Looking for a Rani? India 1857

 

Above Blue Moon's Rani of Jhansi. Smart, brave and well liked yet. Venerated even. The late Angus McBride was a wonderful illustrator. He painted the Rani like this. Many thanks to Iain below in the comments who reminded me of this splendid image.

Back to our model with a better look at her face.

Time was we had Irregular, Dixon and Blue Moon to represent the epic Indian struggles of 1857. Irregular is gone now. All the same they may turn up second hand and so are included.

Here we see the Rani accompanied by an Irregular Bugler and officer. Not a bad fit I think. Let's do more.

I bought the Blue Moon Indian Command pack in the hope that it would fit with my existing collection. You may judge if it does by the pic’s below.

 

Here is her nibs with a base of Dixon Indian Cavalry.  Not such a good fit is it? Now things get odd. Below, Dixon infantry protect the Rani.

 

This is a very good fit. Indeed, better than that between Dixon mounted and foot.

Now to Irregular Miniatures infantry with the Rani. 

A tad small I think. 

Not so above with the Dixon Cavalry. Very compatible I’d say.

I cannot advise on the Blue Moon infantry as I have none. I can tell you that Blue Moon infantry can be bigger or smaller. The 7YW are bigger than the ’45 fellows. The former match Old Glory, the latter Essex Miniatures. If the Blue Moon 1857 offering is among the smaller fellows they will do. If not they won’t.

To conclude I can see Dixon Miniatures infantry and Blue Moon/ Irregular cavalry working very nicely together. While the Dixon Cavalry go really well with the irregular infantry. Separate units enable a wider selection.

Here is the artillery. Dixon first.

Irregular Miniatures next.

I hope this is useful for those contemplating a new collection or just additions to an existing one.

Addendum

I couldn’t help being inspired by Angus McBride’s rendition of Lakshmi Bai Rani of Jhansi. Mine I thought was a bit plain by comparison. I reached for my brushes. 

Much better. Thanks again Iain.

India 1857- Irregular’s Indian Mutiny Range 15mm

My India 1857/8 comes from Dixon and Irregular. Today I though we might see some of the Irregular ones. Mainly because I have rebased them. Also, as toy soldiers go they are rather fun. Often not much on display by way of uniform. Not as we normally understand it anyhow. Here and there you might see a Dixon miniature.

Irregular have returned from a well deserved extended Christmas Break. Pleasingly they still offer a British Army Pack and an Indian Army pack £35.00 each. A very accessible way into gaming the period.

British Heavy Dragoons above. I really like these. They seem to capture the big lads on big horses thing very nicely.

British Lancers. A mixture of uniforms to remind us we are in in India.

British Light Dragoons. Here I wonder about the sword thing again. Blunt swords must have cost many lives. Or, conversely saved them. The British Regular Native Cavalry had the same problem. Here is an extract from Mutiny Reflections:

“Again, reforms had been proposed for the light cavalry as far back as 1847, and interestingly enough, the recommended changes came from Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Carmichael Smyth. He wanted to clothe the cavalry in “a broadcloth Ulkalluck, or long native dress, a pair of loose trousers, a turban and cummerbund with Hindoostanee saddles and bridles, “ thus aligning them in dress to the irregular cavalry who were not only more comfortably dressed but better equipped, forgoing the light cavalry sword for the much more efficient tulwars and shamshirs.”

No one in authority heeded Smyth. Nolan was championing the same cause years later. With some incremental success we might note beginning with saddle and tack.

 

Sikh Sowars with a British Officer. Sharp blades there.

 

A variety of Sikh Infantry next. No Indians were ever entrusted with the Enfield in 1857/8. They carried the percussion musket.

Each Sepoy regiment had a Rifle Company armed with  Brunswick Rifles. Better than the Baker Rifle it was said. An effective Indian Commander might cause these to be combined into a Rifle Battalion. Otherwise each rifle element might remain with its parent body.

 

A couple of gun emplacements. The gabions and defences are from Irregular.

The Crimean War once more next time. I have found something interesting.

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.

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.

Sieges, Sowars and Sepoys-Basics

As previously mentioned I intend to do India 1857 inspired by David Louis Raybin's excellent Charge of the Light Brigade rules. 

I'm calling it Sieges, Sowars and Sepoys. This post is a marker for work that will appear next year.

New ideas often bring their own workload. I’m thinking here of rebasing. Charge of the Light Brigade rules (COTLB) is relaxed about basing. The key thing is to have the right number of figures per unit. I don’t see much rebasing coming my way consequent of Sieges, Sowars and Sepoys . Today I'm going to show you what I've done so far. Above main street in my Indian City.

