Back to the Balkans with The Men Who Would Be Kings

Martin and I had an evening of The Men Who Would Be Kings games at the last club meeting. I really like the Osprey rules sets, I'm sure there are duff ones out there, but all the ones I have played give a enjoyable and fun game. I'd offered Martin to set the games in 19th century Africa or the Balkans in 1912 and he went for the Balkans. We used the skirmish scale (half size units)  which makes for a quick game. We played three scenarios and could have fitted a fourth in, but instead spent the time looking at the other games on that night and annoying chatting to the players.

Marin took the Turks and I had the Greeks. The first scenario was a simple, three objectives along the centre line of the table. To take an objective a unit had to be the only one in contact and spent a turn at Stand To. The game ended when the third objective was taken, in the interim the opponent could swipe an objective back. It was a quick game, due to my slowness and the speed of Marin's Turks. (I kept rolling 1s and 2s for the extra move when I moved At The Double, he rolled 5s and 6s). The ned result was a 2:1 win to the Turks.

The second scenario was A Sigh of Relief. The objective ended up in the middle of a wood and I put my elite Evzone unit out to guard it. Despite losing their leader to the first shot of the game, they held off all comers for some time, routing one unit and sending another reeling back with a bloody nose. Eventually, once they were down to half strength, they failed and rally test and retreated off the objective, but by this time the rest of my force was in the fight. We called it a halt when the Turks were down to one pinned unit and the Greeks still had all four units in play (a lucky roll had rallied the Evzones at the last minute).

Game three was Run For The Hills! with the Turks trying to escape. Martin started well, keeping his units on the move, then only engaging the Greeks with two units whilst the rest made a break for it. It almost worked, I destroyed the rearguard and he got a unit and a half off the table. With his last unit almost on the table edge his luck failed and ther refused to move for two turns. this allowed me to catch them in a crossfire and wipe them out. A 6:4 win for the Greeks!

                                                  Greek Evzones hold the objective

                             Turkish Militia advance, backed up (at a distance) by irregular infantry

                                       Turkish Regulars shelter from the Evzone firestorm

                                                      Greek Irregulars take cover

                                            Greek Regular infantry on the attack


Only two other games this time, a 4-player Warhammer 40K game.

And a 28mm Wars of the Roses bash, using the Crusade rules