Ships of the Desert that Pass... (The Men Who Would Be Kings)

Last night we played scenario A of The Men Who Would be Kings, where two forces pass each other, taking shots as they go. The dice decided I would command the French while Andrew led the Arabs. We added 2 house rules. Units could not move double time twice in a row, so units that moved quickly were marked with a red disc except when we forgot. We also instituted a house rule for field craft that went unused in this game. Finally, we added a unit of mules to the French side that had no combat value and could not double-time, but would count if it exited the far side of the table.

And off we went. Andrew’s Arabs needed to exit the French table edge and we needed to exit from his starting edge. Andrew moved first in each turn.

On turn 11 Ali’s full strength group (first one) exited for 4 points.

Turn 12 Sayid’s 8 strong group exited for 1 point.

Turn 14: off photo to the right Margaron’s full strength Legion squad and Lapin’s full strength Senegalese squad exited for 2 points each. The mules spent much of the last part of the game munching some few blades of grass. I must remember to sacrifice to the dice gods next time.

I counted Andrew’s score as 5 to my 4. He asked if the losses didn’t count. On the very last turn of the game one of his shot up units had routed off the table. That gave me one more point and we tied, 5 to 5.

As for who was shot: the French lost 15 troops, the Arabs lost 14 and had 9 flee the table.

The game took just over 90 minutes to play 15 turns. We each exited two units and one Arab unit routed. Dorfmann’s Legion squad was nearly wiped out, down to 3 men at game end. The game was fun and we both thought we’d play it differently next time. I loaned Andrew my copy of Rebels & Patriots, the next game in this stable. Perhaps we’ll try that sometime. I do have lots of figures for the American Revolution. My collection of French Foreign Legion/etc. is largely limited to what you see here.

And that’s all the gaming reports from us until the end of the month.