The Men Who Would Be Kings NWF AAR

Stephen was indisposed this week, so General Ballroom and I were free to play a colonial game using random activation without being forced to look at Stephen doing a sad face all evening.

I've collected both sides for NWF action using the TMWWBK rules but have only managed a couple of short solo games.
Fortunately they were ages ago, so I'd forgotten pretty much everything so General B and I could learn together.
Sadly however I'd not actually finished painting the movement trays for the Pathans, which slightly distracted from the look of the game for me. Must get the big brush out and crack on.

General B took the thin khaki line and I took the wily Pathans.

We did roll for traits but largely forgot about them. The British all rolled well for the Leadership but a few of the Pathan leaders were barely average.

The General drew up in a defensive position with a field gun protecting his right flank. Meanwhile the Pathans surged forward.

We soon discovered how powerful the field gun could be and the Afghan forces rapidly fled to the flanks in search of cover.
The British meanwhile were drawing up in Close Order and delivering murderous Volley Fire.

The left flank of the Pathan forces took a long time to get into position but were able to pick of a few Sikhs from long range.

Over on the right the Pathans stalled, or at least the one big unit of Ghazis did, which rather blunted the advance. One group of native warriors made it into the foothills, but then failed to Go to Ground for a couple of turns and were duly whittled down by British fire.

Eventually however flanking riflemen began to take a toll on the 99th Humberside regiment and a fierce charge by Pathan tribesmen threw them back.

Despite this however General Ballroom was able to steady his lines and bring the devastating power of the field gun and British rifles to bear which halted the native assault and pinned them in place.

Further fire from the field gun also neutralised the Pathan left flank and with that the evening fell and the battle ended.

The British field force was battered, but had held together whilst the Pathans melted back into the hills to lick their wounds.

This was a great fun game - the first turn or so saw a lot of rule-book consultation but by turn three we were rattling along. It plays very fast and the speed of the native advance (when they weren't failing activation tests) rather worried General Ballroom at one point.
Overall it had a good asymmetric feel - which is right for colonials I think and was sufficiently challenging to hold our interest.
It's very bloody though!

Next time we both agreed we need a scenario - otherwise it devolves into essentially natives hurling themselves onto British bayonets.
We'd also like some unit and leader cards just to help us keep track of traits and the like.
Brilliant to finally get a game in against a rel live opponent - looking forward to the next one.