Hank Martin persuaded Fred Haub, Fred Hubig, me, and three other friends to participate in a 15mm SOLDIER OF THE QUEEN (SOTQ) game. This was a scenario designed to be presented at HISTORICON with the map essentially as shown below. Fred Haub and I, as the Mad Mullah and his brother, the Maniacal Mahdi, respectively, commanded the dervishes. We were told to expect a British river assault on our small, placid village of Gottalottabad. Just about the whole field was defined as light cover and we were permitted to place our units of Baluchis, Pathans, Waziris, etc., anywhere we wished. Our victory condition was to have at least one unit in the town at "the end of the game". When was "the end of the game"? Only Hank knew when the sun would set and the battle cease. Some thoughts and comments on the game and the rules: a. We were given 4 guns, including 2 Krupp guns, which had a range of 300 inches (25 feet!). Despite the range capability on our 8 foot table, the guns, for the most part, proved ineffective, largely due to the azimuth error procedures prescribed in SOTQ. SOTQ first requires a range estimate from gun to target... and this wasn't too bad since Hank had told us we could pre-measure, prior to the battle, points of reference for aiming. But even if the shell appeared to be on target, we would then roll two 6-sided dice, with the difference being the iz'imuth error in inches off target. Our guns, therefore, which we had situated on the hills to the west, didn't do too much. b. Our fourth gun we placed just west of the town, outside Building C, thinking we would give the British lots of whatfor at close range as they sailed past the town. Up came a British gunboat, however, which settled alongside the town, and we dueled with the onboard 5 inch naval gun (at a range of 6 inches!) for about three turns before our cannon was blown up. c. Building C held 10 Afridi tribesmen, 4 of whom, during the gun duel, kept popping away at the other heavy weapon on the gunboat, a Gatling gun manned by two men. Each turn our tribesmen would knock off the two British gunners, and each turn, two more would pop up from below deck to man the Gatling. There were some 12 sailors aboard the gunboat, and two of them were assigned to the 5 incher, leaving 10 for the Gatling. Sailors do not test morale in SOTQ, and so, as fast as we removed the Gatlingers, two more would replace 'em in just as fast a fashion. d. Colonel Hubig had 20 British marines and a gun aboard a second British craft, the Victoria, which sailed on to the board via the North Branch of the Knile River. We had secreted a unit of Waziris at Point W, adjacent to North Branch, and these hardy fellows popped out of the bush and cleared the Victoria's deck with rifle fire. The Victoria immediately backpedaled back to The Lake, to the jeers of the dervish troops. Colonel Hubig termed this apparent precipitate retreat a "successful tactical diversion". Indeed, when the Victoria pulled back, this cleared the way for the gunboat to fire, and the Waziris, 20 of them, soon went to Waziri heaven. e. Colonel Hubig then landed his 20 marines near Point W and set out to cross The Stream. He was ambushed by a unit of dervishes, and about seven survivors ran back to the river's edge. This, too, was termed a "successful tactical diversion" by the Colonel, obviously an irrepressible optimist of the first water. f. Our super-duper Afghan cavalry, 10 in number and fanatics all, charged a native British force which, in true Hank Martin fashion, suddenly came on the field in the north-west corner of the board at Point X. Remember that Hank had briefed us to prepare for a river assault. Just prior to contact, several native spear-chuckers in the British native ranks made mince-meat of four Afghanis, leaving only six. The magnificent six then had first strike in the melee, and managed to kill one native, before they, too, were annihilated. In melee, each figure throws a 12-sided die, and if he tosses an appropriately high number, he eliminates his opponent. g. Our force in town was getting smashed by the British landing party, and so we tried a "fire and charge" move. We fired, we charged, we lost. We were left with 4 Afridis in house C, and it was then the British turn to assault the house... result: no more Afridis. In the three melees, the Afghan cavalry charge, our Afridi charge, and the British assault, it was hard to beat a series of "11's" and 12's" tossed by our opponent. h. SOTQ requires one turn for a man to reload his weapon and this permits a unit to catch another unawares, with weapons unloaded, if it can close at the proper time. The correct tactic, therefore, is to fire at any one time with only half your unit, keeping the other half ready. On defense, however, we were forced to fire an entire unit at a