Saving the Guns! Take 2

Last night at the Trumpeter Society's July club night, I set up the same 'Saving the Guns' scenario that I tried a couple of weeks ago (see here:  Saving the Guns AAR).   This time the players were Reeve (who took the Afghan forces) and Jim, who got to play the British mostly because he brought the right hat.  Rules used were The Men Who Would Be Kings.

As before, the British start with a gun and a unit of regular infantry in the middle of the table.  Their objective is to get the gun off the table before they are overrun by the Afghans.

Man, that's a lot of Afghans...

but help is on the way!

Afghans begin a general advance...

While the limber moves up to effect the rescue.  (rules for the limber:  movement is 10", may not move in difficult terrain, takes one full activation to limber the gun).

"A thin, red line, tipped with steel.."

Afghan horse moving on the flank.  Why, no, that rider isn't carrying an RPG, why do you ask?

Afghan horse almost ride down the gun crew, but effective musketry from the infantry sees them off.  

But there are still many more Afghans approaching!

Afghans converge on the beleaguered defenders!  The coloured wooden cubes are used to indicate which units have tested for activation.  I need to replace those with some more appropriate markers.  Suggestions welcome!  In other games I've used livestock such as goats or sheep as markers.  Another idea might be to use pebbles.  Hmmmm

It looks pretty scary for the Imperials!

But then some effective fire cuts down half the horsemen, pinning them

 And a timely charge by the Lancers finishes them off!  (I need to make some 'pinned' markers for the Afghans, too!)

Still plenty of Afghans advancing

So the lancers charge again!

About this time, the Pathans remembered that about half of them were carrying muskets, and used them to shoot down the Lancers, allowing the Ghazis to charge the gun...

While the last unit of Afghan horse charged the regulars and pushed them back!

Pinned markers for the British!  

The second unit of Lancers charge the Afghan horse and rescue the infantry.  In order to keep the units organised, I painted coloured stripes on the rear of the bases.  It was amusing to see the players avoiding referring to 'black lancers' or 'while lancers' as no one wanted to sound racist!  This also applied to the black, white and brown stripes that I put on the Afghan forces.

After chasing off the horse, the Lancers turn their attention to the Ghazis!

That didn't work out quite so well for them...

And finally the badly mangled British troops realise that they can't win.  The limber has been mangled, but could still theoretically pull the gun.  However, the mass of Pathans would simply shoot them to pieces.  This was where we called the game.  Once again, an Afghan triumph.

I want to try this scenario again, but would like to adjust the balance a bit.  In each game, both players reported that the scenario was fun but I'd like to see if the British can actually rescue the guns.

Changes from the first scenario:
No testing for leader casualties.  This was something that slowed down the earlier scenario for no particular result.  Especially because I excluded leadership traits!  The leader traits make for some fun role-play opportunities, but can as easily saddle a unit with a big liability (such as a cavalry officer who refuses to charge his enemy).

Changes to consider for next time:
Larger playing surface.  This would allow more room to maneuver which would give the players more choice in how they deploy and move.
Add another infantry unit to protect the gun. Maybe offset this by letting the Afghans have a gun as well.