I've been meaning to give Blood & Steel from Firelock Games a go for some time now. This is a set of small unit skirmish rules for the 19th century. This post is going to be a combination of a battle report and my thoughts on the rules themselves.
Starting with the rules, you don't need a lot of troops for a single evening's game. I'm in two minds as to its viability as a multi-player game however, although the rules authors claim this can be done. Maybe we should give it a try?
The game features army lists, although currently the only one I can use out of the box is the Zulu War list. There is a bias towards US conflicts. The period covered stretches from the Seminole Wars (1816-58) to the Spanish-American conflict of 1898, so you could conceivably even play with Boer War or Boxer Rebellion armies. Beyond that you'd need to go to Firelock's sister title for WW1, Blood & Valor.
For Darkest Africa I mined a number of units from other lists to put together my forces for a group of bandits and a rapid response force from my fictional West Africa Trading Company. I actually based the game on a skirmish featured on the amazing colonial wars website of Major General Tremordern Rederring.
Things I liked about Blood & Steel
I like the initiative system, which is based on rolling a d10 for each leader and each unit. Rolls of more than 4 mean a unit can take two actions, less than 4 and it is only one. As units can lose actions due to Fatigue, this can mean some of your units become immobile later in the game. This is actually a very nice system to govern initiative and combat actions. Also, if you roll more 1s than 10s, bad things happen to your force. Roll more 10s than 1s and good things happen.
The mission system in the game, which we didn't use. also looks very interesting with each side having secret objectives. I'd like to have another game just to test this out.
Things I didn't like about Blood & Steel
It does not feel like a colonial game. One of the things I like about colonial wargaming is the asymmetric nature of the fighting. In B&S this does not feel like the case. Native forces seem to be able to move and fight like regulars. My feeling on first playing it is that it would be more suited to actions in the American Civil War or Franco-Prussian War. Some of the army lists feature colonial wars - e.g. the Maori Wars in New Zealand - but I don't think this game has that feel.
Ultimately, B&S feels more like a bridge game between Warhammer 40k and historical nineteenth century wargaming.
Skirmish At The Finolah Minehead
This game was very loosely based on the original scenario, but with greater numbers. The outcome was the same however. A group of bandits and slavers are raiding a mine in the interior beloning to the West Africa Trading Company, which is very sensitive about its mining assets. Their objective is the silver in the company paychest and the dynamite in the magazine (I had considered including the dynamite rules from B&S for the game, but decided against). The bandits must break into the magazine to retrieve the dynamite, find the paychest in the mining office and then get away down the valley.
WATC is sending a contingent of askaris commanded by Captain Aubrey James (yes, it is he) to deal with the rascals before they abscond with something valuable.
Opening moves: Captain Aubrey James arrives at the mine with three units of askaris. He is accompanied by his Lieutenant, Ripplington Dashley. They deploy towards the right to focus on the key objectives of the magazine and mining office with its paychest.
The bandits had two groups, armed with melee weapons. I thought this might be a disadvantage for them, but needn't have worried. Here they are looting the nearby village as the askaris turn up. The fellow in red is the bandit lieutenant, Zanzibar slaver Hassan Hadeni Al Yir.
Mid game and the Company advance was checked when the bandits counter-attacked (the askaris having been pinned down by showers of arrows). The breech loaders were not as effective as hoped and the bandits and James' askaris were caught up in a melee which saw both units pretty much annihilated. James managed to survive with one askari, cowering together in the long grass!
A better picture of the battle. Capt James and his askari are being assailed with musket fire. In the foreground the bandits are trying to escape with the paychest and the explosives. On the right Lt Dashley is moving around the flank to try to block the escape route down the valley.
Here we have Lieutenant Dashley and his askaris about to be overrun by archers. As it turned out, it makes more sense to throw your archers into melee in Blood & Steel rather than bothering with shooting arrows. Not a good outcome for poor Dashley I'm afraid.
The closing turns of the game - Capt James decides to flee with his two surviving askaris, as "someone needs to write this up for the directors after all!"
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