kipling, Brom manages to capture the excitement and romance of the imperial frontier and package it for universal consumption.

First and foremost, it needs to be stressed that 800FE is not a stand-alone game. It’s a variant for TS&TF, and you’ll need those rules to play. (Is there anyone who doesn’t have a copy? If so, you owe it to yourself to get one.) Most of the game will be familiar to regular TS&TF players: units of 20 infantry, 12 cavalry, and four gunner figures; flipping cards to randomize the movement sequence; rolling dice to randomize the movement distances; rolling 20-sided dice to resolve firing; base-to-base matchups for melee.

There are, however, important changes to the basic structure. Subtle or obvious, all are geared toward accelerating play to accommodate the larger number of figures involved. For starters, figures are mounted on group bases (optional but strongly recommended) of four infantry, three cavalry, or a gun and four crew. Instead of the 1:1 scale, each figure represents 40 infantry or cavalry or two guns. The standard units become battalions of infantry, regiments of cavalry, and batteries of artillery (3 stands — individual guns are sections). These units are organized into larger maneuver elements (imperial brigades and native ibuthos, tribes, or regiments). Ground scale is 34 yards per inch, so a small, 4 x 6 foot table represents an area about 1 x 1.5 miles. Upper-level commanders become more important, and their placement is critical. Because movement order is random, positioning your commanders gets tricky if they have to move before everyone else. An odd, rubber band effect can occur if your leaders have to move first; either they move ahead, leaving their units behind and risking a one-third chance that each unit will straggle, or they stay put to order their units forward this turn and risk falling behind themselves next turn.

The game includes nationality charts and orders of battle for the Zulu War, Northwest Frontier/2nd Afghan War, and Sudan revolt. There are no specific scenarios included but there are designer’s notes (something that too few games include) and, as an added bonus, official rules updates for The Sword and the Flame.

If you’re a fan of the free-wheeling style of gaming that The Sword and the Flame promotes, then Eight Hundred Fighting Englishmen belongs on your “games that get played” shelf. The transition from skirmishes to big battles is simple and seamless. Highly recommended. 24-page book/$14 + $2 S&H; available from And That’s the Way it Was, 213 3rd Street NE, Hickory NC, 28601-5124; phone (828) 324-0751, fax (828) 324-6486; online at http://www.thewayitwas.com.

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