One Day At Peking

I finally played a game using part of Peking yesterday. I thought it would be good to start out with a scenario of the initial Boxer attack on the legation. So, I brought in a section along the Tartar Wall that would fit on the small gaming table I have in the house. The area covered was from the Tartar Wall to the legations on the north side of Legation street. East to west it covered from the French legation to a block west of the Russian legation. I used 15mm scale figures, of my own design, for all of the combatants. There were 7, 20 figure units of Boxers against 9 Russians, 5 Frenchmen, 5 Germans, 7 Americans, and 7 civilian volunteers, for a total of 34 Europeans.

Here is a shot looking from west to east. 3 Americans and 3 Russians man the barricade on top of the wall. 4 Americans man the barricade on Wall Street and 6 Russians man the wall across Legation Street.

On the East side, the 5 Germans man the top of the wall. The French and civilians cover the barricades from the French Legation, through the ruins, then to the wall. All in all, the Europeans were stretched pretty thin.

I roll dice to determine where, when, and how many Boxers would attack on each turn. On the turn a Boxer unit entered the board, it was set on the table at the edge and the setting on counted as the unit's move for that turn.

In the first turn, two units of Boxers entered the board. One at each end of Wall Street. Rifle fire from the Europeans was nothing terrific, inflicting only a couple of casualties.

On turn 2, the West End Boxers charged the barricades on  each end of Wall Street and three more units entered; one at each end of the wall and the third facing the Russians on Legation Street.

On turn 3 the last two Boxer units entered the board, on the wall and against the Russians on Legation Street. The unit on the wall was led by the "Red Lantern" herself, Hóng Dēnglóng, the Boxer Queen.

The Boxers hit a stretch of bad luck here, as the first unit on the wall and the one against the Yanks on Wall Street both failed their Close Into Contact rolls. So, they fell back pinned.

The group against the Germans did close, but were defeated in a sharp hand to hand combat.

In turn 4, the East End Boxers made it to the French barricades, but their leader was killed, so they milled about getting shot at. The unit against the Americans on Wall Street rallied and charge again. On the wall, Hóng Dēnglóng led her Boxers over the pinned unit to press the attack.

On Legation Street, the Russians repulsed the Boxers, with the loss of two men killed. The Germans moved over to the parapet to add their fire to the French and civilians on the meandering Boxers, while the Americans (with Russian help) sent Hóng Dēnglóng packing.

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Finally, the Dawdlers at the French barricade got moving, but were defeated by the French and volunteers (including Annie Elizabeth Chamot - far right in the top picture). On the American front, Hand to hand battles occurred on Wall Street and the Wall. Both assaults were beaten back  at the cost of one American wounded and another along with a Russian killed.

The game was played using "The Sword And The Flame" 20th anniversary edition and a modified version of a Boxer supplement that was published in one of the wargame magazines in the mid to late 80s.

I hope you enjoyed this little AAR.

Good luck and happy gaming!

Tantrapur Again!

 The image above is another screen capture from Justin Scarred's "Original TEMPLE of DOOM Rediscovered! The LOST sets of Gunga Din" video. It is the best representation of the layout of Tantrapur that I have found.

So far, I have completed the shells of thirteen buildings and have done interiors for eight. In the previous post I the first three that I made interiors for. Here, I will highlight the next five.

But first, here is an image showing all thirteen buildings and their locations within the image above.

Note: the photos are not to scale with each other.

The Cookhouse - Located to the right of the Governor's House, I have made this building the kitchen for the European residents of Tantrapur.

The room on the top of the image contains the stove and a Tandoor oven. The lower room is for food preparation.

Shop and Residence - The right side is the residence and the left side is a store room. Our merchant peddles his wares from the causeway between.

The Posh House - This house belongs to a well to do Indian businessman.

The Working Man's House - This is the modest house of a modest man.

The Tea Business - This building has a warehouse and offices on the lower floor. 

It might be the sort of building Sgt. Ballentine might occupy, had he married and gone into the tea business. But this building might have another, more sinister purpose.

Could the upper floor be a small temple for Kali? Could this business be a front for the Thugee cult?

I wired the upper floor with flickering LED lights. I think it looks really cool. What do you think?

Best wishes and happy gaming!

Tantrapur - A Northwest Frontier Town

 Tantrapur is a fictional town located in India's Northwest Frontier province. Its fame comes from the movie "Gung Din", where the British first learn of the resurgent Thugee cult. Since I built the Thug temple, I thought I should also represent the town where they were discovered. These buildings are mostly conjecture on my part, so far as size goes, though I have referenced several shots from the movie and images from the  digital recreation found in Justin Scarred's "Original TEMPLE of DOOM Rediscovered! The LOST sets of Gunga Din" video. So, without further ado, here is what I have done so far.

The first 4 shots show my version of the government office building. The building has a removable roof, with the porch awning, cupola dome, window treatments and doors being separate components. The pictures on the walls and rugs on the floor are from  images found online, printed on plain paper, then decoupaged to the model.

The last two images are from the movie and from Justin Scarred's 3D rendering, so that you can see what I am working from.

This building is the officers' quarters for the men who worked in the above building. It sets next door to the office. This building uses the same windows and doors as on the office and the interior decorations were applied in the same manner as in the office.

This building I am calling the Governor's Residence. It is not a particularly grand affair with a living room in front, a dining room in back, and an office and bedroom in the middle. It does have parquet floors and wallpaper to give it an air of opulence.

I noticed that in Justin's layout this building seems to change locations. In the upper image it appears to be on the opposite side of the road from the Government office. In the second image, it is on the same side of the road as the Government office. I will place it in the location shown in the second image.

These buildings are being made available for free to subscribers to the 4P Press Games and Models web page. I hope that you will join us at 4P Press and that you enjoy these models and all the offerings that we have.

Thank you for visiting and happy gaming!