10/12 SBGC Meeting, or how I learned to stop worrying and love 54mm

 

This month at the SBGC, we had a couple of BIG wargames. When I say "big," I don’t mean in terms of mass battle games with huge armies; rather, I refer to the size of the miniatures. For the first time, I played with 54mm figures. Both Greg and Nick seem to have taken a page out of H.G. Wells' book and adopted 54mm as their skirmish scale. I must admit, I was briefly tempted to explore this scale as well.

54mm is arguably the original miniature wargaming scale, having its roots in H.G. Wells' book "Little Wars," published in 1913. In this book, Wells used 54mm miniatures to reenact Napoleonic battles on the floor of his home with his club. I found 54mm to be an excellent scale for skirmish games, providing everything that 28mm offers, but with an added visual appeal. The larger figures allowed for more detailed paint jobs, and the larger terrain made for a more spectacular setting. However, I realistically don’t need to expand into a third scale for Vietnam, and I certainly lack the space for 54mm jungle terrain.

This month, we played three games. Nick hosted a Seven Years War game using Musket and Tomahawk, Greg ran a World War II scenario with One Hour Wargames, and Chris played a naval game set in the Age of Piracy called Oak and Iron. I chose to participate in Nick's game, where I played on the British side.

Our objective was to assault the French and Indian village, burn it to the ground, and rescue a captured civilian.

We decided to deploy in the treeline behind the village because there was a wall that would shield us from line of sight. This allowed us to approach the village without being fired upon, enabling us to jump over the fence and enter the village while remaining well-covered.

Several groups of enemy Indians burst out from the three longhouses directly in front of us. I suppose they expected us to come in from the beach; regardless, they clearly didn’t want to be inside those longhouses when we set them on fire.

Noticing this, I directed a unit of allied Indians to advance along the wall to attempt to flank the enemy and block their escape. If everything went according to plan, I would be able to catch them in a crossfire before they could reach different cover.

Unfortunately, before they could take any action, French irregulars opened fire, taking down one of them. Given the already low morale among the Indian units, this loss prompted them to retreat behind the safety of the wall.

Instead of retreating, the French forces chose to hold their ground at the center of the village. On the left flank, French irregulars continued to unleash fire on my irregulars, while a group of Indians charged out of a house in an attempt to engage my units. Unfortunately for them, they fell just an inch short of making it into melee combat, which left them exposed to close-range gunfire. I managed to outshoot the enemy, forcing them to retreat.

On the right flank, our luck was significantly worse. Two groups of French-aligned Indians charged our British regulars. Due to the narrow confines of the area, the British found themselves trapped between a longhouse and a wall, outnumbered and cut off from a third of their forces. The Indians managed to cut through a significant portion of our troops, though they also suffered heavy casualties in the process.

In the center, our second force of British irregulars engaged in a fierce exchange of gunfire with the French marines and their native allies. Eventually, our irregulars emerged victorious in that confrontation and turned their attention towards the Indians on the right who were encroaching on our flank.

Although we lost two entire units of British regulars, the French side suffered even greater losses and was ultimately forced to retreat. However, they managed to accomplish their secret objective of extracting their tribal chief. It's unclear whether this means we won or they did, but we did succeed in burning down the village and rescuing the captive. In the end, winning isn't what matters most; it's about having fun, and I certainly had a blast!

Here are the pictures from the other games we played.

Duck, you sucker!

That's all for now, until next time folks!