I wanted to try out my newly painted 15mm Peter Laing Mounties, so set up a quick backwoods scenario on one of my small portable game boards using a crowded mountain terrain mostly of old Heroscape hexes and some pine trees.
I have been reading up about some of the Canadian rebellions and the role of the Mounted Police.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/North-West_Rebellion
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/North-West_Mounted_Police
Scenario
Four dismounted Mounties and two on horseback were on patrol down a narrow creek or wooded canyon where rebel activity had been reported.
The two on horseback rode off to scout the valley whilst the dismounted four stayed back to watch down the valley and give covering fire as needed.
In the original Close Wars rules, which was an appendix to Donald Featherstone’s 1962 book War Games, there are no horses or mounted infantry mentioned.
I had no rules to hand for melee from infantry to cavalry or mounted infantry, so when the Mounties rode into contact with the waiting hidden rebels, we skipped the melee stage and went straight to firing.
Playing solo, most of the awkward decisions as the game progressed were solved by creating a dice roll rule for the situation. For example, I quickly wrote a d6 dice rule – firing at cavalry or mounted infantry, if a six or hit is rolled, 1-3 horse is killed, 4 both horse and rider killed and 5-6 rider killed.
In the situation of having a horse killed or cavalry dismounting to fight, a replacement infantry figure is obviously needed. I have enough spare Peter Laing figures to manage this in future. Obviously one figure has to remain back as a horse holder and some spare horses will also be needed.
Another quick d6 rule was required to decide for rebels being able to pass through the narrow creek over the fallen horses (and riders) at half rate of movement (4-6) or the narrow canyon being made impassable (1-3).
Once the Mounties on horseback had ridden into the canyon or creek, their escape was cut off by the small group of rebels lurking lower right.
Once the Mounties on horseback had ridden into the canyon or creek, their escape was cut off by the small group of rebels lurking lower right.
Very quickly both mounted figures were down and out, then the Mounties on foot were quickly pursued by much larger numbers of rebels.
Another quick d6 rule for the Mounties on foot was to retreat on a dice roll of 1-3 or stay and fight 4-6. They retreated.
Omce they had reached where they entered the gameboard, they were deemed to have picked up their horses and be able to escapement on horseback.
The Mounties are 15mm Peter Laing Boers and AWI Settlers, recently painted.
https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2018/11/25/peter-laing-15mm-mounties-on-the-painting-table-rcmp/
The rebels were Peter Laing 15mm Boers at the trail and Confederate Butternut Infantry.
It has been a while since I got such a short game in and whilst the rules were a bit rusty in my head, I enjoyed it nonetheless.
I had better start painting more Mounties for the return column!
Blog posted by Mark, Man of TIN, 30 November 2018.
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