Saving Wee Willie Winkie By GASLIGHT

This past Sunday Buck Surdu hosted a GASLIGHT game as a going-away event for a friend of his who works for the State Dept. and is about to be deployed overseas.  The game was set in the Northwest Frontier, and was a followup scenario to a previous one Buck had ran in which British troops were tasked with saving Wee Willie Winkie from the clutches of the evil Pasha.  In this outing, the British troops were on their way back to camp with Wee Willie Winkie when they are ambushed by the Pasha's men and some Russian advisers who have supplied the Pathans with some Steam timberclads

The scene early in the game as the Brits from up their defense. My troops are seen moving off on the left, while a force of Sikhs move up to hold the center, and the Lady Hussars take the right.

     I played on the British side, commanding two units of Punjab infantry, a light steam tank, and Captain. Caruthers.  The Brits decided to form into a defensive lager, anchored on several key terrain pieces, while withdrawing Wee Willie Winkie to a safe distance far from the front lines.

Some of the fierce fighting around the point of the British inverted "V".

   On the British right, part of the column get separated from the main body  and valiantly held out the entire game against repeated attacks from two units of Russians and their Steam Lorry. The rest of the British line ended up in a shallow inverted "V" , with the point of the V on a hill in the center of the table.  The British left was anchored on a large outcropping , but the right, held by the Female Hussars ended up with out a secure anchor.

My troop unleash a volley at a charging unit of Pathans.

    A fierce battle developed in the center as the Pathans threw their weight against the Brits holding the hill.  The fight seesawed back and forth.   Meanwhile, where I was positioned on the left, I was able to hold off the Pathans facing me.  After a couple devastating volleys from my troops, the Pathans contented themselves with holding their ground and sniping at my troops at long range.

The Pathans facing me resorted to sniping from the hills.

  When the time seemed right I decided to counterattack, launching my one unit of lancers in  a flanking maneuver around the large outcropping securing our flank, and attempting to take the Pathans in their flank as my infantry charged forward and hit them in the front.

An overview of the table at the height of the battle.

  My cavalry successfully decimated the first unit they hit with the aid of some  volleys from some Highlanders positioned nearby, but my mounted troops then came up against the decimated unit's Leader, The Big Khan, who started slicing his way through my horsemen like they were butter.  Only the intervention of the Major in charge of our force saved my horseman, and defeated the Khan.

Wee Willie Winkie being guarded by a unit of Highlanders.

This unfortunately delayed the cavalry, so that my infantry was caught charging  across the open terrain without the mounted troops providing a flanking force, and I ended up taking some serious casualties.  Luckily, at that point the game was called as it was dinner time.  The Brits were declared the winners, as even though many of our units were chewed up, the Pathans were no where near Wee Willie Winkie, and in fact had been severely mauled themselves in the battle.
    You can read another report of the battle on Buck's Blog.

The Big Khan slices through my cavalry, before going head to head with the British Major.

  Everyone had a blast, and the game was a lot of fun.   Thanks go out to Buck for hosting, and his wife Candy for providing great snacks throughout the game and a nice dinner afterwards.