time, and the resultant loading time, coupled with some lousy die rolls on all our "hit dice", did us dervishes in. By popping up in the bush, we were able to get in some effective first volleys, but having done that, the combination of the Gatling, the British infantry, and case shot from the British shipboard guns ( 3 of them) was awesome. i. Rifle range is 40 inches in SOTQ and the Gatling range is 60. In essence, therefore, no one on the field was immune to fire ... there was almost always someone who could range in on you. In SOTQ, each man firing tosses a 12-sided die, and depending upon "Regulars firing", or "Irregulars firing", etc., a target was hit and a figure removed on tosses of about 5 to 12 on the hit die. j. The Gatling is devastating, cutting a 2 inch swath out to its 60 inch range. All within the beaten zone are targets. The gun jams on a toss of 6 on a 6-sided die. k. We dervishes had placed a unit of sharpshooters on the heights on Pooka Hill, facing eastwards, thinking we could command the field with our long range jezails and rifles, and pick off the British as they landed. When the surprise British native forces appeared in the north- west corner, however, our sharpshooters had to turn northward and were wiped out in one round of short range fire. Jezails need two turns to reload, and once the men had fired, were helpless. l. Sighting rules for the British appeared to vary. The British native force, smack in the middle of soft cover, sighted, each turn, a distance equal to the throw of a 6-sided die. On the gunboat, an officer with a spyglass could sight 36 inches into the soft cover. When the officer disappeared, sighting from the gunboat was reduced to the toss of a 12-side die. m. A ferocious band of Fanatic dervishes was placed in the soft cover about a foot to the west of Building C near the river bank. We wanted to have our 5 Fanatics rush the British landing boats as they disembarked troops. Unfortunately, during one of the British sighting phases, our Fanatics were spotted by the Brits in the gunboat. What to do? Our Fanatics had no firearms... their only weapon was a 6 foot scimitar. They were about to be Gatlinged, and I ordered the group of 5 to run and jump into the Knile and swim for the gunboat. These Fanatical Frogmen (FF) breast-stroked downstream, aided by the river flow, about 4 inches each turn. A die was tossed each turn for each swimmer, and an 11 or a 12 indicated he went under and drowned. One FF succumbed, leaving 4 men. n. The gunboat commander, seeing the dreaded FF heading towards him, reversed his engines and backpedaled, almost smashing into the troop transport. The entire British fleet was thrown into a tizzy by the sight of these 4 FF cruising downstream, splashing merrily, scimitars gleaming in the sunlight. o. Alas, we never found out how the FF made out... the rest of our force was fairly pulverized by the Brits, and it was obvious that we couldn't fulfil our victory condition... to control at least one house in the town. The Mad Mullah and the Maniacal Mahdi acknowledged defeat. Final thoughts The game was fairly static and uneventful for about the first five turns, since the only elements on the board were the three British ships: the gunboat, the Victoria, and the transport. These moved an average of 5 or 6 inches per turn and it took some time for them to reach the town. During these beginning phases, the guns aboard the ships blasted, at random, those points at which the British thought our troops would be located. This, coupled with the British sighting phases, made for a slow beginning. The action heated up a wee bit after we revealed the location of several of our units. Once a unit fired, it was placed on the field. For the most part, the 6 players got along quite well, although two of 'em (not PW members, I am proud to say) did tend to get nit-picky about several rules interpretations made by Umpire Hank Martin. Hank displayed an infinite amount of patience with these Philadelphia lawyers. Indeed, Hank displayed an amazing ability to rationalize, on the spot, all of his decisions, making it appear as if he had researched each question intimately over a period of years. For my part, I took it easy... so easy, in fact, that after I ordered a charge of my fierce Afghan cavalry, I fell asleep and awoke only after the defending spear-chuckers had laid low four of my troopers. "Wha' hoppen to my boys?" I exclaimed, rather bleary-eyed, and Fred Haub, in a tone which he reserves only for the aged and infirm, explained the situation to me. I stayed awake for the remainder of the battle. Back to PW Review September 1987 Table of Contents Back to PW Review List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1987 Wally Simon This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com