No, this isn't going to be another 'Why should I throwaway all of my 25mm figures just because some genius invented 28mm as a wargames scale?' groans. Nor even a general complaint about the immense number of scales around, and exactly why it's incredible but true that while bigger always means more expensive, it rarely means better quality.
I'm currently trying to come to terms with the appearance of 1/300th scale sailing warship 'Armada' and 'Napoleonic' models in metal and resin from 'Old Glory'. What shall I as a dedicated follower of war games fashions, do with my 1/600th Triton stuff: or my ancient 1/2000th 'Knight Designs' armada? Or my much loved Skytrex 1/1200th Napoleonics?
We don't need period advisers in the Solo Wargamers Association as much as a scale help-line! The 'Old Glory' Spanish Armada Range is according to the list some twenty models strong already, and at a 'snip' of a price, only £28 for 'Revenge' or 'San Martin' and a 'bargain basement' £16 for any of the four Spanish galleys which didn't actually make it to the Isle of White. Their Napoleonic Range is even more shall we say 'exclusive' with 'Santissima Trinidad' at £35; though with the 200th anniversary coming up HMS Victory which is the same price, might actually sell. I worked it out, Trafalgar on the table-top at roughly £1,750 (or $2,500 US) paint and super detailing extra.
No wonder, methinks that one of the two leading glossy monthly wargames magazines was it WI or MW, actually reviewed them this Autumn (2004) without mentioning the price at all!!!
My 1/300th African war-canoe fleet from ERM cost £12 for 12 boats, and my Cossack 1620's raiding fleet of 9 vessels including a galley and merchantman weighed anchor at only £20, in the same scale. Since they are so old, I won't even trouble you at mentioning the cost of my 1/1200th 1588 fleets.
Anyway, this is about a wargame. A while back this august and invaluable journal published my article called 'Fire & Retire' based on the Peninsular War. It includes a convoy, and since I happen to have a suitably long table for use a convoy action makes for a good and fairly quick game.
In this case, I was putting on a small convoy action for three non-wargamer colleagues to amuse themselves, using old Airfix wagons with a load of pack mules, and some cattle thrown in. There was an escort naturally, a few mounted men and some foot, and the possibility of a further mounted 'relief' far off table.
This convoy was c.1700 and moving through jungle terrain, not impenetrable but enough to cause movement problems for wagons and horses off road, and to slow up movement generally for everyone on foot. About halfway along, a native village off the road and invisible to the Europeans.
The 'ambushers' 25mm 'Pirates' and 'peasants' with varied arms and equipment, no cannon. The convoy guard, British foot and a few cavalry dotted in, but they have a gun, a mere 'Falconet' but still a cannon. A third force was the natives, ambivalent to the Pirates, with an occasional agreement of sorts, and very hostile to the regular military, but also intent on getting hold of a few cattle/scalps/firearms. Likely to do a deal perhaps, in looting the convoy, since the attackers would probably only want the gold in Wagon #5, or the Governor's lovely daughter in the coach.
Fine there's the game. A 25mm scale ambush. However, one of my colleagues brought along his 12 year old son, and so I was left with the need to provide a fourth force without delay. Hmm?
This is What I Did
Remember the 'Island in the Mist' Christmas wargame? With the gorillas and the 15mm Dons, Arabs and natives? Well, the last of these resides in the same boxes as the larger 25mm natives do. So, I took the lad aside, and explained the scenario to him.
The tropical-ish forest in which the action takes place, has many tribes. One, which is regarded as some drunken guard's hallucination by the British Governor and his gallant officers of the garrison, is you guessed it pygmies. About 15mm high when placed alongside the average foot soldier or two-legged pirate (remarkable, eh?).
The Brits don't believe they exist, the Pirates have never heard of them, but they are well known to and feared by, the natives-who-live-by-the-road. This is because the pygmies occasionally raid for small essentials available in the village, 'trade-goods' and food that sort of thing, and the two tribes, small and large hate each other very much indeed. If they encounter one another then one or the other gets the arrow (rather than the bullet).
