This Thursday's action....

This weeks game that I played at the SESWC on Thursday evening was a cut down version of the Battle of Chillianwallah from the 2^nd Sikh War in 1849. 

It was a 25mm Black Powder game.  I devised the scenario and Colin Jack provided the armies from his Minifigs Sikh War collection.  Colin Jack and Neil McCormack commanded the British Army made up mostly of Bengali sepoys whilst  Dave Cooper and I commanded the Sikhs.   Both armies deployed facing each other with cavalry units on both flanks.   For an account and map of the actual battle link:

http://britishbattles.com/second-sikh-war/chillianwallah.htm

Normally when I have played BP before I have used the 66% scale version of the rules with reduced movement and ranges – this time we used the standard scale.  On a 6 foot wide table the standard scale worked okay but we did have some every sweeping advances with triple moves.  The game went fairly quickly even though Dave and Neil had not played the rules before.  For game balance I think all the Sikh Infantry brigades should be of 4 battalions but we lacked sufficient figures.   Even fighting with that problem for the Sikhs we declared the game a draw.

 

The order of battle I used for the game is given below.  I gave some units Useful rules.  The 4 British Infantry battalions were Steady, Crack and had First Fire.  Sikh cavalry were Unreliable and Wavering while the Alkalis were Bloodthirsty.  All the units were rated as standard size for BP.

2^ND SIKH WAR Battle of Chillianwallah 1849 Scenario OB

Sikh Army  CinC Shere Singh  (7)

1^ST and 2^ND Sikh infantry Brigades each

3 units of Sikh Infantry of 16 figures

Gun & crew

3^RD Sikh infantry Brigade

4 units of Sikh Infantry of 16 figures

Gun & crew

4^TH Sikh Volunteer infantry Brigade

2 units of disaffected Sepoys of 16 figures

1 unit of Akali fanatics of 16 figures

Gun & crew

1^st Sikh cavalry Brigade

1 unit of 6 regular lancers

1 unit of 10  irregular cavalry

2^nd Sikh cavalry Brigade

2 units of 10  irregular cavalry

CinC  Lord Gough (8)

1st Brigade

2 units of British infantry of 14 figs

2 units of Sepoy infantry of 14 figs

Elephant drawn British foot gun

2nd and 3rd Brigades each

1 unit of British infantry of 14 figs

3 units of Sepoy infantry of 14 figs

Elephant drawn British foot gun

British Cavalry Brigade

1 unit of British Lancers of 9 figs

1 unit of British Dragoons of 9 figs

1 unit of Bengal Native cavalry of 9 figs

British Horse artillery foot gun