Colonial Campiagns - Senluo Temple October 18th 1899 - Mud & Blood Playtest

Having set my sights on re-fighting all of the encounters in the Boxer Rebellion Colonial Campaign Series, I was fortunate enough to find a willing opponent to play test the rule tweaks to Mud & Blood, to give it a greater Boxer feel, Thursday night saw the first out of the new improved Boxer Rebellion forces.....

The Scenario.

The Boxers led by Zhu Hong-Deng were camped at the Senlou Temple after defeating Jiang Kai a local magistrate, A force of 500 Imperial troops were tasked with clearing the Boxer Grounds before the Boxers could gather additional support.

The layout above provides an over view of the table to be fought over.
The Imperial Chinese may deploy one mounted unit and one Infantry unit within 12" of the Northern side of the Bridge, the Boxers can deploy no closer than 24" from the Bridge or 18" from the village.

The Boxer Forces consisted of.
10 Units of Boxers with a scattering of muskets

2 Antiquated Cannon.
7 Big men ranging from Status I to III

Chinese Imperial Forces consisted of.
1 Unit of Cavalry
4 Infantry Sections
7 Big men also ranging from I to III

Reinforcements
1 Unit of Cavalry
 
The Boxers win if they can rout 4 Imperial units areas and control key features on the board, notably the two T junctions, the village and the Bridge.
If Zhu Hong-deng is killed the Boxers automatically lose.
 

Turn one saw the Imperial Army deploy on the first T junction, I chose to deploy my Boxer Artillery on the hill over looking the village to provide artillery support for the Boxer blinds on the flanks.

Turn two, the Imperials push ahead but are soon under fire from the Boxer artillery, the blinds unmask and are already within a short distance from the Imperial Cavalry and are closing in on the 1st Imperial unit.

The Boxers force the Imperials from the T junction, but start in incur casaulties from the massed ranks of rifle fire, the Boxers seek cover from the paddy fields whilst in the centre the first Imperial Infantry unit can be seen in the tree line having repulsed an initial Boxer attack.

The Boxers push forward but are hindered by an early Sniffter card which allows the Imperials to unleash a bloody volley adding sufficient shock to slow the advance to a crawl.
However the bulk of the Boxer units are now revealed urged on by the Status III leader Hong-Deng.

 

The final turn, the Boxers are pressing the Imperials who have fallen back from the T Junction, which secured the Boxers a victory point, however in the process they have lost 3 Big Men falling to the now formed massed ranks of Imperials.

The Boxers fall back leaving the table to the Imperial forces.

The rule changes played really well, however we agreed that the Boxers need a couple of extra Rally cards to represent their religious fervor, the artillery did not need to roll to hit, rather just the impact, this might need tweaking as it was taking chunks out of any unit that entered into open ground.

The movement trays proved a real asset, however I need to add some additional banners for the Boxers to make their Big Men stand out.

Looking forward to kicking this campaign off in the coming weeks.

Chinese Imperial Army in the Russo Japanese War.

One of the interesting facts of the Russo-Japanese War was that it was fought neither on Russian nor Japanese soil and whilst nearly forgotten if you ask gamer of early twentieth-century wars it could be argued that it set up the power balance in the East leading to the Pacific War in WW2 but also was the blue print for modern warfare in World War I.

Whilst I wait for my latest reinforcements from Tsuba Miniatures, I thought I would clear up a few items off the painting table, I have a section of Imperial Chinese from Redoubt Enterprises which have been hanging around for several years, which I thought they would make an interesting addition to the RJW collection and future scenario's.

 

Redoubt are one of these companies that if you looking for that special casting or that model that is slightly off the beaten track, plus you can still buy single figures rather than blisters were there is always one pose you are not quite happy with.

The Chinese Army took NO formal part in the RJW but there are numerous mentions of Chinese regulars being used to protect the railway lines from  Chinese Honghuzi bandits so I can envisage several scenario's for the boys in blue....

Chatting through this point on the on the RJW Yahoo Group, for those with an eye for the larger games, when the War began the Chinese moved the Wu Wei Tso-dsun Army under General Ma to the inner border.

The army consisted of:
Sixteen battalions of Infantry (7,500 men)
Five squadrons of cavalry (900 men)
Three sections of artillery 1, 100 men, I am assuming 6 guns)



Next up more Russians.

Boxer Rebellion - Chinese Imperial Artillery

I had a chat with the guys from Warbases at the WMMS show recently and asked them to create some bespoke artillery bases, as usual from these guy's nothing was to much trouble and the bases arrived in just over a week.

