Battle of Motien Pass - RJW - TMWWBK Playtest

Just finished up a very nice and successful playtest of an RJW skirmish game using The Men Who Would Be Kings. The rules seemed to work out very well for the scenario - which was based loosely on the the Battle of Motien Pass. A small engagement during the early part of the Russo-Japanese War - a few months after the larger Battle of the Yalu River. The Japanese objective was to storm the  Russians who were in hastily built entrenchments. The Russians were to survive 6 turns with half of their army fir a victory. The Japanese had 15 units at the start of the game and the Russians,  12. At the end of turn 6, the Russians still had 8 of their units, but the Japanese had taken over the first line of trenches. The game was called a close tie. However, if more turns were to have been played, the Japanese would've likely destroyed the remaining Russian units.

The table was set up with two lines of trenches in an oblique facing on the table. The Japanese were allowed to have up to three units occupy the small hamlet with native huts along a stream in the foreground. The Russians were allowed to arrange their units within their defenses prior to the start of the game. All cover and obstacles, including the hastily dug trenches were rated as light cover - increasing hits for casualties by only one more needed. All unit leaders were rated at 6. The Japanese infantry and Russian Cossacks cavalry were given a Discipline of +2, Japanese cavalry +1, and Russian infantry and all crewed weapons having no increase.

It was pointed out after the game that the Japanese should have some of their artillery moved up by around 12" from the table edge at the start of the game. This would allow for their more effective use as crewed weapons only have a movement of 4". As the set up has the Russians in an oblique line, only half of the Japanese guns would need to be moved up.

I ran half of the Japanese force and charged their sole cavalry unit into a Russian infantry unit in light cover. This was more to do with fleshing out the HTH rules more than common sense. They ended up being killed off in a later turn.

Japanese were unlucky in failing to activate a lot of their units in a couple of turns. However, the Russians had decided to vacate the first line of trenches early in the game, so balanced their lack of movement a bit.

One of the Russian players distracted by an enemy Poodle agent.

One of two Cossack mounted units - late in the game the Cossack units used their Skirmish rule and got some shots off at the enemy.

All in all a very successful playtest with only the more forward placement of some Japaneses artillery at the start of the game was felt needed to balance the game better. I really like how the rules played out - especially the way shooting and combat uses a D6 per figure - unlike the usual 6 or 12 for half or full strenght units in the Rampant family of rules. The tests for Pinning and Rallying also seemed to flow smoothly too.  Thanks again for checking out the blog and wishing you the best.