January 5, 1927
Dear Mere,
Happy New Year
Sorry to not have written for sometime now but, really nothing to write about. We must still do our chores, clean the latrines, clean up, do the laundry.
But yes, some fun stuff too like get ready for our march into the desert to relieve a small fort near the mountains. For us it will be a new experience. Recently we veterans were grouped together in a new unit and given a fresh ‘regimental touch-up’ .
Of the trek I cannot say much. I am told it will be a boring travel over flat, featureless terrain and we will probably not see the natives should they dare to have at us.
We are commanded by officers we are not familiar with, so none know their quality - more on that later! But we are of the Legion Etrangere Francaise so can probably overcome any deficiencies of any officer foisted upon us.
Page Deux
The march is well under way under the unrelenting sun. Sous-lieutenant Premiermort turned to the sergeant and stated he “has a feeling the natives are close” We look around but see nothing but flatness, a broken line of thin bush and heat waves.
Then the bullets start flying….
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My preparations for the game:
I gained this collection of French Foreign Legion c. 1920s , as a fellow wargamer quietly brought a box of partially painted figures of mixed origin to the club. A kinda aborted project he needed space and put a very low price on them. Normally I do not buy painted figures but this was a good bargain and he gave me puppy dog eyes :)
Originally I was going to re-primer but upon further viewing decided to just touch up and give them a wash. With two coats of dullcoat I am pleased with the results. Not my usual style of painting but certainly do play the part well; the “regimental touch-up” as noted in the letter above. Also note that veterans means experienced by another - like pre-owned cars and 'experienced' golf balls....
The number of figures were pleasantly perfect to create a complete Field Force to which I added a few smaller sized donkeys I had waiting for some paint, to include for any scenario design and simply because they look good together!
As the previous owner super glued the figures to the bases and had applied a couple of different methods of basing using sand, I could not redo the basing - at least not with a heck of lot of effort! - and so did what I could to make myself happier with the bases. While not ideal, the GW round bases are not bad for the type of game.
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| A mixed collection of manufactures including I think (?) Old Glory and Tiger Miniatures |
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| The basing is still a work in progress. Might dry brush additional sand colours and add a bit of dead grass to cover up the obvious figure's base lines. |
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| The donkeys baggage train. Many scenarios employ baggage for victory conditions. |
Re-reading the above "Narrative" preamble, the reader will induce a number of issues which will influence the game. Boring terrain for example as I have nothing for North Africa! And of not seeing any natives? It will certainly be the case as, again, I have none to play with and so the game will be the ultimate solo affair ; without another player, without terrain and without an enemy! All will be up to my imagination and the dice.
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| The featureless terrain - as I have little for this period and region. The scrub is brown lichen and the clumps of 'straw' are markers for the hidden Berbers. They are obviously masters of the art of fieldcraft and are impossible to see.....as I have none! ;) |
I am using “THE MEN WHO WOULD BE KINGS” rules by Dan Mercey for colonials. Among its fun characteristics is that of rolling for the traits of the officers commanding each unit. Well, as
suggested by our legionarire writer to his dear mother, my die rolling poor, as it often is, was to foist officers of 1-2, 1-3, and 6-5 onto the three units of my field force. That is to say, one officer has “ a fine moustache” (which indeed the diced for figure actually does have!) but he is very poor commander ; as is #2 but he is “bullet-proof” so unlikely to die and bring in a better rated sergeant! And for the machine gun, it’s officer is short-sighted so the machine gun cannot fire to advantage at long range targets…
And as I determined the officers not to be of the highest quality, they did not think to have scouts and so will be ambushed accordingly.
The terrain, what there is of it, has a small dry stream bed behind thin scrub to hide three groups of riflemen with modern arms together with a machine gun but poorly handled. The fourth rifle unit was in hiding laying down behind an almost indiscernible rise of land.
The two Legion rifle units are in line of march with the machine gun and baggage mules between.
Each side has 24 points.
We start the game with the bullets flying….
TO BE CONTINUED