Over recent weeks I have been giving my Boxer rebellion collection a make over adding movement trays to each units to make them fit with the Mud & Blood Rules from the Too Fat Lardies, whilst designed for large Scale WW1 Skirmish a few minor adoptions should make them fit this period really well.

These are the results below.
Figures from Old Glory.

 

 

Redoubt Enterprises - 28mm Russo Japanese

It must be a record, I picked these up at the WMMS show in early March and within one calender month they are painted based and on the table....

I was looking for support weapons for both the Russian's and the Japanese to compliment the Infantry sections you can always rely on Redoubt to have peices to fill in the gaps.

First up Japanese Hotchkiss and Crew, I have added a dice point to record either the number of crew available or any shock points, depending upon the rule set being played.

The MG was a little difficult to put together hence the rise at the front of the base.

A Russian Maxim and Crew with added shock marker.

Whilst clearing some of the back log, I found this Foundry casting from their Zulu War Collection and a with a few minutes with a scalpel turned them into Russians. I think they make a reasonable Russian Shock Marker.

Wargaming the RJW 1904 - 1905 Russian Uniforms

Real progress this week, the 1st of the Russians are off the paint table, once again from Tsuba Miniatures sculpted by Paul Hicks.I was in a real quandary with these, looking at the tried and tested Osprey Plates (See below) the Russian tunic's were often dyed in Khaki on campaign leading to different shades. Reading several reports of the Battle of Mukden the Russian's are described in anything from Olive to Dark Green.

In the end I decided on a separate shade for each section to highlight the individual element's the first section is painted using a darker shade, whilst the next unit will be a lot lighter.

 

 

Big Men and Leaders based on Hexes to separate them from the rest of the unit.

 

The intended look for the 2nd Section.

The colours used were as follows.
Type 1 Tunic - Foundry Raw linen Shade 30A.
Type 1 Trousers - GW Death World Forest.
Shoulder Boards -Foundry Deep Blue Light 20C
Cap Band - GW Red Gore, GW Dark Angels Green

Type 2 Tunic - Foundry Moss Light 29C.
Type 2 Trousers - Foundry - Storm Green Shade 27A.

Boots - Black
Water Bottle - Vallejo German Grey
Rifle - Tan Shade 14A, Vallejo Gun Metal Blue.
Bayonet - GW Bolt Gun Metal, Highlighted GW Mithril Silver.
Rifle Strap - GW Rhinox Hide.
Webbing - Foundry Tan Shade 14A.
Entrenching Tool - Foundry Spearshaft Light 13C
Canvas Ammo Pouch - Foundry Rawhide Light 11C
Satchel - Foundry Storm Green Light 27C
Cap Badge - Gold
Flesh - GW Elf Flesh
Wash - GW Agrax Earthshade.
Basing - GW Rhinox Hide, Dry Brush Vallejo Desert Yellow, Iraqi Sand.

Triumph & Tragedy - RJW 1904 - 1905

Finally managed to grab a few hours to put some paint on the last of the Japanese from Tsuba Miniatures, the latest batch gives me 2 squads and command section enough to put on a small game.

A further order is required to bring me up to my target of 3 sections, but I shall wait until the latest Russian's are available.

I picked up an MG Team and flags from Redoubt Enterprises at WMMS, which will give some much needed support for the Japanese.

 

 

I also picked up a copy of the Triumph and Tragedy Rules, I was drawn to these as they seemed very similar to the excellent Mud & Blood Rules from the Too Fat Lardies, the most significant difference is the ability to decide your own order of cards before the turn starts, it sounds an interesting concept.

Their is a free supplement for the Russo Japanese War available at the T&T website.
http://www.triumph-tragedy.de/downloads/russo-jap.pdf

With Sunday's club fast approaching I thought I would give them a try out using my AVBCW collection, a full AAR to follow.

28mm Barbed Wire

I've started to look about for suitable terrain to compliment the RJW Project and spotted these at the WMMS show last Sunday.

They are made by the guy's over at Products forWargamers.

At £2.50 a section, I think they are really good value you would struggle to make them yourself and paint them any cheaper.

 

The Barbed Wire defences

Most of the barbed wire I had seen in the past was of the coiled variety, but I was after some thing more a kin to photo's of the defences at Port Arthur which seemed to be thinner but spread over a larger area, not quite the masses found on the Western Front in another 10 years.

 

 

Lightly flocked, I added additional TSS flock and Silfor Grass to make them blend in with my own terain pieces. I could perhaps do with 5-6 more pieces, perhaps adding shell damage to create a breach in the wire.

Something else for the Salute shopping list.