George's Next Expedition

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Yet another post about "Jimland" as I'm back from my short holiday break and didn't manage to finish anything before I left for holiday, no since I have returned.
I'm also full of cold (man flu) and have both a Doctor's and Hospital appointments over the next two weeks which will no doubt impact upon my hobby related activities.
Once more then, I'm posting on George Molyneux's second expedition into the wilds of Jimland, with #1 son, in the guise of George, leading the expedition and myself taking the rile of any dastardly deeds inflicted upon the column.
The photograph on the right show George's larger column with George at the front, (bottom right), Doctor Minden (centre) and the interpreter Hubert St. Edward (on the left), leading the column of bearers, soldiers and their lately acquired pack mule.









Once more, we have to rely on the journal of Frederick Cartington for the report of this expedition, so:

From the journal of Frederick Cartington:

"With their new found wealth, another expedition was quickly assembled by George Molyneux, impressive and full of bravado. They had the same three explorers, backed up by five soldiers, some twenty bearers with a pack animal;  the latter were all laden down with enough food for at least two weeks.
I was very surprised to find a single soldier and several bearers running into Jim's Landing a mere four days later with tales of death and destruction.
The soldier, related me this sad tale of woe:"

The column assaulted from the right and shot at from the left.

"We  were in good spirits as we left our camp just outside of Jim's landing finding several rations, no doubt left by some other expedition and headed North to where the trail veers off to the northeast. The next day we headed northwest then north cutting a trail though the terrain we'd already traversed once.
Even as we assembled the column ready for the third day a shot rang out from our left and one of our bearers fell dead,  whilst at the same time we were assailed by natives from our right ! It was only then that we realised that we had been the victims of a dawn ambush !

Panic seemed to be the order of the day, as the column split, we soldiers forming a ragged firing line to the rear, whist our leaders did similarly to the front.
The native rifle fire seemed particularly accurate whilst our own was ineffective to say the least.
Our leaders were felled quickly and everyone took it as the order "Every man for themselves" and we fled in all directions." 
"I thanked the man for his tale and wondered what the natives' actions were after the conflict."

 Some amazingly good dice rolls on my part for shooting cut down all the explorers by turn three with little to no effective return fire by the explorers, which, along with the failure of all their saving rolls was the Molyneux expedition's downfall  !

George;s route (red arrows) and the 'search area'

Though the expedition apparently ceased to exist, I though it a good opportunity for a rescue scenario, in which an expedition would be launched to search a seven hex area  for the natives. My thinking was that the explorers would have an additional saving roll after the action, representing the natives  trying to save them for later capture or inviting them to dinner if they were cannibalistic) or even other nefarious purposes.
The map on the left shows two arrows representing each day of the expedition and the seven red dots would be the areas where I'd suggest the 'white men', if they survived could be being held.
Giving each hex a 1in 6 chance of having a village per the normal Jimland rules) gives an overall chance of about 75% of the explorers being found, so a c=good chance they wouldn't be!
However giving the chance of finding them in any given hex as 1 in 3 then a 95% chance of finding them whether in a camp or village is far more satisfactory.
It remains to be seen whether  #1 son wishes to launch a rescue operation with a new expedition,  or if I'll undertake one with Max von Sackville's team.




That's all for this week, unfortunately once more a short post, but next week, maybe I'll have something new finished !

Once more, thanks for taking the time to visit and as always your comments are both welcomed and appreciated.