As with my Crimean War Project I'm impressed by the visual impact units of this size make.

Here is the COTLB suggested basing.

Units of 24 infantry and 12 cavalry. But for the fact that most of my cavalry is already based like that I’d go for bases of 3. So, no basing issues.

I do need to expand my unit strength. Mostly I will cannibalise what I already have. No new big buys needed then. Except! I need a single based officer for each battalion. Do I have enough? We will find out.

I intend to work my way through my collection completing it to COTLB spec' regiment by regiment. At the end I will know what I need to buy if anything.

The pic's are of completed units so far.  The rest of my time has been spent in making a list of what I consider to be the defining characteristics of the combats of the period.  Of these there are two major grouping City Fighting and that on the battle field. We will consider both lists in due course. 

Let's finish with a true story from late in 1857. A Sikh Raja was holding a fort for the Great Moghul. He had been there for years. When the rebellion took hold he felt duty bound to declare for the Moghul. After that since there were no British near him he sat it out. There wasn't much to do.

Towards the end of the year the Rebellion was collapsing. The British sent an emissary. Where did the Raja stand? Would he surrender on Full Pardon? The Raja replied he would but there needed to be some finessing. The Raja wanted a British Force to threaten his fort and demand he surrender. He could then do so with honour having saved his subjects from the horrors of the sack. Those horrors were real enough and usually included massacre.

The deal was done. Everybody was happy. A force was despatched under a newly arrived British Officer. It was big enough to be taken seriously. News of the deal leaked to the British soldiers. The target fort was formidably fortified front and sides. The back though was not. Maybe the money ran out.

The Raja had intended that the British should surround him. Notice the weak back wall and demand surrender. All good.

Instead the British OC ordered an immediate frontal attack. He was obeyed. The Raja's soldiers were standing to. They opened up with steady fire. The British were repulsed with heavy losses. Night fell. In the darkness negotiations began. The Raja surrendered as agreed. The British OC was spirited out of the camp to prevent his murder by the outraged soldiery.

The fog of war is proverbial and the story illustrates it. What struck me was the effectiveness of traditional Indian soldiers with matchlocks behind cover. Optimum conditions granted, they had cover and the British had to come into range.  All the same. 

As far as I can ascertain the Raja's garrison was not Sepoys or Pathans or other Afghans. They were, I guess, the local warrior caste. As they were not privy to their Raja's diplomacy they did their best. It was enough.

Here we must note, Sieges, Sowars and Sepoys must make provision for more than  trained regular soldiers.  Sadhus, Ghazi and Wahabi have their place too. To them we must add the roaming bands of armed British Civilians.

Being a fan of JG Farrell's novel The Siege of Krishnapur I have always wanted a Residency for the table top. The Residency was where the British Resident or Collector Lived. The top local Colonial Official. Sarissa Precision have one. I might buy it.

Crimean War News and More

 

Regular readers know I have an enduring interest in the Crimean War.  Two bits of good news have come my way. I share them with you. Consequently I show you the first of my expanded Crimean War Collection.  Much more of this to come.

 

First David Louis Raybin author of Charge Of The Light Brigade wargame rules has most kindly placed a link for the second edition on Lead Adventure Forum. If you would like a copy the link is in the named thread below on Lead Adventure Forum. For some reason I cannot paste a direct link here. Try the one below should you wish to download a copy.

Charge of the Light Brigade Rules? | Lead Adventure Forum 

If you are new to  Charge of the Light Brigade you are in for a treat. The rules are truly innovative and capture the essentials of Crimean War dynamics.  As you can tell I am very impressed. So much so that I painted additional figures to meet the requirement of 24 figure infantry units. You can see the results on this page. Top of the page my bound copy. Money well spent. It is going to get lots of use.

 

My second bit of good news is that Barry Hilton has turned his attention to his Crimean War rules.  I have been looking forward to these for some years. Working title Four Empires R2E Crimean supplement.  The game is an extension of Barry’s Republic to Empire game. My Crimean War collection has long been rebased to suit this system. By great good fortune 24 figure infantry units are just the ticket.

Now to the more. A close reading of Charge of the Light Brigade reveals a system eminently adaptable for India 1857. 

I’ll write a separate post on that. I find it an exciting concept. Suffice for the moment to mention I have begun writing Sieges, Sepoys and Sowars. I have high hopes of it.

That’s it for now. I hope you enjoy the pic’s. I have all the British and Russian Brigades done now. The French and the Turks next.