A Bad Day for the IRA

For our Tuesday game night with Oliver and Tyler, Arthur came up with an Irish War of Independence ambush scenario.  We used our go-to ruleset, Fistful of Lead.

Arthur was inspired by IRA  ambushes from the war, where the IRA would shoot up a unit of British army or Royal Irish Constabulary and then escape before reinforcements arrived.  That's not exactly what happened today, though!  For those who missed out on the twentieth century, the IRA is the Irish Republican Army. 

There were two groups of IRA and two units of British Army soldiers. Arthur selected figures for the IRA from our collection of WWII partisans, gangsters, revolutionaries and other mid-twentieth figures, and used WWI British for the British Army soldiers.

First group of British soldiers, who appear riding in the truck, led by their sergeant.

The second group of Brits, who will arrive on the turn after the Joker is played.  The Joker acts as an Ace for the player to whom it is dealt.

First group of IRA.

Second group of IRA, including an enthusiastic fellow with a bundle of TNT.

Here's the table.  British objective is simply to drive on the road to the far end of the table.  IRA are allowed to deploy hidden anywhere they want.

The IRA set up a roadblock.  The truck wasn't allowed to leave the road, so the Brits needed to clear the roadblock in order to proceed.

British truck comes on the table carrying the first unit of soldiers.

The truck stops at the roadblock and the IRA initiate the ambush.  The dynamite man throws his explosive bundle, and fails to clear the wall.  Then the IRA leader opens fire with his revolver, and immediately runs out of ammo!  Then the Brits gunned down the dynamite man. Not a great start for the rebels.

Undaunted, the IRA opened fire on the truck, trying to eliminate the soldiers before they could dismount.  The IRA fire was inconsistent, causing some wounds but also many rebels running out of ammunition and needing to reload.

The firefight continued with the IRA unable to get the upper hand despite outnumbering the soldiers.

Finally the joker is dealt, and the British reinforcements start to come onto the table.  Time for the IRA to skedaddle!

Meanwhile at the farm, the chaos deepens.

The reinforcements continue to advance.  Note that the IRA are not skedaddling.

Finally, having inflicted only two British casualties (including the British sergeant) whilst taking seven of their own, the IRA "leader" escapes.

Overall a great scenario by Arthur, based on his own research and his understanding of FFoL and scenario design. Good job Arthur!

 

Belly River at Bonsor

 After two playtests, Arthur and I took our Battle of Belly River wargame to the Trumpeter's November meeting at Bonsor Community Centre.  Brian and Colin joined Arthur and me to play the game again.  We adjusted a few things about the game.  For rules, we used Wiley Games' Fistful of Lead, specifically Glorious Adventures in the Age of Steam, although as we didn't include any of the VSF elements, it isn't any different from the main FFoL system :).  We also simplified the warbands.  For the first playtest, each model was a distinct character, each with some special trait or characteristic.  This turned out to be too much to keep track of, especially to remember which model gets which bonus, and even to remember which model is which.

Here is the table.  The Oldman River (aka the Belly River) cuts through the prairie in the lower left hand side.  The Cree raiding party will start on the hill in the centre rear.  Jerry Potts and his Kainai (aka Blood) warriors will start on the hilltop on the upper right.  Mounted Blackfoot warriors arrive in the lower left side of the table.  A relief force of mounted Cree will arrive sometime later in the game on the lower right side of the table. At the end of turn one, the relief force rolls a d6.  On a 6, they come on the table in turn 2.  Otherwise they check again at turn end, and can arrive on turn 3 if they roll a 5 or 6.  Each turn they fail to arrive the die roll to test improves by 1.

This photo shows the thicket at the foot of the hill, which represents the stand of trees where the Cree attackers made their last stand.

Here come the mounted Blackfoot!  The leader is up front with his big headdress and carrying a lance.  Most of the other warriors are WYSIWYG (warrior with rifle, warrior with revolver, etc).  They have an elder in the rear who has a few special abilities - as a warrior, he is less powerful, but he is a strategist, which gives his warband an extra card on each deal (player must chose one card to discard), and he is encouraging, which allows him to remove shock from a warrior within 12".  

