Boer War Batrep - The Battle of Bergendal 1900

Last Sunday the Posties Rejects got together for our second wargame of the year, now this has got to be a record for us, two wargames already and its still early in February???.

We were re-fighting the Battle of Bergendal in 1900, the last pitched battle of the Anglo-Boer War. You may have already seen BigLee's report on the Battle here, so I won't go into too many details and repeat what Lee's already written, suffice it to say, me and the Lurker were on the same side for once, I even had to stand next to him AND he was our commander, we were doomed from the start!!!!

A general shot of the battlefield, all the terrain you can see (apart from the TSS tiles) was handmade by Reject John the umpire and owner of all the figures used. I had a small command of 3 Commando units and a Long Tom Gun, which were all set up on or around the triangular hill at the bottom of the pic above, which was our right flank.

Fran and Dave had our main force on and between the two large hills. Our aim was to try and hold off the British onslaught, which looked to be rather difficult.

Four of the Reject Brits, plan their attack.

Most of the two tiles on the left were covered in brush which severely hampered the flanking movement of Smiffy's attacking force, meanwhile Dave setup on top of the hill, the only way up the sheer cliff (grey areas)  was the little green path you can see on the left of the hill.

As a result of Smiffy's flanking move I decided to move 1 of my mounted units to the centre

 and help out Dave and Fran, while another unit moved to the town.

 Heeee Hawwww!!! God knows what the Donkey was laughing at????

Could be Big Lee's bald patch that he's so delicately parting???
Why I hear you ask?
I don't know is the simple answer.....

Dave moved over to one side of the hill to stop all of the British units firing at him. We had

 the better in rifle firing, We needed 16+ on a D20, the Brits needed 18+. 

Not a great deal was going on down my end of the table, Reject Richard was on the British left and had orders to hold, just as I did, as I moved some of my troops back around towards the centre, Richard chose his moment, to try and get around the flank.

Its looking dodgy now, although both Fran and Dave pounded the British lines, they 

kept coming, the blue and white dice are casualty dice.

Surj's artillery blew away the barricades and cover in front of Dave's unit, leaving it open for a British charge.

Meanwhile back over the other end of the field, my artillery blew a big hole in the Brits. 

Who went into disorder, and retreated on their own accord.

The big open area, Richard's units can be seen at the top of the pic, with my and 

Fran's units both push forward.

It wasn't working out at all well in the centre, a disastrous throw by both Dave and Fran failed to cause any casualties on Posties charging Brits, they only needed a 5+ on a D20. This allowed the Brits to open a huge can of whoopass on the Boers. Who were either pushed or moved back to form a secondary defensive line at the railroad track. But it was all too late by then........

The victorious Brits, move in for the kill, but me and Fran (Dave had to leave a little earlier) threw 

in the towel and denied them the thrill of battering us even more.

To the Victors go the spoils of war!!!