Welcome to my blog, the story of my continuing journey into the World of Zombie Wargames.

Monday 28 May 2018

Cartington goes Forth - Conclusion

   The column moves on
Without further ado, here from the Journal of Frederick Cartington is the conclusion of his latest venture into Jimland.

From the Journal of Frederick Cartington:

"Having  achieved our initial objective of finding the outlet to the river, we proceed North-Eastwards towards our second objective which surprisingly was a swamp."
"Our Scout Ebor, (unsurprisingly) failed to notice the Tribals within its confines. We soon convinced these hostiles that attacking us was foolhardy. in the extreme."
Natives to the fore and flank
They close in...slowly
Those that can move, head for safety or form a firing line
Some impressive shooting drops two natives
The natives struggle to move in the Swamp
Four guns against a slow moving target, just doesn't seem fair somehow
He's dropped, with shots to spare for his friend
It's all over, as some make a slow escape to safety and a flanking fire is formed
"We proceeded Northeast to the river and the trail towards our final objective, where we crossed the river without incident. The now familiar Drums caused no consternation and our soldiery merely laughed at the tales that Askari fled at the sound."
"We encountered some natives that we plied with trade goods to enable us to purchase three loads of food to replace the two we had found had gone bad, probably due to the conditions in the swamp".
It was probably the same Natives too that had rummaged around in our camp the next night, looking for trade goods, but they had had the last of them"
"Wandering from the jungle, three Askari asked to join our expedition and as we had sufficient food I complied with their request, thinking the extra firepower would be useful."
The column, with Askari bringing up the rear
"Our next encounter was with yet more Tribals, surprising us whilst once more, crossing a rather wide stream."
"They attacked from our front, attempting to use the cover of the jungle, but to no avail."
The small force of Natives take advantage of the cover
The natives close...
... and the column makes its usual preparations

The natives break cover and close with the expedition
With formidable firepower the result is as expected, the two remaining flee.
"After this minor action, we once more headed NE to our expedition's objective but again finding two more loads of food that had gone bad and coupled with this was a torrential rainstorm impeding any further exploration."
"With our food dwindling fast I reluctantly decided to head back to Jim's Landing which was a lucky decision, in that the very next day after the rain, the remainder of our food was ruined"
"Unfortunately our route home south was blocked by a lake, rather than another branch of the river, enforcing a slight detour"
The column and casualties
We crossed the river once more towards Jim's Landing without food and my hunting skills failed, to the detriment of Doc, Ebor two soldiers and a bearer all of whom were carried by bearers, now relieved of their loads"
"On the last day of the expedition, a soldier foolishly followed the Askari's lead and ate a plant that killed him, whilst two Askari survived this foolish attempt at sustenance".
"Finally arriving at Jim's Landing. fresh food, water and rest would soon return Doc and Ebor to our ranks"
"A personal note:"
"As I wait for the Doc and our Scout to recover I have written to my good friend Edward Burlington Bt., inviting him to lead our next expedition.  I am tiring of the responsibility of leading these very dangerous ventures into Jimland, but will of course volunteer my services as hunter."

Thus ended the last expedition where Frederick would take the lead, as the expedition had made enough cash ($378) to outfit  a new expedition and pay for a leader with a skill ! (Ned will be an Archaeologist).
It was an interesting adventure that had shown my simple river crossing rules worked imo in the style of the Jimland rules and here's the map of the expedition's exploration:
The expedition's route in red (bit obvious really)
The Natives' deployment and tactics are very stunted given that I dice for their deployment, whether or not they split their force and so on, Without an opponent I don't know how to combat this and trying to defeat myself seems futile.

Even so I have played another two adventures, featuring Ned Burlington as leader and will post these in due course.

Thanks for taking the time to visit, hopefully you have found something of interest and as always your comments are both welcomed and appreciated.

26 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Thanks you Michal, always appreciated.

      Delete
  2. Cracking report Joe, sadly i don't know enough about the rules to offer any advice on how to play out the Natives, but if your finding things to easy maybe you could add to their number.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Frank, I doubt it's the urles at fault, as they're simple enough - Natives get two choices, whther to split their force or not and which side or sides to come onto the table. My problem is tht as the Native player I have no guile about the Native deployment and they tend not to deploy as I would. As the Expedition player I know how to combat the rather simplistic Native tactics, restrcited as they are by the randomness of using dice in their deployment.
      Their number, I think, are somewhat on the small size as they're meant merely to act as speed-ups in the expeditions progress.

