The Little Nine Years War: The Story So Far

Yes, I know, I said the next post would be that Crysler's Farm report and it will come, it was a good game and deserves something,  but there were ideas in my head, new troops to paint, old ones to refurbish, terrain to prepare, rules to clarify and a card table game to play. In due course, after checking for painting information in Andrew Rose's guide to Toy Soldiers as well as Kannick, Funcken and others, ransacking the cupboard for surplus painted ACW and Zulu war infantry to refurbish and looting the nascent Boer War project, I was ready to begin a late 19thC Cardtable Campaign using The Square Brigadier as rules. (Essentially a late 19thC version of the 20thC one ).  The rules will appear as a blog page before long.

The game took somewhere between 1 and 2 hours to reach a final, surprise, conclusion and turned out to have just the sort of look and feel I have been working towards since deciding to do a permanent downstairs card table game, based on  Bob Cordery's Portable Wargame with an improvised ACW version of Sawmill Village, back in November of 2012 .

And so dear readers, let me take you back 130 odd years, to a land far away......

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King Egbert, ruler of the small island Kingdom of Nottingland was, through his mother, the grandson and rightful heir of the Duke of Hungover, an even smaller Duchy on the coast of the Mainland. Unfortunately the good Hungoverian burghers got tired of paying taxes to someone who didn't work for a living and didn't conduct public policy in a way to maximize the wealth of his subjects. After a heated public debate, the Council proclaimed that the Duchy was now the Hungoverian Free State and asked the old Duke to please hand over the keys to the treasury and ducal palace and retire to his country estate. He chose instead to take a fast ship to visit his grandson. Shortly after an Nottinglish fleet appeared off the coast. The Council called the citizens  of the Free State to arms and with just a roll of the drum, the Nine Years War was begun.

The initial Nottinglish landing party, commanded by Brigadier Steele, consisted of the 1st or Grenadier Guards, the 2nd or Fullstream Guards, the 1st & 2nd Infantry battalions, a machinegun battery and a 4.7" gun with Royal Marine Artillery crew. (Please note that the tail of the column which snakes up the side of the board is technically off table following the small, unmarked path)  

The Hungoverians did not at the time have a standing army, apart from the  City Guard, but the Customs and Internal Security departments maintained several well trained paramilitary units. There was also a strong tradition of citizen soldiers  with the rural gentry and their tenants providing Mounted Rifles, the City Volunteers providing artillery as well as garrison troops and villagers everywhere being expected to turn out parties of riflemen for local defense.

The armies clashed at the little town of  Grant's Mills. Moving quickly, the mounted Burgers seized the town and their accurate fire forced back the MG but its return fire soon drove them from the town. 

The Hungoverian Infantry was slow to follow up and the Nottinglish Guards pushed forward seizing a farm on their left as well as the center of the town under the cover of their heavy artillery. The City Guard was at hand though and pressing forward through a horrendous storm of shell and bullets, took back the town in a fierce hand to hand struggle,  wiping out the stubborn 1st Guards.

As the Hungoverian City Volunteer artillery deployed between the town and the farm, an assault by the Nottinglish line infantry took back the town  despite heavy losses. A counter attack by mounted Burgers  and City Guards was wiped out  but their own losses were heavy. A final counter attack by the Border Police  took back the town and Brigadier Steele was forced to order his last Guardsman to cover the retreat of the artillery.

The battle was over but the war was just begun.