Mad Dog’s And Englishmen- A Review

I came across Jon Sutherland’s 2018 Mad Dogs and Englishmen ( MDAE ) almost by accident. One thing, Crimean War, led to another, India. The rules are named after the title of a Noel Coward song from 1931.  All distinctively Colonial as befits Mr Sutherland’s rules. He aims to cover many conflicts.

MDAE popped up again during Roger of Go Pa’s Sikh Wars Rules Quest. Roger liked some of the mechanisms. However he lacked the cards. 

Then I listened to a 30 minute You tube review by Ralph Astley. Mr A was disappointed by Mad Dogs and Englishmen. Too many gaps and contradictions in his view made it unplayable. Specifically he detests the lack of a good editorial hand. I hope he never buys Furioso! 

All the same Mr A detected there was possibly a good game in there albeit with  work. Since then one of my correspondents has pronounced them unplayable as they stand. Recall both these fellows paid their money but couldn't take their turn.

I was hoping a cheap second hand copy. Alas that was not to be. I paid full price.  Of course Mad Dogs and Englishmen was originally intended for the Mutiny. Currently I am doing the Mutiny. Also MDAE is partially Card Driven. Units can fight defensively for anything else it's a card. I like cards in games.

Let us take a gentle dander through the core rules. Specifically, the bits I like.  I like variable movement and MDAE has it in spades. No lack of uncertainty there.

Also, we see the Sepoys move and manoeuvre with the same efficiency as the British and Loyal sepoys.  This is correct and often overlooked. If that changed later on I see it a sensible response to facing the Enfield Rifle. Close order and outranged by Enfield's? No future in that.

The Enfield advantage is detailed along with other guns and missilery. Except the Brunswick Rifle is missing.  Mentioned in the rules but missing from the tables. Pleasingly MDAE makes the point that not all British Regiments had Enfield rifles.  Of course they eventually did get them.

There are a load of cards required for MDAE. Some of them seem of very similar effect. The better your commander the more cards they get. The cards enable aggressive actions or hinder the foe. 

Once you play them they are gone. If you win an engagement you get one back, destroy an enemy unit and you get 2 back. But which one? Can you pick? Or, is it an entirely random new one?

You have to make the cards. You can see some of mine on the page. They are either Leader or Action cards. I’m presuming that you choose which cards your Leader gets? Or maybe its random? Whatever, you could tailor the cards to the sort of action you wish to fight. You could make new additional cards. The author doesn’t say.

Then there are Hits. Some Hits are Kills and some cause Terror. There is a chart to tell you which. It all works. Too much Terror and your lads run away. As they would.

Leaders can rally off terror using their Command Rating/Points. So far as I can tell a Leader wanting to do this throws a dice and the result reduces that amount of Terror on a given unit.

Sir Colin Campbell (above right) is a sixer in command points. When his card is turned he can do 6 things. Six things in the entire game? That was my best guess. But Campbell and the other Leaders have 2 cards each. So for Campbell it is 12 things in a game

There’s nothing for it but to Play Test Mad Dog’s And Englishmen. 

My two MDF "Indian" Buildings shown above might be finished in time. Red Vector Afghan/African buildings from Pendraken. 

Also above British and Indian guns and crews. Irregular, Dixon and Irregular if you feel your wallet twitching.

Will it work? I couldn’t tell you. There is some intriguing thinking all the same.

Finally, you might like these Civilians from Fighting 15s. There was a grand outfit. Anyhow, could it be the Collector, the Magistrate and a member of the Fishing Fleet? No? A daughter then or perhaps an affianced Lady. Surely not to the Magistrate?

Next week we are back in the Crimea.

A Crimean War-Cavalry Rules Revision

I was going to spend most of this post explaining why I’m opting for this revision. If you are new here that's for the very impressive Charge of The Light Brigade (COTLB) rules  Then I realised that would involve a journey from Napoleonic Spain to India and Russia and back to India.  I simply quailed at the length of the repetition of information involved. Above, the Light Brigade minus the 13th Light Dragoons.

We will have some cavalry pic's instead. Turks above French below. I really like these figures.

There is the mechanism in COTLB to replicate the impact of a dashing British Cavalry Charge. Here it is:

“ (a) Plus 3 British Cavalry in line or double line attacking Russian Cavalry.

“ (b) Plus 2 For cavalry charging  or counter charging in double line (lines within 4” of each other). Russian attack column striking infantry or artillery straight on.

This very much reflects the mythology of the Crimean War and is fine if that’s what you want. If you want the history version here is mine:

“ (a) Plus 3 Lancer Cavalry in line or double line attacking in the first round only.  A plus 2 for Heavy Cavalry fighting Light Cavalry in first and second rounds only.

“ (b) Plus 2 For cavalry charging  or counter charging in double line (lines within 4” of each other). Russian attack column striking infantry or artillery straight on.

As you see, a big impact for the Lancers charging home. At first anyhow. After that any advantage is lost. Just as Captain Nolan tells us it should be. Leave your lance in the enemy or on the ground said Nolan.

Captain Godman and his comrades will still enjoy the advantage of being bigger men on larger horses with longer sharp pointed straight swords when fighting Russian Light Cavalry. 

Light Cavalry were smaller men armed with shorter sabres (very sharp) on smaller horses. Godman and indeed all Heavy Dragoons used the point. The Light Cavalry, Russian or otherwise, used the edge. If we consider that the sabres of the British Light Cavalry were routinely blunted by the steel scabbards used we see a problem.

