My wargaming friend Roy Boss has an astonishing collection of toy soldiers, collected over about 60 years. Every now and then he surprises me by producing yet another army (or armies) from his Alladin's cave of a wargaming room. Most recently, he revealed the existence of a rather lovely collection of figures for the Crimea. He also asked if I fancied adapting SotE for the period and playing a game. Dear readers, how could I refuse?
I soon found that the required rule adaptions were minimal. In fact, there were just two. Rifled muskets were awarded a range of 18", twice the range of smooth-bore muskets as used in the original rules. Firing at over 9" range with rifled muskets would get a -1 modifier. The other change was to dispense with the rules for skirmish screens, i.e. those skirmishers provided by the light companies of a given infantry battalion. Skirmishing cover would be provided by battalions of suitably trained soldiers, operating with the whole battalion in skirmishing order. This both simplified the rules and seemed to give a more Crimean feel to the fairly large scale battle we were envisaging.
Roy had invited four of us over. On arrival we found a delightfully large battle laid out, on a 10' x 4' table. The Russians were intending to attack a combined British/French force, moving down from their ridge position. There were 26 Russian infantry battalions with a standard 24 figures per battalion, with 17 similar sized battalions on the Allied side. The Allies were outnumbered 12 to 8 in cavalry regiments (12 figures per unit), and 8 to 6 in artillery batteries. On the other hand, the Russians had no rifled muskets (apart from a couple of rifle battalions), and they were likely to have inferior brigade commanders, though this would be subject to dice rolls. And they had the burden of attacking.
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| A typical Russian 'brigade', formed from a regiment of 3 battalions. |
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Paul commanded the Russian right.
He seemed confident of success. |
The figures in use were classic Hinton Hunts, of 25mm size. The perfect figures for gaming this kind of battle. The stream was a linear obstacle and so not too much of an issue for the Russians. The dice rolls for commanders gave the Russians all regular brigadiers - not an inferior commander amongst them! The Allied commanders (which included me) swallowed hard and braced ourselves for a tough fight.
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And so the game gets underway.
Classic pointing action from veteran gamer Roy. |
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My opponent on the Allied right was Adam.
I can't say I was very keen on his apparent grim determination. |
Well, it was a tough fight, and as the turns went by the Allied defence got increasingly desperate, particularly on my side of the table. There were just too many damned Russians, well supported by 4 deadly batteries firing from the ridge. The first line of Russian columns was turned back, but they retired through their second line which then resumed the assault. This was just too much for the already damaged British units and they broke away one by one. My partner Matt caused some alarm and despondency by doing well in the initial cavalry combats on his (French) flank, but in the end the luck turned against these troops. However, honours were much more even on this flank.
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Here they come.
The Russian infantry was only allowed to attack in assault/company column. |
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The French flank was rather more open,
as both sides had most of their cavalry here. |
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My screen of rifleman fell back behind the main line.
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The Allied centre under extreme pressure. In the background
you can see the Allied right wing is already folding. |
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Oh dear me. The Russians are in amongst the British in the centre,
forcing flank combats which even guard units are unlikely to win. |
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| Paul played aggressively against my French allies. Stop enjoying yourself man! |
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And so it's all over. A conclusive victory for the Russians.
The very effective Russian batteries are seen in the foreground. |
Yes, I have to say that the Allies got their butts well and truly kicked. A whole bunch of my infantry units routed off the table and the right flank was broken, with lots of Russian units ready to exploit. The French flank wasn't in as bad a state, but even here we were definitely on the back foot. Time to assess what went wrong for the Allies and how the scenario worked out.
Learning Points
Were there just too many Russian units? Maybe not. They were lucky with their initial command rolls - statistically a third of their brigadiers should have been 'inferior', which would have slowed down their attacks. And Allied tactics were at fault - we failed to move forward from our initial dispositions, which meant that we were cramped against our baseline. This gave us restricted room to fall back and rally, and units were lost by leaving the table when they should have had the chance to reform. And perhaps a redoubt or two (or three) might have been granted to the Allies. After all, what is a Crimean wargame without redoubts?
Some rules needed changing. All the British forces should have been superior for training, making their fire more effective. Making the Russians superior for motivation is a mistake - their performance in the Crimea makes 'regular' a better option. We also failed to use the British counter-charge rule, which means they are the only infantry able to counter-charge, representing their 'volley then charge' tactics. On the other hand, we gave all the French infantry rifled muskets, which I believe was wrong. Rifled muskets were not generally issued until after the Crimean War was over.
The main problem in moving SotE to the Crimean theatre is assessing how the main 4 nations (Russia, France, Britain and Turkey) should be classed for the various rule mechanisms. Books on the Crimea giving the kind of detail that wargamers want are much rarer than for the Napoleonic period, and it was difficult to make some of the assessments.
Nevertheless, a fine time was had by all. Thanks to Roy for setting it all up and letting us use his marvellous collection of figures. I look forward to more Crimean action in the future.
Those wishing to check out the extra Crimean rules and the various National Characteristics can find free downloads on my Facebook page:
'Til next time!
