Boxer Rebellion wargame in 54mm

 

I have collected and painted figures for most of the colonial conflicts but I think my favourite is possibly the boxer rebellion.

The Chinese figures are really good fun to paint due to the variety in their appearance, a characteristic which is shared by the multinational western forces opposed to them which means you can field all sorts of different nationalities and uniforms.

Armies in Plastic of course produce a terrific range of boxer rebellion figures, sadly these are pretty much unavailable in the UK, but I was able to build up my collection before this became the case.

I decided that I thought it was time for another boxer rebellion game, inspiration of this came from the excellent Mark Fastoso supplement to the Sword and the Flame called Admiral Seymour 's relief expedition. The scenario is quite a simple one, the western forces are on the offensive and must capture two Chinese villages.

The western forces are comprised of British infantry, U.S. Marines, irregulars. The Chinese had oodles of boxers plus some Chinese regulars and a couple of cavalry. I thought this would be an interesting scenario because in a lot of colonial games the western forces form a firing line and the natives obligingly charge and are shot down in droves. This one is a bit different because it's the western forces who are on the offensive.

The Chinese forces outnumbered the westerners by over 2 to 1 but I thought this was reasonable given the huge disparity in troop quality.

The initial setup meant that while the western forces were concentrated at one end of the board, the Chinese forces were spread across the board and the there was potential for the westerners to defeat them in detail. The Chinese also had the disadvantage of having a poor command structure.

The game started with the western forces moving forward towards the village covering either flank bringing down fire on whatever Chinese units they could see.

Chinese cautiously reinforced the village and started setting up a second line of defence presumably with the idea of defending in depth.

Westerners now attacked the village in force supporting the attack on both sides. The Chinese forces had a turn when most of them refused to do anything which led to much cursing and swearing on the part of the Chinese player and presumably a few summary executions of the leaders of the boxer units. The Chinese regulars also seemed very unwilling to go forward.

The westerners now pretty much had control of the village it and started to move into the woods on their left flank, it was clear that their plan was to roll up the Chinese flank and try to avoid the two pieces of Chinese artillery.

Seeing that he was being outmanoeuvred the Chinese player now started to throw forward boxers in large numbers. Some of these make contact with the Europeans and desperate combat ensued. The westerners generally won these combats due to their better training and morale however they were building up a steady number of casualties.

The fight for the village now became increasingly desperate with the two units of western irregulars bearing the brunt of it.

The Chinese player decided to change tactics and instead of playing defensively to go for an all out offensive, throwing forward the boxers ruthlessly and spending their lives like water while the Chinese regulars came up to reinforce.

This tactic was beginning to work although the boxers were dying in droves, they were gradually wearing down the westerners who decided to consolidate and pull back to form a defensive line.

The battleground was strewn with boxer bodies now, but the Chinese Mandarin player was indifferent to their losses and threw forward the Chinese regulars and the cavalry who are all armed with modern repeating rifles who started to bring the westerners under concentrated fire.

Both sides had taken significant casualties now and we decided to do a count as our usual practice is to play until one side has lost over 50% of its force at which point the other side is declared the winner.

We found that the western forces were a couple of bases over the 50%, while the Chinese were just below the 50% mark. So the westerners had lost but the Chinese casualties, given that they had started the game with twice as many units as the westerners, had been pretty horrific.

However the westerners were no clearly on the defensive and there was no chance of them capturing both villages therefore the game was declared a Chinese victory.

It had been a very exciting game for both players and particularly challenging for the Chinese player, who by either luck or judgement used exactly the right tactics to wear down the western forces with the regulars before bringing up his better troops. These tactics are also very historical as one could imagine the Chinese Mandarin ruthlessly ordering the luckless boxer peasants forward and keeping his better troops in reserve. However the Chinese commander failed to make any use at all of his artillery.

On the western side the western commander was probably a bit too gung ho and moved units forward into positions where they could be charged by Chinese quite early on in the game. The westerners almost inevitably won these combats due to their superior training and morale they could not afford the small but steady stream of casualties that they incurred.

Overall it was a great game, the Armies in Plastic figures look superb on the table top and the adapted rules worked well. I have adapted the Neil Thomas rules for the game and this was the first time that we had tried them.  I've made a couple of amendments but the amended version is pasted in below below the photos if anyone wants to give them a try.

Neil Thomas Ancient and Medieval rules adapted for Boxer Rebellion

Sequence

A player chooses a unit and chooses to activate it – choices are

Move and fire

Fire and move

Charge/march move

Artillery may half move and fire or full move and not fire

Command Friction

Western forces – D8

Boxer forces – D6

On a roll of 1 the unit may not activate

Movement

Infantry 12, cavalry 24, artillery, 6 and fire, 12 and not fire.

March/charge infantry only - +D8

Friendly units may interpenetrate.

Boxers are not slowed by terrain.

Firing

Western troops and chinese regular – 1 dice per base, range 24, hit on 4+

Western trained troops at close range (less than 6 inches) hit on 3+

Carbines – 18. Cavalry hit on 5+

Boxers – 1 dice per 2 bases rounding down

Western Artillery – fires each turn – average die, no saves. Close range less than 12 inches average die plus D3.

Chinese artillery – fires alternate turns, range 48.

Machine guns – fires each turn, range of 24 fires each turn – average die, no saves. Close range less than 12 inches average die plus D3.

When a unit loses a base as a result of firing, take a morale check as normal. If it fails, roll a D4, that is the number of extra casualties it receives.

Save throws

Western regulars, Chinese regulars and Tigermen – 4+

Western Artillery crew – 3 plus

Chinese artillery crew – 4 plus

Boxers – 5 plus

Cavalry – 5+

Melee

1 dice per base hitting on 4+

Tigermen and cavalry roll an extra die per base in the first round of combat, and an extra die per 2 bases remaining rounding down in subsequent rounds.

Cavalry may only charge units they outnumber.

C in C adds an extra dice to a unit in melee.

Count up casualties after combat – the losing side must take a morale check.

If it fails, proceed as follows –

Chinese regulars, Boxers, European irregulars – fall back 2 moves. May not activate next turn.

European regulars – fall back 1 move may not activate next turn.

Winning units do not pursue.

If cavalry beat infantry, the infantry do not fall back. The combat continues until 1 side is eliminated.

Only losers take a morale check.

Base removal

A base is removed on the accumulation of 4 hits as usual.

Artillery may be shot at, and can take 8 hits

Morale

Boxers, Western irregulars – levy

Western and chinese regulars – average

Tigermen, US Marines and British Naval Brigade – elite

Morale does not apply to artillery