RECON 2016 AAR - The Patrol - Tantrapur Village (GM: Sgt. Guinness)

So finally I am able to blog Sgt. Guinness's (Jeff''s) battle.  Work and travel can really get in the way if you know what I mean.  

His game like all of the rest of the TSAF games at RECON were filled to capacity and pretty much all of the time we made room for more players.   

Here is the description from the RECON PEL:

Larry Brom Memorial Game. This game is based on the scenario "The Patrol" from Larry Brom's TSATF 2000 Scenario book. The attack by the Mad Guru's forces on the work party in the Village of Tantrapur is a very well know battle scene in this much beloved movie, it was one of Larry's most favorite movies, as it is one of mine as well. An Indian patrol commanded by three English Sergeants has been dispatched to the village of Tantrapur in a small valley in the foothills of the northern province. Two days ago telegraph communications with the Province Chief stationed there were disrupted. Your force is to investigate the cause for the interruption and undertake any necessary repairs. 


This is The Patrol scenario #17.

The forces in this battle were modified to provide for more players.

British Led Indian Forces:
Three (3) Indian Platoons each led by a Veteran Sergeant.  
One Engineering Detachment (10 men) led by a Lt.
One Indian Mountain Gun
One Indian Lancer unit.

Pathan Force:
10 units armed with knives, swords, Jezzails or Modern rifles
One Gun that would explode on a jam roll of 6.  
One (1) unit of Pathan Horse.

Here is the map taken from Larry Brom's Scenario Portfolio 2000 book available from the Sergants 3 website (http://www.sergeants3.com).

With that we have the pictures from his battle with the AAR embedded in them.  We hope you enjoy the report.

Last Stand Dan and Sgt. Guinness

Recon 2016 TSAF Gunboats on the Nile AAR (Sudan)

So here is the AAR of the battle that I put on at Recon.

With so many TSATF battles at Recon, it turned out we had more gamers than expected who wanted to get into the action. That was cool to see!  As I mentioned, Bill Daniel of Gamer Garage and I drove the 27 hours from Denver to get there and we both had a blast and thought it was all worth it.

It was nice to see my old friends, Sgt. Guinness, Capt. Lucas and Dr. Jones again.  I also brought a "boat load" of boats and put them on the dealer table that Bill and I shared.  I came back with only three Dhows.  So it's back to the 28mm shipyard to build more Gunboats and Dhows.  I am also looking at building several new types of boats, so if there are any suggestions out there, please drop me a line.  And yes, the Giza and Kadesh are now moored down south in Florida, thanks to Rick and Lucas.

In the pics below you will also see the new L Class Patrol boat which I built for Capt. Lucas.  After all the crap we have been dishing out to him after the Giza incident, I felt he'd earned it.  I am building more of these L Class boats.  They are smaller, as you can see in the pictures where they are next to the larger boats.  The design has a 3" beam and roughly 10" length. 

So the battle I ran was the typical amphibious and land assault of a Dervish strongpoint.  It didn't start out well for the British due the aggressive nature of the dervishes.  Unfortunately the British gunboats had to steam up slowly to help support the ground forces marching alongside on the banks of the river.  The Desert column ran into trouble right away and didn't get very far.  All of this is noted in the pictures.  As you'll see for yourself, my scenario planning didn't quite work out the way I had planned, as the dervish gunboats were never able to truly engage with their opposing vessels.  The British boats did not make it past the Mud Fort before time ran out on us.  But we all had a good time nonetheless.  It is always nice and easy playing with Veteran TSATF gamers.  

Note: For this battle we tried out my homebrew boat rules emphasizing fast-play.  This unofficial draft set of rules allows us to fold boat combat into the standard TSATF rules.  If you are interested in learning more about them please post a comment below to let me know.  They seemed to work very well for conducting simultaneous Ground and River combat.  The mechanisms for movement and firing are the same as TSATF.  I got some good feedback on them and have already made some changes.

If you would prefer a rules set with much more detail catering to Victorian Colonial waterborne and land combat in one single all-emcompassing rules set, I will strongly recommend Patrick Wilson's, "Boilers and Breechloaders," which as I say has a lot more detail than these fast-play rules.  And I would also like to point out that all of the boat fittings and weapons featured on the ships in the pics below come from TVAG (The Virtual Armchair General -- Patrick's company). So if you need to arm your boats, definitely visit his website (http://www.fauxtoys.com/tvag/).

And one last special thanks to the Jacksonville Garrison Gamers and HMGS South for showing Bill and I a whole lotta Southern hospitality!

Enjoy the AAR.

Last Stand Dan

RECON 2016 TSAF - With Lawrence at Shahm (Mike Lucas) and The Mine (Dwight Jones)

As I mentioned before this is the first time I went to Recon in Orlando.  I have to say that it was a great time.  We did drive it so we could take some stuff with us but it was worth it.  I met a lot of new friends that all share the same passion of Wargaming.

So they had setup a TSAF table that had back to back games all convention long.  This is similar to Recruits on how they setup the Dealers all around the tables along the walls.  Great job by the HMGS South staff.

Dwight Jones put on two TSAF scenarios in Darkest Africa called, "The Village" and "The Mine."  Both were a blast to play.  I played in The Mine where I had to personally had to kill a rampaging Elephant with Spear and Knife (Damn TSIA Action Deck).  That could have gone bad.  Dwight's games always look great and using The Sword in Africa he incorporates those sometimes evil random events.  Fun!

Mike Lucas and Bernie Chambers put on a TSAF scenario called, "With Lawerence at  Shahm." That had the Turks and Germans fighting the British and Arabs.  I was stuck with leading some Turks on the left flank.  Held on pretty well but the inevitable happened.  Both of our flanks were ready to collapse with Arab Cavalry pouring in on one flank and the Brits on the other.  Nice game and the figures painted by Bernie were beautiful!

Bill Hogan put on a very nice scenario of "San Juan Hill."  It looked great and unfortunately I didn't get to play in that one.  All of these games were maxed out on players which is great to see.  I really wanted to play in this one because I don't get to play enough Colonial battles when U.S. Forces are involved.  When I checked in it looked like the Spanish were not doing half bad.  Nice! We didn't get many pictures of this game so I apologize.

There were many other battles and if you look at the PEL you can see that.  You will find the pictures below that Jeff, Mike and I took.

So Thanks to all that played in these games and to those that purchased just about every boat I brought.  I really appreciate it.   Let's keep in touch!  Enjoy the pictures.

Last Stand Dan

Standby, I will get Jeff's, The Raid and my Nile battle posted soon.

Recon PEL
http://hmgs-south.com/PEL.pdf

Capt. Lucas's - "With Lawerence at Shahm"

Dr. Jones: "The Mine"

Blood and Plunder, by Firelock Games at Recon 2016

I just wanted to throw a quick word out about Mike Tunez's new Pirate game and Kickstarter called Blood and Plunder (by Firelock Games).  I got ta chance to speak with him and his colleague to get a high level view of the gaming system and it sounds great.  I haven't joined any kickstarter to date so this is my first one.

If you take a look at the picture gallery and watch the video I think you will be impressed.  Brings back many memories of great Pirate movies old and new.  I got to see these figures and they are very well cast and will fit right in with other well made 28mm figures.  The ships are resin and they look look very nice.

Well take a look at the link if you get a chance and you can see for yourself.

http://www.firelockgames.com

More blogging on Recon 2016 to follow.  Have to sort through all the pictures we took.  And after driving for 27 hours through 6 states to get back to Denver with Bill, well give me a little break. lol.

I wish Mike and his staff at Firelock Games good luck, and look forward to seeing it all succeed.

Last Stand Dan