Tuesday, March 14, 2023

95. A Foreign (Legion) Affair - Part 2

In my previous post, I detailed the battle of the French Foreign Legion defending a desert oasis from attacking Arabs, using Feudal Patrol adapted for modern weapons.  In this post, I will report on the same scenario only with the combatants reversed:  the Arabs are defending against the attacking Legion.  This is the exact same 4'x4' table, terrain, and miniatures.

The pictures that follow show the flow of the game.

A short summary will appear at the end.

Turn 1 begins by showing the disposition of the forces, the Arabs occupying the village at the top, and the Legion lined up close together at the bottom.  It thought a concerted attack would be better than splitting my forces.  We'll see if I was right.

This is a closer view of the arrangement of the Arabs.  I put them where it seemed to make sense, but there were so many of them it necessitated spreading them out.

The Legion sprints to try to get to cover, knowing a good firing position is critical, plus knowing the Arabs have rifles too.


The Arabs, never ones for caution, begin trying to flank the Legion on either side.  The Legion commander orders a squad to form on the right to meet them while the rest continue into cover.

The Legion squad on the right were unable to make it to the shelter of the rocks and were caught in the open, and took heavy fighting.  The center squad, seeing themselves likely to be flanked, drew back from the big rock to (hopefully) support the right squad.  The squad on the left took hits from gunfire from the village.

The Legion squad on the right was able to rally enough to defend themselves, even though the spear-armed Arabs closed into close combat.  The bayonet-tipped rifles were just as deadly as the spears, but the shelter of the rocks and their iron discipline staved off the worst results.  The commander, armed only with a pistol, wisely kept out of melee as much as possible.  The center squad lended it's shooting when able.

After heavy fighting, amazingly the righthand Legion squad emerged victorious over the spear-armed Arabs.

I don't remember why I took this picture, other than I had received the same result in the previous game:  a headshot somewhere.  Maybe the photo above?

This picture records the last existence of the Legionnaire squad on the left, on the sand dune.  Immediately after this, they were wiped out almost to a man.  (see next pic)


The sole survivor of the left-hand squad hides in the rocks, while the commander rejoins his squad.

The Arabs, with both of their rifle-armed groups, were still entrenched in the village.

With 11 of 18 men remaining, the Legionnaire commander wisely decided discretion was the better part of staying alive, and withdrew the assault.  The oasis would have to wait for another day.

"Never bring a spear to a gun fight" should be the maxim of the day.  Despite outnumbering the Legionnaires, the Arabs were unable to really do damage, mostly due to the Legion's discipline and positioning.  With bayonets and in protective terrain, the Legion easily matched the more numerous spearmen.  However, when guns were involved, even with the Arabs "worse" shooting-rating, they were able to seal the deal and drive off the attackers.

The battle went much as "reality" would expect it to:  guns are deadly, that's why everybody wants them.  A small force attempting to oust a larger one is always difficult.  Perhaps if the Arabs did not have guns, the outcome would have been different.

Hmmm, sounds like I might need a rematch against myself.

I still really enjoy Feudal Patrol, and especially like this blended style.  You can read about my first usage of Feudal Patrol here.

Thanks for reading!

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