Battle Along the Tigris (WWI Mesopotamia)

Introduction

As British Allied forces advance up the Tigris, a large Turkish outpost controlling a key section of the river must be destroyed. The gunboat Firefly moves steadily up the Tigris, covering the left flank of the assault with long-range gunfire. British forces attack in waves, with reconnaissance patrols probing for a path to bypass or break through the Turkish lines.

We used modified rules from The Men Who Would Be King (TMWWBK) to fit this conflict. The game was played on a 6x8 table with up to 7 or 8 players and has already been played at our club in Colorado Springs (CSGA), Colorado Military Historians (CMH) in Denver and at Hurricon 2024 in Orlando. 

I'm already developing the next battle in this Mesopotamian campaign for 2025, where several British gunboats will attempt to navigate past heavy Turkish shore batteries—a scenario that promises some exciting challenges ahead.

The Battle

Reading Churchill’s War in the Garden of Eden inspired me to build out this scenario, reflecting typical engagements during the British reconquest up the Tigris in Mesopotamia (modern Iraq).

The Turkish forces were largely entrenched on the board, positioned in trenches, atop buildings, and with hidden reserves inside structures. As British firepower took its toll, these reserves reinforced the trench line. The Turks had three main guns, three heavy machine guns, and a 1-pounder "Pom Pom" for anti-aircraft defense. When aircraft made attack runs, all units, along with the Pom Pom, had a chance to counter, adding a die to try and damage the aircraft. In both games, the aircraft was ultimately downed, crashing into the trench line and adding to Turkish casualties—an entertaining highlight!

The British brought Indian and Gurkha allies, along with armored cars, aircraft, and a Fly-class gunboat. Both games featured intense action, with the Turkish forces initially inflicting heavy casualties on the advancing Allies. However, as gaps formed in the Turkish lines, the British began to penetrate and overrun the defenses. Players on both sides had a fantastic time, with hard-fought victories adding to the excitement.

The Terrain

For the first battle, I used a Home Depot drop cloth as the terrain mat. By the second battle, a few months later, I created a new mat with caulking, sand, and paint to make it both mobile and quick to set up—ideal for transporting to various venues.

Most of the terrain features, like trenches, palm trees, and barbed wire, were crafted by Bill Daniel from Bill’s Gamer Garage, known for his high-quality terrain pieces. The lighted blast markers were provided by my cousin, Bud Vidales of Bud’s Blast Markers. Look out for more updates on his new releases, available now at budsblastmarkers.com.

Fly Class Gunboat

Regarding the gunboat model, several gamers have expressed interest in purchasing it. I'll be building three hulls at my Last Stand Boatyard, and they’ll soon be available on my website for anyone interested. Keep an eye out for updates if you’re looking to add this piece to your own collection!

Thanks!

A heartfelt thanks to everyone who follows my blogs—I truly appreciate your support! Enjoy the pictures, and if you have any questions about rules modifications, figures, terrain, or anything else, feel free to reach out. Happy gaming!

The scenario setup. A strip of the Tigris on the left flank.

The heavily defended Turkish outpost along the river bank.

The British/Indian left flank. In the first games I used a Sopwith Camel but later changed to a proper Bristol F.2. 

The Turks had three HMGs between the trenches which in both battles played laid down some vicious fire.

A good view of the layout. The British force consisted of Sikhs, Gurkhas, Australians and of course Brits. 

The British attack on the Turkish trenches. Notice the removal of the barbed wire by heavy fire from the Firefly Gunboat and aerial bombardment.

The aircraft support rained down some very effective bomb and strafing runs.

The Gurkhas made it the trench line and with some heavy melee took the trenches with what troops they had left.

The cavalry breakthrough supported by Rolls Royce Armored cars.

Airplane taking Anti-Aircraft fire before its attack run.

Always try and have everyone engaged. Heavy fighting all along the trench line. The Turks had a full unit in the town that were allowed to replace fallen Turks in the trenches. This made them pretty tough.

The Firefly, a Fly Class Gunboat slowly made its way up in support of the ground troops. There were two Turkish guns engaging the Gunboat every turn. 

The Fly Class Gunboat scratch built by Last Stand Dan Boatyard.

Nice view of the combined arms attack, armored car, cavalry, aircraft and a gunboat!

Battle in full swing!

Left Flank

Another view from the Firefly!

Another strafing run. 

Spanish American War (TMWWBK)

Spanish American War (Philippines)

Zapote Line (Near Manila)

Here is the second scenario I am building for my Jungle Scramble 2020 Campaign.  I set this one using my newly made jungle terrain.  In this battle, unlike the Tonkin battle posted last month we will introduce some boats.  I ran a quick playtest the night before I packed up the board and went down south to play with the CSGA gang.  Always a blast going down there.  I should also be putting on these two scenarios at my other club meetings, CMH up in Denver.   The purpose is to build these scenarios in time for a Campaign start later Spring, through Summer and wrapping it up Late Fall.  I am creating at least two more scenarios using other troop and Colonial locations. Going to be exciting having players from Colorado and Florida participating.

I started this blog below showing a little bit on the river build and showing a small gunboat I built for this specific scenario. So let's go to it.

