This year we're off to sunny Spain-NOT !! 1709

Well fellow bloggers you probably have never seen a game like this before and probably won't see a one like it again.
The two players who were conned into thinking this was going to be a seige of Gibralta,with the British and Dutch attacking and the Spanish and French defending,were Paul and Graham.The scenario was that an invasion force was sailing from Plymouth to Gibralta to capture the castle from the Spanish and French,however the "real" scenario was that the invasion force was hit by a storm at sea and most of it was wrecked,leaving a very depleted force of British inf. guns and cav. on the Moroccan shore!!
The local "Warlord" (Graham) sees this little "army" marching inland to a village and oasis,gathers his tribes and some allied tribes in an attempt to destroy them,quite silly really but as it turned out was a challenging game to both sides,and totally enjoyable-Marlburian/Colonial,what next??
I have printed some photo's showing alot of the main action,I took command of the allied tribes on Graham's left flank,and we jointly decided to attack both of Paul's flanks,whilst holding him in the centre with just a token force.The photo below shows the British main defences in the village and an ancient tower,this is the British right flank and centre. This shows the Allied tribes attacking the village,being shot at but not stopped.

Paul had cleverly placed on of his guns in the tower and,although it had limited ammunition(as did the infantry) it did alot of damage to Graham's tribes attackinghis left flank.

The village under pressure from allied tribes,too much pressure as it turned out!

The inevitable cavalry clash on the British left flank

This shows Graham's tribes being "cannistered" and almost destroyed,luckily he had a second line which eventually got in among Paul's inf. on that flank,and after a hard and bloody struggle, he won the ensuing melee.

Up close and personal in the village,this was the scene of lots of melees,the result was a close run thing but eventually the tribes captured the village,thus threatening the whole of the British defences.

In the background of this shot you can see quite an unusual sight,the British foot guards being persued by a unit of Camels !!!

Paul,in desperation,charges his cavalry into a tribe and actually drove them back,before reinforced by another tribe,which tipped the balance in Graham's favour and the British cav. were forced back.

This shows Paul's map,which he was given after Graham and I had worked out our dispositions,so he could dispose his troops.(note his "doodlings" on bottom)

This is the original scenario given to both players before the game started and was of course a total "con"

At the end of this game we all agreed that it was good fun and that it had provided us all with various problems which we would not have ever thought of in a "normal" Marlburian game.