      Delete
  3. Right I understand now Joe, I've found that when playing solo its best to play both sides as if they were yours, so in a case like this it might be better to ignore the rules & just set the natives up as would seem logical from their point of view as it would be save to think they've been watching the explorers for awhile before launching their assault :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think you're probably right, but I far for my explorers as I think I can probably beat myself easily as the Natives, given a bit of luck!
      Wait until you've read the next two adventure though (coming soon to a blog ner you) and maybe you can come up with solutions of how best to organise an expedition too - I think I've lost my touch!

      Delete
  4. Another cracking instalment and I would tend to agree with Frank with regards to the natives in solo play. You certainly seemed to be enjoying the adventure and that has to be the primary focus.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Michael and Frank does make a lot of sense with his answer, but solo pumbingly boring - what do I do with the bragging rights of winning/defeating myself ?

      Delete
  5. Jolly good stuff! Hmm, I suspect that unless the natives have overwhelming numbers or ambush from dense terrain then a decent-sized column will always see them off with no/minimal loss to itself. That's just the way of things...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks C6, there are a minimum of six and a maximum of ten Natives in most encounters (ambush event cards go as low as five) and even with smaller numbers they can still inflict occassional casualties on the column.

      Delete
  6. Super duper batrep and pics. I enjoyed it greatly. Western firepower, the way ahead to conquer the world.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Irqan and yes bolt actions rifles etc. are more than a match for pointy sticks!

      Delete
  7. I am glad there will be further adventures (but with different characters) as I have really enjoyed the ones posted on this blog. Be warned if you ever stop I may start to run them on my blog.... consider that a warning!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The next couple of adventures may see Jimland laid to rest for a while, so please start preparing your own adventures - it'll inpsire me to return to Jimland!

      Delete
  8. Nice read again Joe. No Idea what to suggest really besides introducing some sort of behavioural tree of your own devising.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Brummie, as frank says above, I'll have to take a closer look at how the Natives woul dreact from my pov.

      Delete
  9. Nice journaling of the Jimland adventures, Zab. I really like the "face" shield artwork by a native in the 3rd picture from your post summary.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Jay, the Native shields are well sculpted enugh for even a bozo like me to pick out the details.

      Delete
  10. The photo's of the expedition look great (as ever) and this was a fitting swan song for Frederick Cartington's career as expedition leader Joe - a shame he couldn't reach that second objective, but events proved his decision to turn back was a good call.
    Trying to tweak the hostile natives will be tricky, simply 'beefing them up' might make them too powerful against an expedition that's down in numbers after a run of bad luck. Maybe add some variation to their deployment and tactical options, perhaps the chance of an occasional stolen rifle / poison tipped arrow or spear, or even the odd 'berserker' type who are so high on witch doctors potions that they ignore their first wound?????

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks WA, Frederick may yet return as leader of another expedition. I don't rckon the natives need tweaking at all, it's my use of them whilst taking their 'turn' and their initial deployment being dice driven, so I'm going to be looking more at the latter.

      Delete
  11. More terrific "Jimland" shenanigans, Joe. One of my fave expeditions tbh, and I'm looking forward to seeing how your new leader gets on with his excursions. Wonderfully written stuff :-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Blaxx, not one of my favourite expeditions as my best laid plans slowly fell apart!

      Delete
  12. Hi Joe another interesting expedition. It did seem easy but it also seems that the expedition members numbers and firepower have increased but the native numbers have remained static, would that be a fair assumption.
    So gone are the days of last ditch stands and nail biting actions to be replaced with the European steamroller.
    Maybe as Simon suggested you try and improve the decision making of the natives or simply increase their numbers to match your own.
    It will be interesting to see how the new expedition leader acts, not well from the tone of your conclusion.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I when they have lower numberst always seems like the NAtives don't stand a chance with lower numbers ans seem overpowering when they have large numbers.
      The natives are card driven (or table driven in my own version) and have a minimum of 6 and maximum of 10 appearing, generally with an equal chance of all spears, a rifles/bows or a mix.

      Delete
  13. Great looking game, beautiful pictures, love the natives...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Phil, it's taken a while to get to this stage, but I reckon there's still more that could be done.

      Delete