Simple Sinai - 1917

Well it has been awhile.  Down a bit from the blogging thing but not out.

 The local club opened up (with a lot of restrictions of course, proof of vaccination, wearing of masks, yada yada (mostly due to being in a civic installation perhaps) so a wargaming buddy WillB hosted a "Dragon Rampant" rules Lord of the Rings affair.  I helped his young son to a glorious victory of the Good over his father’s Baddies. Arthur appeared to really enjoy himself.

I got the idea from those rules that perhaps I could apply them to my rather dormant WW1 in the Middle East 1:72 scale plastics collection. So during the week I worked on wedging the stats for fantasy units into those for use with machine guns, tanks and airplanes…. On the next Friday, a couple of my wargame buddies, Peter and Craig,  came over to give it a go and give it a good analysis (both seem to love the mathematical/analytics of it all!)  

My collection of Australians and Ottoman Turks (mainly HaT) has been a haphazard affair as I gained the original figures in some distant deal or prize of which I don’t really remember.   They are certainly not a main focus, not really of super-interest to me; and frankly,  the figures themselves not worthy of much effort.  I must admit it shows in the rather lack of  plain terrain. Heck, even the lack of basing. Is not the Sinai desert bare and flat?!  Perhaps we should just put it down to a minimalist “old-school” approach, shall we….  

Minimalist you say?  How about tents from a used Toblerone chocolate box!  (note the red Turk chits are to indicate battered or activated (plain flip side)

The campaign I have sort of chosen to go with is the battles around Gaza in 1917. The Turks were mostly entrenched and the Allies (I have given the “Australians” a much greater role than historical as it must be said the Australian infantry only participated in the Gallipoli Campaign, moving to the Western Front so my use of them in the Sinai is incorrect. But the correct British uniformed version (from the same HaT company) are very large in comparison so will not use.

aircraft over Turkish line

The simple scenario was for the Aussies to take the village, the entrenched Turks to defend.  The game was expressly was a test of the rules. The boys were so approving, as it turned out, that much of the ‘after battle report’ was how to blend it into a campaign.    

Can’t have WW1 without tanks and strafing aircraft so I painted up those during the week for the game. Yes, British tanks (still in army green and apparently still sporting English mud in the shipment!) were historically employed during this campaign - but rather unsuccessfully. I imposed the rule that a failed move activation by a tank activates an immediate 2nd roll, failure of which has the tank immobile for the rest of the game (call it break-down, stuck in the sand, mechanical malfunction

So surprisingly a tank can be classified as a large beast. Not really a stretch, but mixed with the other classifications and a bit of specific rules, even aircraft can be accounted for in the simple ‘Lion Rampant/Dragon Rampant’ style action.  With a quick look at the stat cards I had ready, the boys knew the dice rolls needed and the action required for each of the troop types. Simple dice rolling game. Maybe not ideally historical but then, is ANY miniature ruleset??  

Turkish units behind quickly made ‘trenches’ made of self hardening clay

The tank has breeched the abandoned trenches attacking the Turkish infantry —already with 7 of 12 strength points removed. 

For the record…. and we fought it without any morale or army breakpoints…. most units were eliminated from the battle, but the Aussies had one tank in the town and the Turks could not really hurt it with their lone HMG unit. Yup we made it long and bloody but it was for a rules test, not the scenario was the end result. Some more work to do but the boys did well and gave it a good go. I thank them for it.