Boxer Rebellion - final playtest

The final playtest for the Boxer rebellion game prior to Gauntlet was held at Deeside Defenders last night with a host of willing volunteers.

The briefing

The British show that they learned something in the Zulu War and construct a wagon laager in the Imperial carriage park.

The US and Russians await the onslaught

All seems calm on the other flank, until you see that the Italian legation has been abondoned

The last stand of the Austro-Hungarian legation before they too pulled out.

Just for my records the almost completed Fort Halliday covering the entrance to the British legation.

Over all the game was great fun and only a few minor tweaks need to be made, so roll on Gauntlet (2nd & 3rd of July)

Hook-up with The Baggage Train

Steve Oates at The Baggage Train has recently completed work on his 1/300th scale Arnhem Bridge model and it's now available to buy.  The model is an awesome 80cm long and you can be add Steve's extension modules to represent the bridge at Nijmegen. To celebrate this, we've agreed to put on a game using this and some other models from Steve's range.

Now I don't suggest that we try to build Arnhem town in 1/300th - that would involve thousands of buildings and, I suspect, wouldn't work brilliantly as a game - so I've taken the liberty of transplanting the bridge to the north African republic of Maghrebia.  Maghrebia looks remarkably like Libya in its geography but there is more than a hint of Iran about the make-up of its armed forces.

For at least some of next year's games, then, SOTCW will be presenting the Spanish invasion of north Africa!  I propose to use Cold War Commander rules and to set up a "matrix campaign" where the result of each game takes us down one of a number of possible paths to the next action.

More later!

Boxer Rebellion - test game

The first test game on a full sized layout was held at the Deeside Defenders club on Thursday. Here are a couple of pictures of the action.

The British Legation is in the foreground with the British order cards laid out alongside so we could keep track of them (only three of us were play-testing).


German, French and Japanese legations, all quiet here except the problem of food supplies

One obvious need is for more ruins, we still couldn't fill the table using Pete's, mine and the Clubs terrain, so I have started work on more.

Overall the test went well, just needing tweeks to the orders and event cards.

WIP2 - Peking 1900 for Gauntlet

Things are progressing I've assembled the sheets of textured paper and painted on the roads and insides of the legations. Further progress has been made with the buildings

Immediately in the foreground are from L to R the British, Russian and US legations

Next are the Japanese (J) German (G) and French (F) Legations with the Italians out on a limb.

Finally the opposite view showing how isolated the Austrian legation is.


A test game will be held tonight down at the club, so I'll see how it all works out then.

Draft layout of Peking 1900

Given the good weather I thought it was time to lay out the legations to see how well everything fitted together. This is an overview of the entire table 6' x 10' with the edges and roads marked in yellow chalk.

Immediately in the foreground are from L to R the British, Russian and US legations

Next are the Japanese (J) German (G) and French (F) Legations with the Italians out on a limb.

Finally the opposite view showing how isolated the Austrian legation is.

It was just as well I had laid everything out as I found I had failed to count some walls, so more need to be added. The whole areas outside the legations needed to be filled up with burnt out buildings, walls, etc. The final layout will be marked out on some old wallpaper, which has a cobbled effect

Will