Albion sends PIMMS to Pyntagahl - Tomorrow's War AAR

The Bwendi Bugle

03 April 2313 Standard Reckoning

Albion PIMMS in Pyntagahl Atrocity

Yesterday the survey station at Cumknocking-on-the-Piddle was destroyed by the Pyntagahl Irregular Mobile Militia Service. PIMMS is an Albion-sponsored terrorist organisation, whose goal is to force the Bwendi nation to kowtow to Albion imperialist ambitions. The PIMMS insurgents attacked the town and then waited to ambush the elements of the 23rd Fast Reaction Team that were sent to deal with the problem.

Cumknocking-on-the-Piddle yesterday. PIMMS militia lurk behind the buildings on the left while elements of 23rd FaRT perform a pincer movement to turn the tables on the PIMMS.

A reduced platoon from 23rd FaRT advanced on the village, performing a pincer movement that left the PIMMS nowhere to run. Taking them under fire, they killed some and wounded many more in a fierce firefight that fortunately resulted in only a small number of Bwendi wounded and no dead.

PIMMS reinforcements

As the battle progressed more PIMMS militia joined the fight, but the combination of poor visibility due to a freak dust storm and the better training of the 23rd FaRT soldiers soon cut them down to size. Once the initial attack had been blunted, the Bwendi force was able to advance through the village, securing many prisoners and draining PIMMS of the will to fight. By the end of the engagement, the PIMMS were routed and the village was secure once more. Twenty prisoners were taken. See them interviewed tonight on Tonight with Trebor McDonut, only on Buglevision Channel 3 along with a dynamic computer-generated re-creation of the battle.

How our heroes defeated the PIMMS

It comes as no surprise to learn that General Sir Laurence-Llewellyn Boleyn, noted Albion hunter and warmonger, has been in the same area for the past week apparently hunting Spine Mountain Frecklepusses. Colonel Throckmorton P. Gladiolus has asked General Boleyn to high tea this afternoon to discuss the diplomatic ramifications of this latest attack. We cannot but hope that the General will lose his head when he returns to Albion following this military failure.

Commentary
This was our first try with irregular troops. Steve wanted to use his Rebel Minis Sahadeen, so we set to with little knowledge of the rules but a will to muddle through. I think we mostly got it right, but there seemed to be holes in the rules that careful re-reading may plug.

We used the campaign rules to set up the scenario. My mission was to hold an objective on the enemy side of the table at game end with no enemy near it. I cleared out one objective by mid-game but forgot my mission and got caught up in capturing Steve's troops, so I did not complete my mission on a technicality. Note to self: remain aware of the mission at all times. I wonder how many times I have said that to myself and still failed to do so?

Steve's goal was to stop me achieving my mission. He succeeded in this because I moved my troops away from the objective marker. Looking at the board at the end of the game, it was clear that his troops had lost the fight and that I controlled the whole of the area around the objective marker, but the rules are clear about how you measure victory. O me miserum!

For once, my casualties were minimal, which was nice. I did kill two of Steve's leaders, which lost him victory points. Again, I did not check what Steve needed to do to gain victory points, else I would have played the game differently. That's another lesson learnt/reinforced. Check what the other side scores points for.

So, as a result of my failure to pay attention, I finished the game on -3 points (3 wounded soldiers) while Steve finished on +13 (my failure to fulfil the victory conditions precisely - 2 dead leaders). A decisive victory to Steve. Hmm ...

Our next step is to play a tank action scenario from the rulebook to learn the vehicle rules fully. After that we shall move through the rest of the scenarios in the book, or we shall start a mini-campaign using the rules that we have been using to set up these scenarios.