Reconnaissance in force to Trinkat : Moves 5 to 10...

Just a brief update to let you know that the game is progressing, albeit more slowly than I would like due to a hideous lurgy striking me low.... I was fairly certain during the early hours of Sunday that I was dying, but the current Mrs Steve the Wargamer assures me that what I actually had was a nasty bout of flu, and given she's a nurse I'm inclined to believe that this may actually have been the real deal, rather than the more universally derided "man flu"..😏

Nevertheless, between periods of high temperature and foul headaches, I did do a couple more moves which I'll share the pictures of with you - click on any of them for a larger and hopefully improved view..

A reminder of where we were at the beginning of move 5 - that red dice indicates that those Nile Arabs have taken casualties:

Over the next two moves all the rest of the Dervish units appeared, and Sod's law, they all appeared close to, or adjacent to, the British square...

Such that, by the beginning of move 8 (next picture) things were looking decidedly dicey with the plucky British square surrounded on all sides by advancing Dervish troops...

Steady volleys however, some lucky die rolls (for the Imperial side) and steadfast bayonet work in the melee's (there were two) have so far seen the British square bloodied but still intact...

In the following we see the first melee as the Arab horse reach the square in move 8...

..it takes two moves for the Imperial troops to drive them off (they lost the first round of the melee but passed a "pluck", or morale, test to remain engaged for a second round)

This had an unforeseen benefit to the Dervish though as it stopped the forward momentum of the square and allowed other Dervish units to converge.. in the next move the far flank of the square was attacked with similar results, another two move melee, the square had now been halted for three moves, until in move 10 with flank and front clear the final Dervish charge went in against the Naval gatling & crew..

We've now had one round of melee, and somewhat amazingly honours are even!!

Half time score:

• The Good Dusting rules continue to remain flexible, but with the emphasis on flexible as some interpretation by the player is required - happily these are not competition rules... Examples in this phase of the game include
  
  • mention of long and short range for artillery but no difference in the way casualties are calculated (??) - I've assumed it's an oversight so in my game I'm throwing double dice for short range as per small arms firing..
    
  • Another would be that there is a separate (larger) movement distance to allow "close to combat" for Dervish troops, but no mention of when it can be used that I can see - in my game I play it that they use normal movement at all times, until they get within the "close to combat" move of an Imperial unit, at which point I allow them to us it.. in my minds eye I have this picture of the menacing advance and then a ferocious acceleration as they get closer. Ace..!
• Casualties on the Dervish side are heavy - they are currently two units down with some casualties on all remaining units,against the British who have no more than 3 or 4 casualties in total..
  
• I do like the pluck test, but it's a straight dice throw against a moral factor and I do wonder if there shouldn't be some kind of casualty modifier as a decimated unit has the same chance as a fresh unit to pass at the moment

Right - back to the game - I have a gatling to save and orders to complete!