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!

94. A Foreign (Legion) Affair - Part 1

Hello again.  A (great) while back I played two solo games of Combat Patrol using elements from Feudal Patrol, or in other words I basically played Feudal Patrol with firearms.  I assigned the "shapes for damage" to certain modern weapons, such as rifles and pistols.  I really like the way Feudal Patrol handles damage compared to Combat Patrol.  I wanted to see whether force-fitting them together would work.  I think it does.

I decided to play the same scenario twice, reversing the opponents, to see if there was any difference in the outcome.  I played on a 4'x4' table with probably-not-enough terrain.  But it's the desert, so....

The scenario involved an attacking force attempting to oust a dug-in opponent from a small oasis in the desert.  This battle report will show the first play-through, using my French Foreign Legion defending against the numerically superior Arab attackers.

There are a LOT of pictures that follow, that show the flow of the game, but you can quickly scroll through them by only looking for the ones with captions, explaining what happened.

A short summary will appear at the end.

The table and the disposition of the forces.  At the top:  the Foreign Legion occupying the small oasis:  3 squads of 6.  At the bottom:  the attacking Arabs:  4 groups of 10 each.

The command squad is not dead; they're climbing from the ground floor to the roof.

The many "stunned" markers are from sprinting into cover.

Turn 1 ends.

Turn 2, the Arabs attempt to get as close as possible while still behind cover, before charging into the hail of bullets.

The Arab right attempts to close with the Legionnaires left.

An Arab group with rifles (carbines, really) sprinted to get within range.

Turn 2 ends.

Turn 3 begins.

The rifle-armed Arabs come under fire first.

The Arabs on the right launch their first major attack against the Legionnaires sheltering in the rocks.

And the Arabs on the left also launch their attack.

A major scrum emerges.

A second Arab group with rifles attempts to support the attack.

The Arab assault is devastated.

This card came up, leading to...

...the fanatics charging AGAIN!

They make contact...

...with mixed results.

The sole survivor finally had enough and ran.

Turn 3 ends.

Turn 4:  On the Arab right, the Legionnaires fared much better than their attackers.  The Arabs were unable to actually come to grips with their spears and were caught in the open.

A look at the general disposition of the combatants.

The Arabs pressed their attack, but poor results again.

Turn 4 ends.

Turn 5 begins.  The Arab left takes fire from the Legionnaires.

The Arab rifles take fire from the command squad, killing their leader.

The spear-armed Arabs finally close.

Unfortunately for them, their opponents are armed with bayonets.

Turn 5 ends.

Turn 6 begins.  The spear-armed Arabs run.

Turn 6 ends.  A fairly uneventful turn.

Turn 7 begins.

Legionnaire shooting whittles down the rifle-armed Arabs.

Turn 7 ends.

Turn 8 begins with a head-shot on the Legionnaire Sergeant.

The Arabs suffer under the shooting reprisal.

Even the stalwart Legionnaires can reach a breaking point.

Turn 8 ends.

Turn 9 begins with a pretty good result for the Arabs on the left.

With the Arab right mostly devastated, the Legionnaires there race to reinforce their comrades on the Legion right.

Turn 9 ends.

Turn 10 begins.

Turn 10 ended.

Turn 11 begins with a devastating volley by the reinforced Legionnaires...

...causing the final rout of the Arabs.

A final look at the battlefield.  The Legion held the town with minimal casualties.

The four dead Legionnaires, out of 18.

The end result was a victory for the Legion, easily holding the small village.  Their rifle fire and accuracy was deadly.  The Arab factions could not get close enough, fast enough, to bring their superior numbers into play, and even when they did, the Legion had chosen their defensive spots well.

My next blog post will detail the reverse, where the Legion attacks an Arab-held oasis.

Thanks for reading.