Cartington Goes Forth

The Explorers

Yes, this is yet another of my adventures in Jimland, played several weeks ago and took only about two to three hours playing time. I had to have an intermission halfway through playing as I realised that there were no river crossing rules in "Jimland" (probably because they played no part in the tactical games). I wished to remedy this and took a few nights thought and referred to other rules to come up with a quick and (imho) elegant solution that wouldn't slow down play.

The Soldiers

Once more the expedition was at the fully permitted strength of thirty, including twenty bearers (the maximum number allowed).
In the photograph above from left to right are Ebor (scout), Frederick (Hunter, Leader and self proclaimed hero); Dr. Albert Cleghorn (Doctor -duh!) and finally Horatio Mundella (Interpreter).

So without further ado, once more:


From the the Journal of Frederick Cartington:

The column in its entirety

"With the exceptional success  of my previous expedition, despite some losses, I was able to to gather enough resources to fully equip a new expedition"
"Doctor Albert Cleghorn, Ebor a Scout of unknown origin, Horatio Mundella acting as Interpreter, myself and six soldiers joined me in my latest escapade."

The plan with its three objectives

"The plan was to explore both unknown  branches of the river we had discovered in a previous expedition, the soldiers and myself keeping safe our valuable newcomers. In addition I would take along eight loads of trade goods to pacify any unco-operative natives and we would supplement our food supply by purchasing food at any friendly villages we encountered, thus we only set off with 12 days' worth of food, but with money aplenty to purchase more"

The column prior to spotting the ambush

"Travelling SW on a very familiar route we once more encountered some slavers, that surprised our fellows, but we saw them off with only a single soldier wounded in the process. Luckily, I guess, we had one load of bad food and ate through another to furnish the requisite unemployed bearers necessary to carry our wounded comrade (kept alive by the prompt action of our MD."

Slavers attacking the flanks of the un-surprised column

Their riflemen head for cover

Doc and Frederick head for cover...

...whilst the soldiers drop a slaver...

and the Doc and Frederick flanks the melee armed slavers

The slavers' shooting attract a water buffalo

...that immediately attack them, savaging one!

The carnage continues as Frederic bags another slaver.

Our shooting attracts a lioness and the buffalo turn its attention on us.

The lioness attacks the slavers, eager to flee, whilst the buffalo is wounded

The buffalo is dispatched but wounds a soldier

The lioness flees after a quick slaver snack

"With the demise of the beasts and what was left of the slavers we proceeded onwards towards the river along our previously forged track, losing a careless bearer, carrying a valuable load of trade goods, to one of the deadly native traps we encounter so frequently. A village is encountered and the inhabitants are more than pleased to accept our presence and two trade goods to make up for the ineptitude of our interpreter, he may speak like a native,  just not  native of Jimland it seems."
"We pick up the track of the river encountering some pygmies who are more than content to leave us alone with the help of a single load of trade goods."

The depleted column

"Eventually we found the outlet of the river to the sea, having endured bad water (causing two soldiers to fall foul of bad water), using up two more loads of trade gifts to pacify another village, excessive heat, (from which I was nearly overcome) and losing a soldier to its effects,( which the doc was unable to do anything about it). "
"Having found the mouth of the river we headed Northeast towards the unknown area that intrigued me"
 "An encounter with another  friendly village (despite our interpreter best efforts to insult them), enabled us to buy three loads of food"

Four Natives to the expedition's front and three to its flank

"With three able soldiers,  four explorers, a casualty and about 11 days of rations, I determined to carry on toward the mystery blank space in our map, of course nothing is simple as we waded into the swamp that it was and were immediately ambushed by seven spear-armed tribal warriors"

The natives immediately close, avoiding the sticky swamp mud

Those that can make for safety, or form a firing line

The bigger view

Opening fire,  Frederick and Ebor each bag a native.

The natives try to free themselves from the effects of the swamp, but...

...three out of the five remaining are stuck however.

With the loss of another Native into the swamp depths, they flee!

"With the action brief, but thankfully only deadly to the Natives we made camp in the swamp, ate a good supper and I planned for the next week"

 My plans (rather than Frederick's) was to protect the four explorers as much as the dice and event cards would allow me, to enable them to progress. Horatio, the interpreter has only a hand to hand weapon and a large save roll, whilst Ebor the Hunter  and the Doc are a little more average, with fairly good save rolls (14 and 16  respectively ) but poor  shooting (5,4) and melee skills (4,3).
Following a river gleans a lot of points (cash) and I need 100 to increase a single skill point for an explorer, so I was looking for 400+ points in this adventure!

Next week will see the conclusion of this adventure and if you've read through this far, I hope you've found something of interest (did you notice the bits of plastic scatter in the swamp ?)

That's it then until next week and as always you comments are both welcomed and appreciated.