Now we have something that accords with our sources for the Crimean War. Below, the 13th Light Dragoons by Minifigs. With that my Light Brigade is completed.

Should I have piqued your interest for more you can read my Sikh War or Crimean War posts. Should you want to go further get yourself a copy of Nolan on Cavalry. I intend a series of posts on the Battle of Balaclava that I hope you will enjoy.

Now, what haven't I done? There's irregular cavalry, a big topic. Then the fascinating information that horses are much happier going uphill than downhill!  Everyday is a school day. 

I will have to think through the Irregular Cavalry thing. The uphill horses info' intrigues me. Cavalry +1 Charging uphill? Here I note Scarlett's Cavalry moved uphill. 

One more thing. It was not uncommon for the first rank of a cavalry unit to carry lances while the second carried a sabre. The Russians sometimes did this. The idea being the Lancers broke the enemy formation and the sabre armed troopers exploited the chaos.

Next time in the Crimea we will look at the COTLB Infantry Rules. Some clever stuff there.

Also Robert Kershaw’s book 24 Hours at Balaclava has some interesting observations about the British infantry.  We will consider the physical condition of the men and the long term impact of flogging.

Sieges, Sowars and Sepoys - The Fierce and the Guns

 

Today, we are back in India 1857. The job is to produce amendments that make Charge of the Light Brigade (COTLB) rules work for India.

There is a mechanism in COTLB to replicate the impact of a dashing British Cavalry Charge. Here it is:

“ (a) Plus 3 British Cavalry in line or double line attacking Russian Cavalry.

“ (b) Plus 2 For cavalry charging  or counter charging in double line (lines within 4” of each other). Russian attack column striking infantry or artillery straight on.

Very good, you can see what the author wants. How about India?

Let’s simplify:

“ (a) Plus 3 Lancer Cavalry in line or double line attacking  Artillery, Cavalry, Infantry in first round only.

(b) Plus 2 For cavalry charging  or counter charging in double line (lines within 4” of each other). Fierce infantry in line or  attack column striking infantry or artillery. First  round only.

Above we capture the temporary advantage conveyed by the lance. Captain Nolan advised that lancers post first contact should leave their lances embedded in the foe or on the ground. The extra reach of the lance was a real initial advantage. Read Captain Temple Godman's near escape in the Crimean War. Lancers could be found on both sides in India 1857.

Right so. Who are the Fierce? To a degree this is subjective. Meaning you must make your choice on the basis of the best information you have.

Consider the Highlanders. Sir Colin Campbell continually used them in highly aggressive actions. Some say that was because Campbell was a fierce Highlander and so were the lads. Others point out that the Highlanders were fully up to strength. Many British units were not. A good reason they were not chosen. 

I'm not labouring the point above with the underlining. I cannot get rid of it. Imagine it is not there if you will.

Some like to designate the Sikhs and Gurkhas as Fierce. I would qualify both as so in open battle. In City Fighting the Sikhs had other priorities.

On the Indian side of the lines we have Sadhus, Ghazi and Wahabis. Religious motivation is compelling. I’d say all of these could be Fierce. 

Although note there were never many militant Sadhus or Ghazis even. My Sadhus below, half the strength of a Regular unit.

Consider the evangelical British Colonels who had been preaching the concept of the Elect of God to their men for months and years. Then came Cawnpore and a subsequent storm of Atrocity Propaganda. Such formations might well qualify as Fierce.

We had British Officers telling W H Russell that the reason Sepoys fought to the death was that they were fanatics. That sound Fierce too.

Decisions should be made pre game. There should not be more than a few such Fierce units on each side.

The Guns next.

In the Anglo- Sikh Wars and in 1857 British officers noted a curious phenomenon.  Indian gunners got 3 shots off to every 2 the British managed. Why? Don’t know. The Indian genius for mathematics? It is recorded that the Indians were more accurate too.

Therefore I’m amending COTLB from:

“An artillery battery consists of three stands each of two men plus one piece.”

To

An artillery battery consists of three stands each of two men plus one piece for British and three stands each of three men plus one piece for Indian regular artillery.

Why so? In COTLB artillery fires by throwing one dice for each crew figure. There’s our 3 for 2. It is not often so easy.

Another easy hit is the advantage of the Enfield Rifle. The British had it the Sepoys didn't. Mind you at the start some British units didn't have it either.

More of this COTLB amending to come. Not too much I think. Next the all important higher command. Quite often the Sepoys had none.

I think this is going to work.

Meantime I have a copy of Mad Dogs and Englishmen by Jon Sutherland. These are not new Indian Mutiny rules (2018) but they are interesting.  I might even review them just to tease out the concepts more. Mainly I like aspects of the author's approach. Other's think he made a mess of it. See Ralph Astley's review on You tube for that.

I bought a copy of course. Some of the things that vexed Mr Astley are there alright. All the same I'm interested enough to make the cards. It is a Card Driven Game, mainly.

A final thought. I need a bit of this kind of thing. It is a British Official Residence about 1860. Big enough but not palatial. They varied in size according to the gig.

Further down the social scale. The Opium Agent's and similar ranks cottages. Note the European tiles and chimney pots.

It strikes me as an "Indian" version of a row of English rural cottages. There would have been servants galore. Yet it was very much the lower middle class version of gracious living. Akin to the English mini villas that so many of them retired too. I have been to such and find them fascinating. It's like being 28mm scale and living in a 20mm scale house.

Note the heavier European clothes. It cannot have been very comfortable. Caste Marks in a way I suppose.

We are back in the Crimea next week.