No-one else in the room knew about the pygmies arrival at the outset of the game, and the boy merely marked them on his map, and moved them, not really any slower than the natives, as he wished.
Movement restrictions were not imposed on the pygmies, since they were at home in the jungle as were the other natives, but they would only venture onto the road if there was a very worthwhile prize, or no other option available in movement.
I gave them a reduced 'hit' factor too, since being smaller the likelihood of being hit by say a soldier firing a musket into foliage would be less. Oh, and their arrows and spears, since I thought smaller weapons might cause less physical damage, had poison tips, effective in two movement periods. 'So what if I've been hit by this little knitting needle, I can still fire my musket?' Actually not for long, mon brave.
The convoy attack went fairly straightforwardlly. The ambushers cut the road, and while the front half either tried to escape or fought towards the rear wagons, a string of mules bolted into the forest. The (larger-25mm) natives went after them, having been waiting to see if the attack was a success, before getting stuck in. A fair proportion of them chased after the mules, when they met the pygmy army. The pygmies had already shot poisoned arrows at the mules, and could pick them up later, over half which were hit, and when they dropped the rest of the string would be stuck. The undergrowth limited the effectiveness of the taller natives clubs and bows, and after taking a number of casualties they 'retreated' to the road, where a small battle was taking place, around the cannon, which was being used to keep the escape route open.
Neither European force knew anything other than that there was some sort of native squabble in progress away from the road. Then the natives burst from cover and waded into the troops alongside the pirates, taking even more casualties in the process.
By the time two moves on, that the native chief was able to tell the pirate leader about the pygmies, and their tasty weaponry, about 25% of his men had been hit from cover, by what they thought was rather ineffective 'friendly fire'. The soldiers, wearing thicker coats were less troubled than the ragged pirates, but also suffered 10% losses.
As the Europeans started to drop, as per the new pygmy poison rule, the larger natives took what they could in terms of cattle and mules and headed down the road in one direction as the relief force of a small unit of troops mounted on horses, wagons and mules, and with another gun, was heard, about three moves away, in the opposite direction.
The rear half of the convoy, not containing the strongbox, or gold, was overwhelmed by the dwindling pirate band, and as these villains struggled into the forest bearing arms and various other items of plunder, the pygmy army shot most of them, and the few troops left around the wagons. The pygmy chief wisely kept away from the gun.
So, the fresh garrison troops arrived, and set up a defensive perimeter around the road, and mopped up a few pirates stuck on the wrong side of it. The large natives had long gone, and the governor wrote off the mules and 10 head of cattle, though it was difficult to work out why the odd soldier was dropping dead from an apparently slight wound.
By now, the pygmies were scavenging around for the best day’s pickings they'd ever had, and slowly moving back into the jungle, away from the road. Few of them had been killed in the little action, but some got in the way of a volley into the shrubbery, and a whiff of shot.
Back on the road, the governor pushed a small force of foot into the jungle to look for wounded pirates, and extend his perimeter. Maybe they dropped some of the loot in their escape?
I rolled a random dice at this point to see if the patrol would encounter any of the pygmy casualties and put two and two together, they did, but as the report, '8 dead natives, youngsters by the look of it' came back (and from the abandoned native village of the physically larger tribe) the secret of the real winners of the convoy attack was safe.
At this point, with a few more of the gallant foot dropping, the game ended. Score ‘Natives 1 & Tourists nil’ and it did occur to me that the game could have continued with the pygmy force pursuing the pirates, encumbered by the loot, and the British commander also venturing after the enemy into the jungle. For a set distance or period perhaps?
The small natives burdened with what they had acquired from everybody else, and the pirates continuing to diminish, followed by the slow soldiers, less vulnerable to pygmy attack! I didn't let the governor risk his valuable horses in the jungle; though if mule-mounted men were used, presumably the pygmy force would lie low until they passed, and then melt away with their winnings.
An interesting game this turned out to be, with four complete novices, and all because I used 15mm figures alongside 25's. Worth a try.
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