You've Never Seen Last Of The Mohicans?

Despite the digging up of Lancashire I safely managed to brave the now notorious rat run of Borwick Lane and make it to the club, managing to dodge at least three drivers from the school of Top Gear. Rob had offered a place in a Muskets and Tomahawks game so I dived in. The scenario was based on an event in the movie of the title, the dastardly attack on the British column as it left the fort and made its way under what it thought a flag of truce only to be set upon by the local savages.

There were six players and to add some spice to the game we all commanded one set of Rangers which were in the column and two groups of Indians who were attacking it. We got points for getting our guys to safety, we had to either head for the nearby river, march off the table or head for the waterfall, which also was off table at the opposite end from the column. To spice things up we also got points for the amount of civilians we saved, throughout the game we could throw a die and if successful an unspecified number of the nearest civilians would join our group, we could vie with each other to save these hapless creatures. If by mistake our own forces were the closest target to each other they would be forced open fire. Rob commanded the regular British forces.

 

 

My Rangers were near the end of the column and my Indians up near the front, it quickly became obvious the front of the column was going to take most of the heat, I myself decided to try and aim for the Colonel's party, the one with his two daughters. Daniel Day Lewis and his two mates were somewhere in the middle of the column.

The Indians attack.

Simon and Julian's Rangers both had the idea of cutting their way through to the waterfall which meant of course cutting their way through me, they looked like they were going to make it for a time but as I headed off the first group and threw caution to the wind and went in for hand to hand they both got cold feet. It didn't help that they now found out the path to the waterfall was actually further up the table than they had at first thought. As there was only two small groups of Indians opposing my Rangers I formed a firing line and opened up, I destroyed one group but couldn't manage the same with the other while the return fire dropped a couple of my men. As the game went along I gathered what looked like a collection of the local village idiots under my umbrella of safety while Julian especially managed to get the dolly birds, Simon also seemed to have a certain way with the ladies.

Discipline begins to break down.

Up near the head of the column Ryan was making spectacular gains and butchering all and sundry, one poor drummer boy, the only survivor of the colour party spent the game running around like a headless chicken, everywhere he turned he found Indians. I joined in the mayhem at the front end and a window of opportunity opened for my braves and they dashed at the Colonel, as you would expect he did not give ground and fought valiantly, his horse took a wound and went down trapping the man underneath, my boys despatched him and held up his still beating heart and whooped. I had pulled off a surprising coup.

The end for the brave Colonel.

The British regulars now pushed their way to the front and looked like merely sauntering off the table dragging bedraggled survivors in their wake, but suddenly hordes of Indians threw themselves at them and within a few moves their bodies littered the ground. My boys at the end of the line began to fear for their lives as chaos reigned, I moved them closer to the band of Indians to their front with the idea of giving them the bayonet then making my way by a fairly circuitous route to the waterfall. Daniel had managed to grab the Colonel's daughters and leg it to the river where he spectacularly dove in and swam to the other side to get the canoes and take them to safety.

This event caused the game to end, the table looked impressive as small groups of civilians and the remnants of Ranger companies and the odd regular dashed about here and there trying to save their lives while the Indians closed in in triumph. Rob ruled that my little band would have managed to overcome the Indians to their front and duly make their escape, I still had the idiots and one lady who had saw the error of her ways staying with Julian or Simon's dying troops and espying my good looks amongst the smoke and mayhem deserted to me. I had also killed the Colonel, this took me to one point ahead of Simon, a win!

The end for the column.

The game was a spectacular success and great fun, I was memorable once again for my bad die rolling while we all laughed at the mad drummer boy and our attempts to persuade civilians to come with us. Stuart had two Indian survivors who led extremely charmed lives and dealt out death throughout the game so were therefore given two really daft names which I cannot spell but sounded suitably Huronish. Ryan and Stuart's attacks on the front of the column surprised everyone and against the odds they destroyed the regulars so played a huge part in winning the game.

If you play Muskets and Tomahawks try this out, it was a superb game.

Oh, on a passing note, I emailed Warlord Games after the Postie once again disappointed me and told them I was less than chuffed that I had not had my BA V2 yet having paid express postage and pre-ordered etc. Guess what, I got a despatch email an hour and a half later. I suspect however it is not coming express and will be looking for recompense.