Playtesting Bundok and Bayonet

Having read (so far) about two thirds of Campaigns on the North-West Frontier 1849-1908, I was eager to try a quick round of Bob Cordery's old classic Bundok and Bayonet with my Wofun Great Game collection. I may have been in too much of a hurry to make a balanced scenario, though: read on.

Sir Hectare McDonald, Colonel of the Upteenth Bengal Infantry, has been tasked with marching up the Whatsit Valley to reconnoiter and, if possible, burn the native village at the other end. (The natives have been uppity.) He has his understrength battalion of fifteen men, and two squadrons (eight men) of the Bengal Lancers.

The natives have a dozen riflemen, ten swordsmen, and a rusty old cannon.

Village to right, native rifles on the ridge at bottom,
gun in the village, swordsmen at center. Indian troops
enter at left.

The rules have a few similarities with TSATF; they are card-driven, and units have random move distances. When a red (British) or black (native) card is drawn, a unit is selected and rolls a morale check, trying to roll under its number of figures on a variable number of D6. Then it may choose two actions - shooting, movement, formation change, etc. On a failure, the unit still has plenty of options, but any movement must be away from the enemy.

Turn 1: The infantry moves at the double through the pass, and is fired on by native rifles and cannon, losing two of the battalion's sixteen men. Then I realize the firing required two sixes per kill at long range, and the casualties get back up. The native foot and Bengal cavalry both fail their morale rolls and thus do nothing this turn.

Gun in the village. Note the unique local architecture.

Swordsmen cunningly hidden behind a patch of stone, giggling.

Khyber rifles waiting patiently, with a fine view of the valley.

The expedition faces front.

Turn 2: The Bengal infantry changes formation to put more rifles into the firing line (only the first rank may fire or fight), but cause no casualties (the hills provide cover, requiring four hits per casualty at long range). The swordsmen pop out of hiding and charge screaming into the Bengal regiment, but lose three of their own in the melee in exchange for a single Indian figure.

The Indian infantry moves into range.

First melee.

Turn 3: The swordsmen fail their morale this turn, so their options are limited. They fight another close combat, then move away. Both sides lose two men before the natives break. While this clears room for the mountaineers to fire, at long range they remain ineffective. The Bengal Lancers move 15" onto the table, but only two of them can see a target for their carbines. The Bengal Infantry moves forward and fires at whatever targets it can see.

Turn 4: The lancers are forced to change formation to get through the pass, which means they can't attack this turn (you can change formation and move, or move and assault, but not all three). The Bengal Infantry find themselves on the end of a short(range) stick as the musketeers on the hill fell three of them. Their mounted colonel nestles into shelter and gives an order that he should have given on Turn 1: "Take the hills!" The infantry mount a bayonet charge up the slopes (losing four inches of movement to climb two contours), but lose two of their own to the sharp Khyber knives. The native gun nudges its way into the open, hoping to take the cavalry as they approach. Its long-range fire picks off one Lancer. The surviving swordsmen roll a five on 2d6 - exactly what they need to charge and fight again. They clamber into the rocks to sandwich the hapless Bengal Infantry. The fight is inconclusive.

Lancers narrow their front to move ahead.

Turn 5: The British clearly haven't brought enough troops to this battle. Colonel McDonald sounds retreat. The Bengals scramble along the ridge back whence they came. The Lancers follow, hoping to screen the infantry in retreat, but apparently stumble on the rocks as they roll seven on 4D6! The swordsmen plunge after them and, impressively, kill two horsemen for no loss. The musketeers on the hills pick off two more of the Bengal Infantry, including the Colonel, who made a great target.

Turn 6: The swordsmen fail their morale check, so stand around waving their swords and jeering at the fleeing British. Both infantry and cavalry retreat precipitately (16"+!) and are either off the board or out of sight.

The game was lost from the start, really, because there weren't enough Imperial troops. My key mistake with the Bengal Infantry was keeping them in the plains, when what I've just been reading and one of the key rules of mountain fighting tells me to hold the high ground! Standard procedure on these expeditions was to drive the tribesmen off the peaks and only then send the column through the valleys. The decimated swordsmen were the MVPs of the match, passing two difficult morale checks in succession to keep them annoying the Indians.

Takeaways:

• Only my first game, so there were a few mistakes on the rules. In particular, I didn't notice that units get an extra die to move in open ground, which made a difference early on. Shooting was also a bit tricky - all hits are on sixes, but it's possible to shoot twice and you need more or fewer hits to score casualties depending on range and cover.
• I was flipping back and forth between the morale, movement, shooting and close-combat rules, each of which was on a separate page of my printout. A quick-rules-sheet would be handy, but the rules are quite brief so it should be doable.
• The rules as a whole are simple, with basic mechanisms and a "loads-of-dice" attitude. I was getting the hang of them by the end of the game.
• Close combat is deadlier than shooting, since only one hit is needed for a casualty, whereas much of the shooting was at long-range or into rocks, requiring two or even four hits per kill.
• There's no morale check at the end of combat; it comes next turn when a unit that has taken casualties is less likely to pass. A failure means that it is limited to holding still or falling back.

If this were a campaign, the clear defeat the Indian Army suffered would lead to further uprising and perhaps fire all along the mountain chain. What next for the Border? Only time will tell...