Stuart Asquith Memorial Game

My buddy and I played a colonial wargame today to honor Stuart Asquith who made so many contributions to our hobby. We used his Big Wars rules which are purposely simple and straightforward, but which delivered an historical result for our game. The scenario was from the 2nd Anglo Boer War battle of Elandslaagte, an early, but costly British victory. The British outnumbered the Boers by greater than two to one and had to advance with no cover against Boer positions on a ridge of hills. The game started badly for the Brits with the Boers knocking out one of their four guns with counter battery fire. After that, the British took many casualties from the superior Boer marksmanship. One British unit of Gordon Highlanders was completely destroyed while advancing. But despite the telling fire, the Khakis continued to advance in rushes, as they did historically. The Brits' two mountain guns destroyed one of the Boers two artillery pieces and then the infantry went in with the bayonet. After that three of the four Boer units went down before the onslaught. We called the game before the British were able to unleash their cavalry against the retreating Boers.