James' Wargaming Weirdness: The Scorpion King Battle Report

I love the Mummy films, the ones with Brendan Fraser, especially the freaky Egyptian monsters.

So when Ed suggested a war-game based on the second film I was dead (joke) keen.

The game was to be humans versus the Scorpion King and his minions - a straight up battle.

The humans comprised British colonial forces plus some Arab irregulars, 2 units of Magi, cannon, an FT17 tank and a biplane. Ok I know there is no tank in the film, but it’s a nice model.

The Scorpion king led a motley assortment of mummies, skeletons, scarabs, scorpions. This was the first time I had used my recently acquired Egyptian tomb king types unread and I had high hopes of them.

The Scorpion King model is huge, and I'm not sure exactly what it’s supposed to be, I bought it second hand for a few quid just cos it’s a great model so this was its first time on the battlefield.

First turn went well for the Scorpion King, whose skeleton catapult dropped its ordnance smack on tithe British lancers, killing 3 of them. The rest of the army advanced as quickly as possible.

The allies then opened fire to good effect - the terrifying sight of the Scorpion King made him a popular target and he suffered two wounds. Heavy machine gun fire from the biplane caused a number of hits to the skeleton chariots.

Next turn the skeletons fired back at the biplane causing two points of damage, the Scorpion King charged the British Line, but weakened by their defensive fire he was killed in the melee! Command of the army now passed to the .Grand Priest of Anubis.

Undaunted the rest of the undead army crashed into the humans. The mummies attacked the FT17, but its armour defeated most of their attacks. A unit of Magi charged the Egyptian skeletons, and were wiped out in melee. The skeleton chariots succumbed to massed machine gun fire.

The biplane now swooped the skeleton catapult and did some damage. Skeleton archers opened up on the machine gun, dropping most of the crew. The Egyptian skeleton spearmen routed a unit of Arabs.

British infantry moved up to support the FT17 but suffered high casualties from the mummies. The scorpions cut down Brendan Fraser and a couple of the other heroes.

The scarabs moved forward inexorably into melee, did lots of damage but lost the melee and had to fall back. Next turn they were mercilessly gunned down by a hail of gunfire.

The battle was nearing its end now. The brave mummies succumbed to the combined forces of British infantry, FT17 and lancers. All the undead had left was the two units of skeletons and so it turned out to be a victory for the forces of humanity.

It had been a very entertaining game.

In retrospect we would make a couple changes, The FT17 was far too tough, and the Scorpion King was not tough enough. The undead probably needed another unit to even up the odds and make it a more balanced game. Having said that we kept forgetting to do the Fear tests so that might have made a difference.