Getting to be a bit of a Boer

Images from Historifig website 

Well, I've taken the plunge. Last week Ron broke out the Colonials for a nail biter of a Colonial game with "my" Brits just hanging on to a ridge for a narrow win. With a  decision still pending on the best way to scratch my long deferred  Boer  War itch, I took the plunge when I got home and ordered some Scruby Boers from Historifigs and then a handful more of Jacklex figures from Spencer-Smith (gotta  have a classic 4.7" somewhere in my collection) to get me started.

Reinforcements on table from a week ago with Brits holding the hill. Ron Porter's figure and table.

Not saying I will never do it in 40mm toy style but these classic ranges have the right sort of OS look, are cheap enough for even my budget and, based on pictures and remarks on the Plastic Pelisse  and John's Lead Garden and my own experience with Scruby 25mm Mamlukes, are close enough to the Ral Partha's that  I'll be happy fielding them on the same table. 

For now it will be a small force for Battlecry games to be followed by British, and then I suppose by Zulus/Matabele/Basuto. Whether or not it ever expands and blossoms into something else or reaches as far as Tel el Kebir is another question for another day.

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This week, long time friend Simon MacDowall (red 'jumper') crossed over the pond. Its been  a decade or two since we have been able to squeeze a game  in but Ron graciously hosted us for a 3 player Battle Cry game, a long way from Simon's usual fare but just right for a quick break from the pub. This time it was the Afghans defending the ridge and Simon and I ended up on the same side, the first time in 40 years as far as we could recall. Innuendos that it was no accident that Simon's Afghan force (see http://legio-wargames.com/#/the-legio-blog/4553964887 for more pictures)  was driven off the ridge and wiped out before reinforcements arrived, must surely be dismissed in face of the great personal risk run by my General and his escort who defeated Ron's right wing, capturing its general and preventing the capture of the only flag we held at the end. Luckily enough of my men were left at the end to be able to garrison his tribal areas as well as my own once we let the British buy peace.

As an aside, probably the last time that all 3 of us were in the same place at the same time would have been at a meeting of the Montreal Wargamers at the old fort on Ile St Helene in 1976/77. 
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OK back to designing my card table game and experiments with going small but grid-less or not and with abandoning casualties or not.