I ran a 28mm Darkest Africa Game today at Wargames Cave in Granite City, IL between Steve Hood (Combat Colours) and Don Cox. Steve ran the Arab Slavers. Don had the native Africans. The game started out with Don Cox advancing his Africans against the Arab slavers. Steve shot up the first attacking wave of spearmen. A second wave of native spear attacked his right flank and engaged the Arabs in hand to hand combat. The natives were wiped out but forced a squad of Arab muskets/rifles to retreat off the board. Two more units of Arab rifles and Ruga-Ruga mercenaries were forced to fall back due to casualties. But both groups were able to regroup the following turn. Don lost five units of native African spearmen and lost army morale on turn 5.
We were using modified The Sword in Africa for small unit games. Several things to note. I didn't have enough trees for the native spearmen to hide behind. I intend to resolve that when I run another game sometime next year. I want to buy jungle terrain for Darkest Africa and 28mm Vietnam games. Getting palm and jungle trees is on my list of things to do. I'd also like to get a tribe of Masai warriors for native African tribal warfare. I'd also like to use the Masai for German East Africa and games vs. Arab slavers. However, the rules worked out well for a Darkest Africa game between native African spearmen and Congo/East African Arabs...
Here are some photos from the game:
Initial deployment before the game.
Arab slavers armed with muskets and Remington rifles.
Steve Hood (Combat Colours) moving his troops.
African spearmen moving across the table.
Ruga-Rugas holding the left flank against native spearmen.
Don Cox moving his native spearmen into battle.
Arab slavers fend off the attacking native spearmen on the center and right flank.
Looks good. I like playing TS&TF using half-size units. Works very well. Just make sure to halve the strength of artillery as well--we forgot to do that our first game, though the results were realistic we felt.
ReplyDeleteAs for trees, you could always use area terrain. Cut some felt to form areas of wooded trees. Works for TS&TF since the game is highly abstracted anyway. Hills also work well. Those dirty barbarians like ambushing from hills. :-)
BTW how about some closeup photos of the units/figures?
Very nice, TSATF is one of my favorite rules sets. Great AAR too.
ReplyDeleteLooking good! I played a game of Sword in Africa a couple years ago but we did the encounter cards incorrectly, something weird was happening almost every turn; giant snakes, jungle queens, blood monkeys... sure was fun though! My 25mm terrain uses a lot of aquarium plants, and to save money I dyed sawdust green and use it as flock on the bigger terrain pieces.
ReplyDeleteNice report! Have to try Sword in Africa sometime,
ReplyDelete