The stage was set for the refight of the Little Wars 'second' scenario; with JW commanding the dismounted army (Blue) , and TG the mounted army (Red) via Heliograph and carrier pigeon.
The deployment followed the initial map moves, as both sides came into contact in the southwest corner of the map...
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| Army Red |
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| Army Blue |
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| Army Red - cyclists and cannon |
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| The initial clash |
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| The Windy Arbor colliery Coal is our life |
As FLW is in the process of being rewritten, we have been doing some play tests. The new 2022 edition will keep all the mechanisms of the original, but it will be situated in the Wellsian world of 1911 and 1912 - the background to the original. The first scenario we played was the 'other scenario' (the first being Hook's Farm) that is mentioned in Little Wars...
We go into
greater depth here, and look at HGW’s experiment with game a based on the Boer
War where a mounted infantry army fought a dismounted army. This is the much larger battle mentioned in Little Wars – and here in FLW it is presented in the style of ‘Duffer’s Drift’
– which was one of the key military text books that came out of the Boer War
experience.
HG
described this scenario as follows.
“One good Fight to a Finish game we tried
as follows: We made the Country, tossed for choice, and then drew curtains
across the middle of the field. Each player then selected his force from the
available soldiers in this way: he counted infantry as 1 each, cavalry as
1-1/2, and a gun as 10, and, taking whatever he liked in whatever position he
liked, he made up a total of 150. He could, for instance, choose 100 infantry
and 5 guns, or 100 cavalry and no guns, or 60 infantry, 40 cavalry, and 3 guns.
In the result, a Boer-like cavalry force of 80 with 3 guns suffered defeat at
the hands of 110 infantry with 4.” Little Wars, 1913
Many people
have recreated Hook’s Farm, and it really is a must – but the above game is a
fascinating exercise and uses much larger forces. It was first replayed as a lawn game in
Gloucester with Boers versus British – and as in the original, the Boers were
soundly defeated.
It was replayed as a Floor Game (indoors) in
two versions as part of the play testing for this new edition. It was set as a British army Field Day in 1912.
The Armies
were formed as follows.
Army Red –
the Mounted Infantry (Boer type) force (General
Backsight Forethought)
1st
Brigade
3
x Regiments of 12
2nd
Brigade
3
x Regiments of 12
HQ
and Scouts 8
Artillery x 3
Total 80
Army Blue
(Dismounted) force (General Leisurely
Trundle)
1st
Brigade
3
x Regiments of 20
2nd
Brigade
2
x Regiments of 20
HQ
and Scouts 10
Artillery x 4
Total 110
British and
Empire forces are used.
Terrain –
the map below gives a simple landscape based upon the 1908 map of Winstanley,
near Wigan. The Spring Pool wood is the site of my own childhood home (within
the walls of the Winstanley estate) where I first played Little Wars in the
garden. The terrain is laid out in the
style of Salisbury Plain or the South African Veldt – with Kopje’s (hills),
woods and the Estate buildings as the objective.
The very thing you have been looking for - the reprint of FLW!
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| From the FLW Collection |
Refreshed and reappearing in 2022...