The Cree warriors, trapped on the hill after their attack on the Kainai camp, and eager to escape!  The chap with the buffalo coat is a Métis hunter carrying a powerful buffalo gun.  His heavy furs give him an 8+ saving roll against being wounded.  This group is led by the warrior in the red and black striped shirt.  Note that this warband has several archers and three warriors with hand weapons only - they are outgunned by Jerry Potts and his Kainai brethren, so they ought to avoid getting into a firefight!

Jerry Potts and his Kainai.  The smoke represents a shock marker from the Cree shooting at them.  They are all quite well armed.  The model we used for Jerry Potts was not an exact match - I regret that we didn't have one that included more this:

The history of the battle that I found notes that Potts and his men located themselves on top of a hill where they fired down onto the Cree in the valley below.  Potts would later say of the battle “You could fire eyes shut and kill a Cree that day.”  Potts has been given a few traits to make him a better shooter, including sniper which allows him to reroll a missed shot.  He also had stealthy, making him harder to shoot but that was one that we forgot to apply to most shooting!

The game got under way with a firefight between the foot Cree warband and Potts' warband, as the Blackfoot started out by crossing the Belly River (move at half speed while fording the river).

The mounted Cree rolled a '6' at the end of turn one, so they were able to arrive in turn 2!  They moved from the river valley up to the top of the hill to allow them to attack Potts' warband.

Cree warband prove that it's a bad idea to get into a firefight when you are outgunned!

Blackfoot advance through the bushes.

Mounted Cree move up to attack Potts' warband.

Mounted Blackfoot tussle with the Cree at the foot of the hill.

Potts' warriors engage in a firefight to hold off the Cree relief warband.

But the warriors they want to rescue are struggling!

Blackfoot punish the Cree at the foot of the hill.  I ran out of 'wound' markers so used pennies!

All the warriors at the foot of the hill have been rubbed out, and those on top of the hill are mostly done.

The mounted Cree get the upper hand over Potts' warband, but they are too late.  The warband they had hoped to rescue have been wiped out.  

We called the game after the Cree foot warband was eliminated.  Brian's mounted Cree had the upper hand over the Kainai, but their victory was not guaranteed, and Colin's mounted Blackfoot were still almost full strength.  On balance this was a Blackfoot victory.

So the game result matched the historic result.  Brian decided his mounted Cree needed to take out Potts' warband, so he moved his troops up to the top of the coulee.  They were eventually able to neutralise the Kainai, but at the cost of not getting to rescue their friends.  Staying in the firefight with the better-armed Kainai was a mistake for the Cree on foot, when they should have focussed on getting away.

Movember 2025-11-23 Update

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Movember 2025-11-16 Update

Here's my Movember update for week two.  Something is starting to come in.  I see that it's getting to be more salt than pepper into the mix :)  

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Bonus figures, and murder

This week I painted up a murder of crows from Eureka Miniatures, as well as a bonus whimsical penguin that Nic added to my latest order.  In addition, there is a wooly rhino from Pulp Figures, also a bonus from Bob when I bought a bunch of figures from him back in the spring!

Mounted plains warriors

 Here are the rest of the First Nations warriors from Brigade Games' Plains Wars kickstarter. They are now ready to take part in my next go at the Battle of Belly River!

Here are a couple of leaders with full war bonnets.

Bows and tomahawks.

Rifles.

I'm now almost finished all the minis from that kickstarter with the exception of the US Cavalry special characters.  I've no plans for a US Cavalry force at this time, so when I eventually paint them, I'll likely convert them into cowboys or other western characters.  

Here are all the figures to date, including the fancy wagon.  

Battle of Belly River playtest

 Arthur suggested that we attempt a recreation of the 1870 Battle of Belly River.  This was the last great battle between First Nations in Canada, taking place in what is now southern Alberta near what is now the outskirts of Lethbridge.  Of course, back in 1870, neither Alberta nor Lethbridge existed!  And even the river's name has changed, as it is now known as the Oldman River.

