Charge of the Miracle Brigade!

H.G. Well's original Little Wars needs a lot of terrain or a lot of space.  Wells his self played it on the floor, and had access to these large cork panels that he could stack as hills and into which he could stick trimmings from shrubs to make trees, both of which serve to obstruct the fire-arcs of the 4.7" Britains naval guns (since we are using matchsticks or q-tips as ammunition here).  Apart from some buildings, my hills and the vast majority of my trees are scaled to 28mm figures, and look out of place with the old Britains.  Playing on a floor, which I wouldn't mind, isn't really an option because that would involve rolling up rugs in the living spaces.  I'd play outside but don't really trust myself to not step on my own troops!

Recently I played a 54mm medieval game on a grid and really enjoyed the feel and look of the game.  Grids allow individually based 54mm figures to be loosely-arranged and have that "toy soldiers at play" look, eliminating the need for formations.  So I cleared the table, rolled the gridded felt back out, and reset the Britains into two armies, with 10 man infantry units and 5 man cavalry (which worked so well in the prior Lion Rampant game).

This has the right look!

I pulled out an old stat sheet from an attempt to play at the Crimean War my 20mm figures, and refreshed my memory of The Men Who Would Be Kings.  Much like the Crimean War experiment with these rules, I was not satisfied with the result.  Both sides shot the heck out of each other in a pretty bleak affair.  I thought about switching to Pikeman's Lament and just "modernizing" those.  Then it struck me that my issue with The Men Who Would Be Kings is its "one hit = one casualty" dynamic.  To compare to its cousins Lion Rampant and Pikeman's Lament, this is like every unit having an armor or stamina rating of 1. I reset the armies on the table and tried things again but with two hits equaling one casualty (three needed at long range).  This seemed to do the trick - you had the simplicity of the The Men Who Would Be Kings rules, but the decreased hit-to-casualty rate allowed for units to be pinned or slowed by enemy fire but not destroyed outright quite so quickly!

Empire's left flank. Essex Regiment with Life Guard cavalry in reserve.

I was able to build only a few 10- or 5-man units of matching figures, but since a 6" square is pretty roomy for 10 figures, I had fun putting 6 figures from, say, the Essex Regiment, along side 4 from the the Scots Guards to get to the requisite 10.  This lent the game some easy narrative flavor as "the Essex Regiment supported by elements of the Scots Guards broke up under enemy artillery fire" is fun to say.

King's Royal Rifles and 10th Hussars

The opposing armies had seven units each, with the Empire (Red) having a gun, four infantry units, an two cavalry units, and the Allies (Blue/Green) having a gun, five infantry units, and just one cavalry unit. Areas with woods and buildings were impassable.

The Allied Army in starting posts.

I was the Empire and my son played the Allies.  I decided to try some actual tactics, and would try and keep my two cavalry units in reserve and out of LOS as long as possible, so that they would be available to strike at the end of the game.

Empire infantry on the advance.

I had some poor leadership rolls and my infantry did not advance as quickly or as uniformly as I would have liked.  As a result the Allies were able to get into better fire positions.

The Essex Regiment holding down the Empire's left flank.

Empire troops advancing.
Some pin markers have accumulated from fire on the pioneer unit at the top center there.

The Allies' Westminsters Volunteer Rifles. Between these, the Zouaves to the left, and the gun, the Sepoy Pioneers, and the Royal Marines in the distance, the Allies havequite the crossfire set up covering the middle of the table...

View from the Allied gun.

Action underway. Allied Hussars are attacking the Imperial left.  Imperial infantry advances up the middle under fire.

Allies directing fire into the Imperial advance. The Imperial Dragoons cavalry have slipped behind the cover of the woods at the upper right and wait. Imperial Life Guards cavalry is also in cover near the center left of the above.

The Allies' formidable crossfire death zone.

High water mark for the Imperial infantry advance.

After a lot of haphazard command rolls, two of the Empire's somewhat fresher infantry units managed to finally get up into the middle ground. The attack by the Allies' 10th Hussars on the Imperial left had effectively dispatched the Essex Regiment but the majority of the Life Guards escaped and moved across the rear into support of the right flank.

Keep an eye on the charging highlanders on the left supported by the marching Scots Borderers.

After the infantry attack fell apart.

Unfortunately, a unit of Imperial highlanders and Scots Borderers took a pin marker, and then rolled snake eyes on the subsequent rally roll, and were routed.  Then the remnants of the Imperial Worcestershire Regiment (in the white helmets) were shot to pieces, leaving only the Irish Guards and the Empire cavalry units. As we were playing until 7 cumulative units (from either side) were removed, and the Empire only had four left and practically no infantry and the Allies had all five of its infantry units still, it looked dim for the Empire.  But then! A pin marker on the Allie artillery! A charge by the Imperial Dragoons! The gun is overrun. A followup charge by the Life Guards. Absolutely repeatedly awful shooting dice by every single one of the Allied infantry units do nothing to stop the Imperial cavalry. Unit after Allied unit is pinned by one charge and then devastated by a follow-up.

End game.

And so, a shocking victory for the Empire. The entirety of the Allied infantry and artillery swept from the field by the 5th Dragoons and the Life Guards.

With the increased-by-1 "armor" values for all units (as to shooting only), The Men Who Would Be Kings is quite a nice ruleset. The definitive power move (but which still feels realistic) is to soften up a unit with rifle or artillery fire and get a pin marker on them, then hit that unit with a melee attack (pinned units fight with half their dice rounded down).  I might tinker around with more diverse unit types seeing as this game was just same-same infantry/cavalry/artillery units.

I also ignored TMWWBK's leader-generation system (I just gave all units a leadership of 6+).  Although I do like this system it can lead to the addition of chits and tokens to note the various leadership abilities and values which clutters the table.