Attack on Iskender's Fort

On Sunday I hosted a game so some mates could have a first go at wargaming. Given a choice of several games from throughout history, they chose to go with an Andreivia 1918 scenario.

Back in 2024 I'd planned an Arc of Fire game in which several factions competed to capture Professor van Langendonck's experimental gas shells from the rogue Turkish officer calling himself Iskender Bey. Scheduling conflicts meant it didn't go ahead at the time but now I knocked up a two-player version of the scenario.

In the end we had three players; Tim and Frazer who commanded a small British force, and Nick, who took on the role of Iskender Bey himself.

The field of battle was dominated by a ruined fort on a small hill:

The British would arrive from the road on the near edge of the table above but with a small chance of units being delayed or arriving in the wrong place if the dice so decreed.

The venerable Sarzeh Fort making yet another
appearance on the gaming table

Meanwhile Nick had to deploy his forces not knowing from which direction the enemy would arrive or even which enemy they would be. The Andreivian army, the British, the Germans or even his Turkish former colleagues could all be after him!

After Nick had deployed his forces it became apparent that he'd misunderstood my briefing and had his entire force facing in the wrong direction! As I felt the error was mine, I allowed him to redeploy one unit (Iskender Bey's personal guard) and its trenches. This would be balanced by my making another on-the-fly adjustment in favour of the British later in the game.

After a small dice-driven delay, the British arrived and began pushing towards the fort with their Mark V tank in the lead. Nick's only effective defence against this lumbering monster was his 75mm field gun, which happened to be the unit equipped with the VM gas shells.

Unfortunately, they were deployed facing in the wrong direction and it took them a while to redeploy. 

When they did, though, they got off a lucky shot and brewed up the tank!

There was always the likelihood that one side or the other would lose a duel between tank and gun. This was the reason I'd reinforced the British with a Gun Section with a Quick Firing 13pdr and a Vickers MMG, which Frazer skilfully deployed on a hill covering the approaches to the fort.

If the tank had taken out the Turks' gun I would have allowed them another as a reinforcement. This would have to drive onto the table from the far end so encouraging the British to press their attack before it arrived.

It was about this time that I discovered my second error. I'd been treating the Iskenderist (can we use that term?) troops dug in in front of the fort as "Concealed" for the purposes of the Arc of Fire spotting rules. This might be appropriate for well-camouflaged Japanese bunkers in the jungles of Burma but in this case the British couldn't target their enemies without getting ridiculously close. 

I made an executive decision to change to "In the open" for spotting purposes but retaining "Hard Cover" against the incoming fire. This worked much better and rewarded Frazer's positioning of the Gun Section.

Nick had successfully repositioned his Arab bandits to the end of the fort menaced by the British but this only brought them under the fire of Frazer's Gun Section. They were rapidly reduced to just a single man left wandering inside the fort!

Meanwhile, Tim (in the role of the British commander, Lt Ponsonby-Smythe) had pushed his infantry forward on the left. Using the knocked-out tank as cover, his Lewis gun team brought the enemy guards under enfilading fire. 

The effect was to trigger a morale test on the guards that left them all cowering in their trenches. If Ponsonby-Smythe's main force had been in a position to charge the enemy trenches, the fight would have been all over bar the shouting. This kind of timing would be challenging even for a player with luck and experience on his side. Sadly Tim had neither.

At this point Iskender Bey himself made an appearance in the trenches. His steadying influence rallied enough of the defenders to all but wipe out Tim's charging First Section.  The Second Section, moving out of the woods in support, were hit by gas shells and forced to retreat.

On mature reflection, I'm calling it a win for Nick and Iskender Bey.

Nick and Iskender Bey

I'm reasonably pleased with how the game went but wonder whether one of the other scenarios might have been a better introduction to wargaming. The rules considered were Arc of Fire, Lion Rampant and Sharp Practice. I know all of them really well but perhaps the other two have a slightly shallower learning curve? Might Chain of Command have been a better choice for this period - easier to pick up although they are notoriously hard to master?

Anyway I don't expect to make any instant converts from this but at least the guys now have some idea of how I spend my weekends.  I'm pleased that we've also told another tale from the bloody history of Andreivia. Maybe a future game will see a second attempt the pull the fangs of Iskender Bay?