General Fred Haub commanded the forces whose mission it was to capture Fort Zenderblug. His opponent, General Simon, the Lion of Ostlandt, was assisted by Colonel Cosanostril in this recreation of a battle during the New Eritrian campaign of the early 1900's. It was during this period that the King of Albania decided to expand his Balkan Empire and invaded the territory of New Eritria on the African continent. But I don't have to go into details for you wargamers, each of whom, no doubt, is more familiar with the campaign than I am. As the attacker, one of Haub's major assets was a large river transport, on which he placed five 4-man squads and proceeded to cruise up the Zender River until the craft reached the south side of the Zender Bridge. There, the five units debarked, and, supported by three other squads that came onto the field via the bridge, constituted Haub's min attack. Colonel Cosanostril's defenders were thinly spread... they were forced to man the entire perimeter of the fort, for in addition to their western force, the attackers had a few squads plinking away in the east which couldn't be ignored. The question of what constituted victory, i.e., at what point the fort was taken, was answered by the designation of five key points within the fort. If Haub's men could reach three of these five, the defenders would throw down their arms and ask for terms. The FIGHTING SWASHBUCKLERS.... blah blah blah... rules (hereinafter referred to as FS and described elsewhere in this issue) gave rise to several interesting incidents in the battle. 1. Haub used his two prone-figure squads in their Hyper- Space-Ranger mode to good advantage. They appeared at Point A on the map, just to the southeast of the fort, where they could take pot shots at the defenders, providing supporting fire for the big push coming in from the Zender Bridge area. Remember that each 4-man prone squad places four markers on its target, equal to a 20 point decrement to the Morale Level of the target unit. The Lion's men couldn't afford to have this source of enemy firepower remain where it ves, and a squad of men was sent to clear the woods at Point A. Haub's diversion was quite successful ... since the fort was undermanned to begin with, temporary detachment of a squad was critical to its defense. And, of course, when the squad finally reached Point A, their target was no longer there. The Hyper Space Rangers had taken off. Thus the diversion essentially took one of the defending units out of the action altogether. 2. The Lion, like General Haub, also had two 4-man prone squads. One stayed in the fort, while the other was initially assigned to Point B, the intent being to snipe at an attacking force coming in from the east. The sniping was vite successful; one on-coming squad was annihilated, at which time the snipers took off and retreated to Point C, on the western side of the woods. Here, they were slightly less than successful. They lingered too long on the ground, firing away at the enemy, and were over-run before they could hyper-space away. In the hand- to-hand contact, the prone men (each 6 points in melee) were pretty much whomped by their attackers (each 8 points in melee), and took no further part in the battle. Each man multiplies his Melee Points by a 10-sided die roll and the higher product wins-, each of the 8 pointers had a 64% chance of winning over his 6 point opponent. 3. At Point D, there took place a series of cavalry melees. Upon seeing Haub's cavalry to the east of the fort, the Lion took the bait. he couldn't restrain himself from charging out with his horsemen to intercept the enerry troopers. Statistically, the Lion came out on top... he won two malees to one. Practically, the Lion lost, for the one melee in which he was beaten, the last, three men of his 4-man cavalry unit routed from the field, leaving the way open in the east to the attackers. 4. The Lion's machine gun was perynitted to be set up (hidden) at any one of several points, Although the major attack was from the west, the MG was placed at Point E, the thought being that the weapon could first he used against the eastern attacking forces, and then, if the western walls were breached, the MG could be turned around to spray the interior of the fort. This was indeed a truly superior plan, and its only flaw was that it didn't work. The machine gunner held his fire until too late, then he fired ineffectively, then he was charged by the enemy, and then he was wiped out. 5. But the Lion's major mistake was one of cmission... as Haub's attackers came pouring over the west walls, the Lion forgot to mve Colonel Cosanostril, who sat there on his horse, sword in hand, swearing at his men: "Sapristi! Fight, you yellow dogs! Fight!" To no avail. In fact, attracted by the noise the Colonel was making, one of Haub's more aggressive units surrounded Cosanostril. According to the FS rules, the Colonel himself cannot initiate combat, although he may defend himself when attacked. This was the case here, and the Colonel's 12 Melee Points were pitted against an 8 Point squad. On the surface, the Colonel's chances looked good... he had a 70% chance of defeating each of his opponents... but he had to do this four times in a row, i.e., defeat each member of the attacking squad separately. The probability of doing this is 24%... and Cosanostril fell, a victim of statistics. As soon as the Colonel was out of the picture, the Lion's defenders were in trouble: with the Commanding Officer gone, they had no chance for their second action each turn, they had no reaction fire in the sequence, and they had no rallying capacity. General Simon knows on which side his bread is buttered... Colonel Cosanostril had no sooner fallen from his horse, indeed, hadn't even hit the ground, then the Lion shouted to General Haub: "Let's put these figures back in the box and play a different game!" No fool, he. The battle for Fort Zenderblug was over. AFTERTHOUGHT This was the second battle using FS rules in which the Lion's Commanding Officer was overrun by the opposition. In the Fort Zenderblug battle, it was noticeable that Haub's Commanding Officer figure was kept about three miles in back of the front lines, way out of reach of the fort's defenders. Neither side had any artillery, the main reason being that I have no 54mm artillery figures in my inventory. These, no doubt, will come later on at some future flea market. Back to PW Review April 1988 Table of Contents Back to PW Review List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1988 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