The God of the Red Skulls

Le Clerc and Jeune were dragged to the Red Skull village where King Mfalme looked at them with leering disgust. The witch doctor Mchawi cackled and danced from foot to foot. "Buibui! Buibui! Buibui!" he screamed. The chant was taken up by the warriors and the 2 Legionaires were pushed to a large arena surrounded by a thick wooden fence

The chant started again "Buibui! Buibui! Buibui!" Mfalme raised his spear and the mob fell silent. The ground started to shake and the sand started to move

"Putain Merde" A huge spider rose up from the sand. Jeune looked at Le Clerc and said "Sir, I assume that is Buibui". Le Clerc looked at Jeune and smiled nervously. "Grab that spear and go left". I'll go right and lets kill this insect". "Sir. it's not an insect...". "Pedantry later, now we fight like Legionaires"

The spider shook the dirt from its body

Jeune grabbed a spear from the base of the rock and ran round the rock

Le Clerc grabbed another discarded spear and ran to the left. The arena was covered in huge, stickly webs.

The spider moved towards Jeune and he panicked and ran around the rock, becoming trapped in a web. 

Jeune turned and stared into the mouth of the spider, its fangs dripping venom. The spider lunged and Jeune knocked the blow aside and stabbed the spear into the face of the spider.

The spider lunged again and Jeune stabbed again inflicting another severe wound to the spider. Le Clerc was racing to Jeune's aid as the spider struck again

The spider attacked and sunk 2 fangs into Jeune's chest, pumping venom into his veins. Jeune collapsed, 

The spider turned to face Le Clerc who charged him in a rage, thrusting his spear into the spider's face and cutting through a fang and spraying venom over the arena. The spider staggered. The crowd fell silent.

Le Clerc stepped forward and stabbed the spider through the eye killing it.

He rushed over to Jeune and found a faint pulse. Heroic Jeune was still alive.

Le Clerc climbed on top of the large rock, raised his spear and shouted "Buibui is dead. Anyone else want to fight me"

The crowd started to chant "Buibui Muuaji" 

The chief walked into the arena, looked over at Buibui and then clasped the hand of Le Clerc. "Friends, Buibui Muuaji".

Jeune spent 2 weeks in a fever but recovered and 1 month later he and Le Clerc emerged from the jungle having pacified the Red Skulls, for now.

Played using IHMN and with a little poetic licence at the end, Le Clerc and the spider couldn't kill each other so I allowed the spider to bleed to death. The rolls for Jeune were truly epic and couldn't be wasted. The French now have their heros

Destroy the Red Skulls

Mercier made it back to the headquarters of the Foreign Legion and told the tale of the horrifying attack of the Red Skulls. Lt Le Clerc immediately orders 2 companies of Legionaires and 1 of Askari to march into the jungle to rescue any captured explorers and to punish the Red Skulls.

After marching for 2 weeks through the jungle the Legion reached the outskirts of a Red Skulls' village

The huge ivory gates guard the entrance to the village

The Askaris under Sgt Forte lead the way

As they advance they cme under fire from native archers to their flank. However a volley swiftly sends the archers running away

To their front a force of masked warriors appears out of the jungle

 

Again a volley of rifle fire sends the warriors scurrying back towards the village

As the Askaris clear the way the Legionaires start to arrive

As the final unit of Legionaires arrives the Red Skulls reveal themselves

They are a mixed force of archers and warriors

They fill the battleground in front of the Legion. The archers on the hill are rout from the 1st shots of the 1st coy of Legionaires under Lt Le Clerc

On the left the Askaris fire at the warriors on the hill but the warrios stand and launch a blood curdling scream before charging the Askari. The fight is short and the Askaris run back towards the Legion

The painted warriors advance on the 1st coy, but a devastating volley sends they running back to village

The warriors have caught the askari and destroyed them but now they face the 2nd coy of the Legion under Sgt Roche. They fire a volley and send the 1st warrior band running. however the 2nd unit charges and smashes into the 2nd coy. The fighting is brutal but the warriors overwhelm the 2nd coy and they fail their morale and rout of the table

The 1st coy fires at the warriors and routs them of the table

However the final unit of Red Skull warriors is running towards the Legionaires. They manage to turn and fire but the volley is weak and the warriors press home

The melee is brief and bloody and only Le Clerc and pvt Jeune survive, They are captured and taken to the Red Skull village for dinner. Are the on the guest list or the menu though? They Red Skulls could be the Nemesis of the French in West Africa

This was a close run thing, a better final volley from the Legion and the warriors would have retreated, but at the final moment they failed and were defeated. The battle was fought using my tweak to the IHMN rules and worked well. Colonials need to fire as many shots as possible, natives need to get there the fastest with the mostest.

More Africans and Tales from my Holiday

Officially I'm on holiday, dreams of beaches, BBQs and power drinking. Instead I've spent 2 days rewriting a grant proposal and not being on holiday. I have done some DIY as well (damage it yourself) and best of all painted some more figs for the African Campaign. I now have a enough for the next scenario. These are all from the excellent Dahomey collection from Dixons and are really great.

First up are some female warriors, the elite of Dahomy warrior society.

Next we have some male warriors, I tried to make these as colourful as possible.

