Battle for the heights - Crimean war, Balaclava inspired - adaptation of Black Powder

For this game we decided to do something a bit different, utilising my collection of paper soldiers from the Crimean War (which I had put together to run children's workshops on the Battle of Balaclava). I've used a lot of paper models in the past, I took part in several workshops when I was much younger fighting the Alexander the Great's wars, the Greek-Persian wars and even an engagement between different Scythian forces, as well as doing some much bigger games with a friend, including a very primitive Waterloo, and some great games set in the post-Alexandrian Hellenistic world (Hellenics vs Romans) and post-Roman Britain (Britons vs Anglo-Saxons), as well as the Siege of Vienna. Over the years I've cut out thousands of these (though used relatively few of them) - they're all from the great free online resource Junior General http://www.juniorgeneral.org/ just print them out (or I edit them on paint/photoshop first)

Anyway we decided to have a Crimean battle with the Balaclava forces. It was loosely based on Balaclava, the centre of the battlefield contained three small villages, probably along some sort of ridge, garrisoned and thus defended by a few Turkish troops with British naval artillery. A large Russian force was advancing upon them, while speeding up from the South coast came the British-French relief force.
For rules we used an adapted version of Black Powder which I use when doing the Balaclava workshop, so they're simple rules for children with lots of dice rolling and are very quick to play.

The battle commenced with a great Russian assault upon the two western villages. Both came under heavy pressure from the advancing columns which opened fire at the defenders. But the central village put up a fierce defence, the artillery sending two columns of Russians packing with two whiffs of grapeshot.
Coming up fast from the south, the Highland brigade was set to reinforce the defenders.

With the Turks and much of the artillery dislodged, the highland brigade was left in sole defence of the villages as the Russians continued their driving assault, beginning to encircle the position.

Unfortunately for the beleaguered Scots much confusion amongst the British and French staffs led to reinforcements still being quite far off. Only the cavalry seemed in any position to help, and what use it could render in defending the villages was unsure. The eastern village too had come under sustained Russian attack and the Turks had been completely driven out, and with the rest of the British brigades still some way off it seemed this village would definitely fall.

Under continued pressure from the Russians the highland brigade broke, leaving but a small half battalion of the 79th hauled up in the central village, though they had inflicted the loss of two Russian columns and some guns. Yet the villages were in Russian hands, and the advancing Light Brigade was in a troubled spot.

With the eastern village occupied by Russian cavalry and Jaegers, the Guards' brigade began its assault! In the fight the Grenadier guards took the brunt of the combat and were afterwards forced to quit the field, but they had cleared the village of its defenders.

With the Guards now occupying the eastern village the allied forces quickly brought up their troops, the Chasseurs D'Afrique advancing with the British 1st Brigade, though the rest of the British and French forces were suffering from continued leadership muddle.

The Russians were now well in control of the two western villages and began to reinforce their position and dig in their artillery. From this position their concentrated artillery fire caused heavy casualties on the light brigade and broke it.

Having been broken the remnants of the light brigade now fell back to give the heavy brigade and French cavalry brigade cover as they advanced on the villages, filled with the Russian forces.  But the crossfire was too great for them and soon all three brigades were completely broken.

As the British force at last seemed to be moving, the broken cavalry brigades moved to form a screen in front of the villages behind which the lines could deploy and advance.

But yet again poor command gave the Russians the upper hand as the British sat stationary. Only the marines, technically a reserve, and one small French brigade managed to advance, meanwhile the cavalry was destroyed by close range shooting.

The Russians continued to fire from their incredibly powerful position, cutting down the advancing brigade of marines before they even reached the village, along with the French Chasseurs. The allied force was close to collapse.

The allied commanders continued in their deadly blundering, marching their brigades all over except towards the enemy. Only the British 1st Brigade advanced on the packed Russian position.
They took heavy casualties, but succeeded in dislodging one Russian regiment, causing the Russian army to break!
However the Russians were well entrenched and would not retreat so the 1st brigade continued their advance, only to be broken themselves, leading the whole allied army to break!

With that the battle was over...
The Russians were in a powerful position, filling two of the villages with their massed infantry

While the British occupied but one with the two regiments of Guards.
With both armies broken neither could continue the assault and so the game ended as a Russian victory, if a minor one. Both forces were broken, while the Russians had succeeded in wresting two of the three villages from the allied armies.

Russian Victory!

 

I personally enjoyed this paper game very much, and was reminded how great paper soldiers actually are! I've had a big clear out of my past collections, and am now assembling two forces (Turkish and British) to fight the middle eastern campaign of 1916-7 around Beersheba. Keep an eye out.