This scenario was influenced by my reading of the Zapote River line near Manila.  They featured blockhouses which I converted one I had laying around.  This is an American attack on a strategic part of the Zapote River which includes one of those blockhouses controlling the river.  It also features a Spanish base of operations where the Spanish Navy has setup defenses.  I thought the scenario worked out well using The Men Who Would Be King and the Gunboat & Dhow! rules modified for the TMWWBK rule system.

The battle was set for 8 turns with the Americans trying to penetrate the Spanish defenses.  In this battle the Spanish held on for a Marginal victory.  It could be seen that with a couple of more turns, or better luck, the Americans might have been swarming over the defenses.  But not today.

Viva Espana!

Enjoy the AAR in pictures, Last Stand Dan

TMWWBK - Get to the Boat! (A Sudan Scenario)

Finally, I finished the Town for this scenario and worked it out using The Men Who Be Kings rules.  This was two play test battles because after building this little town I am going to tour with it at conventions next year.  I already know how to switch it up to The Sword and The Flame.  I just wanted to try these rules which really worked out great.  I will not go into any comparisons and this is  not meant to sway anyone from the rules they are currently using.  It's just another great option out there that may or may not fit your style of play or scenarios.

And again I have always wanted to do something like this.  It was inspired by Sand Pebbles, The Wind and the Lion and other great movies that had some cool evacuation scenes.  And of course my good friend Sgt. Guinness who over a year or so put on The Wind and the Lion at a convention which got me thinking.  Thanks.

So some notes on the rules around Regular units or just Regulars.  In the rules the Free Actions, meaning you don't have to roll against your Leadership value to perform are firing and Standing to.  We did this in the first game and although they had a great 5+ to perform that movement using 2d6 we must have had over 6 or 7 non movements throughout the first battle.  We also only completed 8 of 12 turns and the Dervish just swarmed them and blocked their escape path to the awaiting gunboat.  The same for the rescue forces coming from the boat. We had a number of stalls.  So with all that said we gave Regulars Move as an additional free action.  They are running for their lives right?  So in the second battle it worked out great.

And yes I made the Egyptians Regulars in this second revolt.  But only the Egyptians had to roll on the random leadership tables.  That was interesting and added some very reluctant and very eager Egyptians to fight next to.

The mission was to evacuate the Governor General and his staff from the Government House to the Cairo.  His staff has a British unit as an escort (Grenadiers in battle 1 and Highlanders in battle 2).  The rescue force has three commands.  Each having either a Naval, Grenadier or Royal Marine unit with an attached Egyptian unit.

The order or movement was borrowed from Western Gunfight rules.  Each leader is dealt a playing card and highest card goes first, etc.  Jokers were wild and did not shuffle the deck each turn.  We just ran through the deck and it worked out well.

Other conventions is that the rules state that you can only fire at one unit and any units in a melee, everybody fights.  Well, how many Colonial Street fights do we see in our games?  So in this scenario, a unit can split their fire if in Open Order and if a unit is charged with half of your guys outside then only those poor souls fight the attackers.

Same for firing.  You can only fire and target what you can see.  So if three guys are sticking their heads out coming around a corner and you are firing 8 guys then you can only kill the ones  you can see.  When defending a narrow door, similar to the close order melee rules, you can only fight two wide and two deep.  So if you have a unit defending or blocking a door, then the fight will be 4 vs 4, so not everybody fights.  We figured that you may be several soldiers holding your ground in a narrow doorway or alley and a mass of warriors is trying to push their way in.  We had this happen a couple of times and it worked out great.

Also in the rules if you take a casualty you roll for Leader hit.  And if you lost the melee you rolled again for your pin.  After a while we started just to roll once if you lost.  If you rolled double 1's your leader is killed and you probably get a pin.  Anything else your leader is okay and you fall back and you may or may not get a pin based on your leadership with that one roll.  Did that make sense?

Dervish Insertion Rules
So I borrowed this from Mr. Carpenter's Ambush alley.  I placed ten (10) Hot Spots on the board.  I also created a Dervish insertion schedule for each turn.  The Dervish are able to place their units on any spot that is not in sight of the infidels and is still active.  Active meaning that if an infidel comes into contact with an insertion point it is removed.  This is not to say that there is anything to kill there but think of it as a Dervish gathering point and it was broken up by just their presence there or they locked up a door etc.  So there is a tactic both sides have to take into consideration, one how do we get the Governor out and two how do the Dervish intercept and kill him.  Sounds easy?  hahahaha (evil Mad Guru laugh).

So the two battle worked out great.  Each battle in the future will fight out differently and there are some tactics that I want to try as the British that I will not give away here.

And if you have any questions or comments just leave me a message.  Join the blog for updates!

Thanks again to all my friends and colleagues that helped out.  I will blog about the building of the town next time.  For now its pack this all up and get my boatyard up and running again.  Our Colorado Military Historian (CMH) Club's Vet Wars is in two weeks here in Denver, Colorado.  Should be a good one. Hope you like the annotated pictures of both of these battles.

Last Stand Dan

Please forgive all my typos.