Finally their commander Admiral Joseph Limbani, who seems to have dressed in a hurry. He is the pompous leader of a band of slavers (Think African Mainwaring)

One of 3 things will happen now, I do more DIY, I watch the tennis or I get skullf...( I mean I have a pint or 4 )

The Battle of Gnott's Landing - A IHMN big battle

After the earlier dry run I fought a large scale IHMN battle. The rules are exactly the same as IHMN with the following exceptions.

1. Characters can be attached to units and act as their leader
2. Each unit has Unit Pluck (UP) which which equals that of the commander. If the unit suffers casualties during the shooting or fighting phase then it tests against the UP

Turn sequence

1. Test UP for all routing and halted units. If passed then routing units halt and halted units resume as normal.
2. Movement. A unit that runs must maintain its current formation. If it walks then it may expand its frontage by 50%
3. Shooting Phase - each figure in a unit fires before turn passes next player.
4. If a unit receives any casualties during shooting phase then it must test against UP. If fails then routs a full run move. If equaled then unit halts. -1 per casualty received this turn to roll
5 In fighting phase characters fight first following the initiative rules. Then rank and file fight (whole unit), again using the initiative rules.
6 The side that receives the most casualties during fighting phase then it must test against UP. If fails then routs a full run move. If equaled then unit disengages 3". -1 per casualty received this turn to roll. If it passes then the opposing side fights.
7 Medics attached to a unit allow 1 pluck roll to be re-rolled immediately, once per turn.

Now the Battle of Gnott's Landing

Konigprincesse Cecile, famed for her Unearthly Beauty, is leading an expedition up the Crocodile River into Zululand to find a direct route to the German allied Boers of the Orange Free State. If they can conquer the Zulus they can effectively trap the British in South Africa.
After a week of travelling they are camped at Gnott's Landing when a huge Zulu army of more than 5 impis appears  (Zulus FV+1 Speed+1). Hastily taking position behind barricades the marines (bayonet drill, military rifle, FV+1, SV+1, padded coats), Askaris (military rifles) and a small field gun (explosive grenade launcher with range of 36") await the Zulus.

Battlefield

Germans

and again

Zulus

The Zulus advance at the run and the field gun makes a direct hit on the UmKhuse killing 3 with another being hit by rifle fire. They fail their UP and rout

The Zulus continue their advance as the UnKhuse rally. Minor casualties to the Zulus but they press on

The Ukhandempemvo charge into section 1 of the Askari and kill 2 causing them to rout

Some terrible shooting from the Germans enables the uDuDuDu and IziNoyzi to charge the barricades. Cecile's pistol jams and is broken leaving her armed with a swagger stick and her piercing blue eyes. The uDuDudu Induna fights Cpt. Schmidt and knocks her down. One of the marines kills the Induna of the IziNoyzi and they rout.

The battle at the barricades continues but the artillery crew and section 2 of the Askari have routed.

The Zulus send in the 2nd wave

Good shooting and the death of another Induna at the hands of the recovered Schmidt causes 2 impis to rout but the battle at the barricade is not going well

The Marines disengage and start their retreat to the boat

The Zulus scent victory and the few remaining survivors make it back to the boat, a crushing defeat with the the death of Cpt. Schmidt. The Germans have has their nose bloodied and the Zulus are rampant.

This was great. Although the set up was the stereotypical colonial battle (the sort that gives colonial battles a bad name) it worked really well. It was a close run thing considering the Zulus outnumbered the Germans by 3 points to 1 and 5 to 1 in figures. 1 impi fewer and I think the Germans could have won. The Zulus lost 2 routed Impis off the table and 30 dead to 13 dead Germans. The Unit Pluck works really well, think swirling hordes advancing and retreating until they can get close enough to fight. The artillery is devastating when it hits. It gets a little complicated when you have multiple units fighting in melee, but don't all rules.

I will definitely be using IHMN with these rule tweaks for my large battles. Hope you enjoyed it, I did. Will keep you posted on further tweaks.

Rush for Africa - Prologue

The walled Beja village of Abu Qurqas slept and the 2 bored sentries new that soon the sun would be up and they could get warm.
Suddenly 3 figures in red robes rushed out of the night and attacked them,

Azeez and Kareem were not on guard by accident and they fought bravely holding off the sinister attackers. "ALARM! ALARM"

As Kareem went down under the flurry of attacks the villagers and their chief Mohammed rushed from their beds to repel the attackers. "They must not get the treasure. Kill them all!"

Azeez fought bravely holding up the attack but 2 of the invaders charged forward. From the gate a pistol shot rang out and another of the villagers fell.

The Beja rallied and charged the 1st two invaders and knocked one down but the other one was skilled and they couldn't overpower him

Seeing the attackers stagger Mohammed lead the charge forward towards their leader

However as Mohammed passed the fallen invader he sprung up and smashed him in the head, killing him instantly

This enraged the Beja and they fought ever more furiously to avenge their fallen leader. They took out the slayer of their leader and then the leader of the infidel thieves fell to the ground,

But they couldn't over power the thieves and as the last two Beja fell they knew that a dark force was going to be awakened. They had failed but there were others to guard the secret.

Carter passed the smelling salts under the nose of Lord Caernarvon whilst Thomas and Henry helped the dazed Douglas back to his feet. "My Lord. are you well? The Brotherhood can not afford to lose you. We have the first piece of the puzzle". "Burn the village Carter, nobody must know we were here. Quickly now, there is much to do."

This battle was fought using IHMN rules and the Brotherhood will be back.