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The valley of the Wa'Kombolo tribe looking towards the
Gaasai lands far away beyond the yellow ruins of the old Arab town.
In the centre is the Prince's village.
The fields are carpet tiles, the pallisades are
made from toothpicks, the huts from card and the dead trees are heather
roots. |
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The smaller village before the raid.
Again the huts are card, the "boma" is
a Christmas decoration, the hills are polystyrene and most of the plants
are aquarium plastics cut up and mounted on clay bases. |
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The Gaasai enter the valley. |
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The Gaasai veterans charge up the hill to extinguish the
beacon and kill the drummer. The heroic fellow beats the warning
even as the Gaasai spear him to death. (He did roll exceedingly high
on his morale test). |
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The villagers are alerted and start to drive the cattle to
safety. They are slow to move because they expect to be milked and
not herded away. The warriors begin to assemble.
The fences are Irregular Miniatures metal
ones. Almost all the figures are Foundry Darkest Africa Range.
The cattle come from a variety of maunfacturers, Foundry (Darkest Africa,
Indian Mutiny, Boer War etc), Irrecular and Platoon 20. |
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At the Prince's village things are happening as well.
The cattle are being collected and the most important Royal White cattle
are being brought back over the brook. |
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The defenders sally out without realising who it that they
to fight. |
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Down by the swamp the women and children start to drive off
the cattle.
The swamp grass in the background is made from
paper and mounted on bases. It looks very effective but take a long
long time to make. |
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The Gaasai column advances having driven off skirmishers
from the flanks. |
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Ahead of them the war lions of the Simbasai are unleashed,
killing two hunters and chasing off two more.
The lions, I think, are old Minifigs ones from
their Gladiators Range. |
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The defenders of the first village are destroyed in
hand-to-hand fighting and their two archers flee.
The little counters indicate a
"wounded" model, a crimson one would mean crippled and the dead
are replaced with casualty figures (or black counters) |
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Ahead of the main column the Prince sallies out to block the
route. The Gaasai halt while the fighting to their rear continues. |
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The rear of the Gaasai column comes under a spirited
attack. But the timely arrival of the rearguard turns the
tide. To the right background the victorious Gaasai are returning
with cattle from the first village. |
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The Wa'Kombolo reinforcements are routed. Now these
Gaasai warriors rush forward to engage the Prince. |
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Not waiting for them to arrive the Prince sends out a
flanking column to rescue the stolen cattle. In flurry of spears his
men are all but wiped out by the Gaasai but they inflict heavy casualties
in return. |
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At this point the digital camera broke down! |
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The main battle lines closed. The two witch doctors
stepped forward and cursed each other, hurling spells and abuse at each
other until the Wa'Kombolo witchdoctor rushed in and killed the Gaasai
shaman. With a great shout the Wa'Kombolo charged the Gaasai who
could only stand and throw spears. As chance would have it, his
volley accounted for nearly a third of the attackers and their witchdoctor.
Taking heart from this they fell upon the Wa'Kombolo and Gizaku cut
down Prince Tubifelli. Tubifelli was crippled so severely that he
had to be dragged off. This signalled the end of the
fighting. |
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The Gaasai made good their escape but were one cow short of
a victory.
The Wa'Kombolo had lost 8 cattle, killed 7 Gaasai but had taken no
prisoners. In addition their prince was grievously
injured. |
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The result was a marginal victory for the Gaasai. |