We have been playing Death in the Dark Continent on a regular basis for some time now, and I have steadily built up a collection of forces – Explorers, Natives, Zanzibar Slavers, Force Publique and British Naval Brigade.
Bob has a collection of Boxers, and given that there is a free supplement out written by the author of DitDC (Chris Peers), we thought we would give it a try out with a view to running a campaign sometime next year.
I used my British Naval Brigade, basically 4 units of Elite Soldiers with Repeaters (1 unit with an included Disciplined Commander) and a Machine Gun – I am a bit short of figures, so use a couple of bases of Explorers as soldiers out of uniform! There are more naval figures currently on the painting table to rectify this omission…
The Game
We played the standard encounter scenario, though we usually set a break point of 150 points for these games (using 300 point lists).
The British advanced forward with the intention of forming a square on each flank. The Gatling Gun was now stationary, the red spanner indicating it needed to be stationary for this turn, and the turn in which it fires.
Meanwhile the Boxers advanced, screening their force with some skirmishers and Jingals.
Both sides ignored the rather pretty village on one flank of the table.
The British started to form square, but slow movement throws meant it was going to take an extra turn to finish…
The Boxers were getting too close for comfort…finally though, the squares were formed….
Then disaster struck – 2 x natural 20s in a row on the Naval right flank, first from the skirmishers, and then from the jingals, meant the loss of 2 bases, and that square became ineffective….
Things were starting to look bleak for the British…
The British Naval right flank quickly redeployed into line to try to rectify the situation, meanwhile, the disorder markers on the Boxer forces were starting to mount up from telling fire.
In a bold move, the British Commander led a charge on the Boxer Skirmishers, already disordered, in the hope of eliminating the unit and causing morale tests on other units – the strategy worked, and the Boxer skirmishers were cut down, with some units failing subsequent morale checks.
The British square was engaged on the other flank, but stood firm – Bobs good dice rolls having now deserted him…
…and the attack was repelled…
Wave after wave of Boxers charged in, but all were repulsed…
The British Commander turned his line to open fire on the Elite unit containing the Boxer Leader – that unit was now stationary, as a result of 3 disorder markers…
The Boxer Commander unit lost a base, and failed it’s morale test taking it to 5 disorder, and the unit was destroyed…
In a last gasp attempt, the Boxers had charged the square, and finally broke through, killing a base….
It was all down to the morale test – we had already calculated the Boxer army had broke, but the British would also break if the morale test was failed….
…but it passed the test, and the British lived to fight another day as the Boxers disappeared from whence they came….
Conclusion
An incredibly tense game, and a very successful try out for the DitDC: Boxer Rebellion…
DitDC is currently our favourite set of Colonial rules, and over the coming year I am planning to expand my forces to cover the Zulu War, and then with some amendments cover both the North West Frontier and the Indian Mutiny…watch this space…
Next up I will do some painting guides for some of my forces…
Graeme Carroll