The battle was between the Cree of the Iron Confederacy and the Siksika (Blackfoot), Kainai (Blood) and Piikani (Peigan) of the Blackfoot Confederacy.  The Cree had learned that an outbreak of smallpox had devastated the Blackfoot, and they wanted to take advantage of their weakened foes.  There's obviously much more to the history, and you can read more about it here and here.  

For this playtest, I trotted out the now out of print Warhammer Historical Wargames' Legends of the Old West, which is based on the Lord of the Rings Strategy Battlegame system.  I thought it would be a decent way to include distinct characters, especially to add some heroic leaders.  In retrospect, this went a little too far into detail, with a separate profile for each figures.  For the next game, there will still be heroic leaders but I'll streamline the ordinary warriors.  

The battle was not a single great event, but rather a series of encounters that ranged over miles and miles of the Oldman River valley.  Groups of warriors joined in the battle as they arrived. Most of what we know of the battle is based on oral histories, and are not completely clear or unambiguous. Rather than try to cover the entire battle, I decided to instead pick up more of a feel of the battle.  There are four warbands, two Cree and two Blackfoot, one each on foot and mounted.  The action is joined in media res.  The Cree warband on foot had previously attacked an outlying Kainai encampment.  A child escaped the attack, and was able to raise the alarm with the main Blackfoot camp.  So we have a point in the battle where the initial Cree warband (on foot, on the hill on one side of the valley) has been engaged by a Blackfoot warband. Meanwhile a group of mounted Blackfoot warriors are moving up to assist.  A mounted Cree warband start off table.  They will arrive when the dice arrive - we roll at the end of each turn.  At the end of turn 1, if the die is 6 they will move onto the board in turn 2.  Each turn the target number is reduced, so at the end of turn 2 the target roll is 5, and so forth until the warband arrives.  The scenario is heavily based on the Little Bighorn scenario from the LotOW Plains War supplement, Frontier:  Blood on the Plains.

On Friday, Doug, Peter, Kevin and Craig came over to playtest the rules with Arthur and me.  Craig is familiar with the LotR SBG and was able to provide much helpful tactical advice!  Thanks to Doug for providing photos and terrain.

Here is an overview of the game table.  As you can see, I've re-used my Sicily boards to represent the Oldman River valley.  The river has cut path through the prairie, with water erosion creating steep-sided coulees.  Embarrassingly, the two centre boards will need to be flocked to match the other boards!  Thanks to Doug for lending the aspen tree stands that line the river edge and lichen to represent bushes at the foot of the hills. 

The Cree warband is atop one hill in the centre-rear, a Blackfoot warband has engaged them in a firefight across the coulee that separates them.

At the start of the game, the two warbands on foot enter into a firefight across the coulee.

Neither side had cover, so casualties accumulated quickly.  The Blackfoot on the right had more firepower than the Cree on the left, and this gradually became evident as they were inflicting more casualties than they received.

A group of mounted Blackfoot are moving up but start on the wrong side of the river.  The river can be crossed at half speed.  Over a couple of turns, the mounted Blackfoot crossed the river and closed in on the battle.

By the time the Blackfoot horsemen moved up, the Cree warriors had realised that the firefight was not in their favour, and they moved down into the coulee.  Seeing the approaching horsemen, this particular warrior had to act on his 'good day to die' characteristic and single-handedly charged into the fight.  It did not go well for him.

The mounted Blackfoot warriors then closed in with the Cree warband.

In the ensuing melee, all but two of the Cree were rubbed out. And then finally, the Cree reinforcements arrived, just in time to rescue the survivors!

The other mounted Cree took on the warband on top of the hill.

The arrival of the mounted Cree warband finally shifted the balance of the fight.  

The warriors in the bottom of the coulee drove off the mounted Blackfoot, culminating in a huge pile on to the Blackfoot war leader, as the horsemen at the top of the hill whittled down the Blackfoot on foot.

I'm going to rejig the scenario a bit before I trot it out again at the next Bonsor evening.  I'll switch to Wiley Games' Fistful of Lead (more precisely I'll use the Glorious Adventures version), with a sort of hybrid between the base rules and the Bigger Battles.  Each warband will have a character as a leader and at least one hero, but most of the warriors will be grouped into groups of 3-5 warriors with identical attributes.  Hopefully that will speed up play a bit!