For this month's gripping installment of ACW combat the harried umpire forgot to bring all the required paperwork. This necessitated a certain amount of improvisation on his part in order to provide the club members with a mechanism for turning dice rolls into combat brigades of various sizes. Herculean efforts on the part of the umpire did produce a workable game, but the units tended to be just a tad larger than usual.

At right can be seen the center of the Union line. Keeping in mind that the F& F rules tend to operate with brigades of approximately 8 stands, readers with exceptionally good eyesight will be able to count Union units with around 10 stands a piece. These would be the SMALL units engaged on this front. Beyond the forest, and past the beer bottle, General Beauregard B. Weenie lurks with his 4 brigades, each of which contains at least 14 stands. Oh, and the portrait on the beer label is that of General Chamberlain. The beer was passable, and the price extortionate. Perhaps to cover the expense of the high quality label.

At right, the center of the Union line at the mid point of the battle. Moderately important things are happening off to the left of the photo, and off to the right of the photo the Confederates are enjoying an enormous breakthrough. So much so that their highest casualties will be caused by Union artillery forced to spin around and fire into the Confederate rear as the Rebs press deep into Union territory.

At right, it doesn't look it, but this is the Union center 'many turns later.' General Beauregard B. Weenie has managed to bring up all of his enormous units, but hasn't succeeded in rolling anything higher than a "2" when it comes time to determine the results of his numerous charges. The Union commander, gradually accepting his good fortune, has thinned out the center providing reinforcements for his hard pressed troops elsewhere. Eventually General Grant conceded a major Confederate victory, based entirely on events taking place off the edge of the photo to the right. Events that your humble correspondent never quite managed to preserve for posterity with his camera.

Perhaps the most frequently played ECW scenario by west coast gamers, at least in the experience of the TBC correspondent. It was very much a near run thing, with the Royalists snatching victory from the Parliamentarians by demoralizing 2 out of the 3 rebel commands just one turn before Royalist losses indicated that King Charles had 2 of his 3 commands demoralized. Capitain OLB continued his unenviable tradition of losing BIG when he loses, as his command suffered horrendous casualties over on the Royalist left, whilst inflicting zero losses on Parliament.

Parliament's Speaker insisted upon providing theme drinks for the evening. As actual historical drinks might have proven rather unpalatable, some might say undrinkable, he decided to provide libations with appropriate names, rather than appropriate ingredients. At top right, and aperitif know as "The Saucy Rupert"... Maybe. It might also have been the beverage known as "The Oliver's Twist." There was a third name, but honestly all of them proved to be so potent that your humble correspondent is now incapable of recalling which was which..

At right, the Royalist Earl Weenie strives manfully to stave off defeat in the center. The cavalry on the left are from the wildly successful troops on the Parliamentarian right flank. The red coated infantry in the center and at the right rear are part of the enormous Parliamentarian center, gradually driving over Earl Weenie. The two, blurry, stands of forlorn foot in the foreground are some of the (very few) survivors of Weenie's command, desperately trying to stave off defeat, and kill just one more enemy stand. Yes, by this point in the game it had become pure mathematics, with both sides counting up the opponents surviving troops and trying desperately to 'kill just one more stand' to win the game

At right, a panorama of the TBC bar exhibiting just some of the extra ingredients provided by the 'Speaker of the House' in order to construct his menu of ECM beverages.

In what was perhaps the most argumentative, and thus some gamers might say traditional, of all games played at The Bengal Club the King of Burma sought to repel a British punitive force marching on his capital at Ava. The terrain was beautiful, and the conflict bitter in every sense of the word.

At right, the Burmese front line of defense from the British point of view. Club members spent many hours turning one of those sushi mats into a series of stockades so favored by the Burmese in the 19th century.

At right, a dirigible shot of the same stockade from the preceding photo. This time the view is from slightly behind, and to the right flank of the Burmese center. There are as yet no Burmese figures on the table, because they are - as is traditional - in concealment from the approaching British. On this day everything seemed to conspire against the empire. The imperial commander elected not to support his attack with a prolonged bombardment from his artillery, and instead attempted to rush the Burmese position. Unfortunately, half of the British units failed their charge rolls. Consequently those units who actually reached the stockade were heavily out numbered, and repelled with great loss. Meanwhile, the faltering units remained standing in front of the stockades, while the Burmese fired on them from the cover of entrenchments. The Royal Artillery finally punched a hole in the stockade, only to reveal a Burmese bombard concealed behind that very point. The natives then fired back, through the hole, and decimated the British gun crew. This was then followed by a prolonged 'disputation phase' encompassing prolonged argumentation over which page in the rules applied as to "Who could shoot at who."

At right, the 6th regiment of foot, portrayed by the same figures used to represent the ill fated Coldstream Guards from the TBC's recent Ashantiland game. It is also possible that these 'Jonahs of the gaming table' may have earlier been stand ins for US Army troops at the game commemorating Pancho Villa's raid on Columbus. Devoted readers of the TBC web site will remember that during that game the unit was decimated by Villista rifle fire from the rear. In keeping with their tradition for poor luck, these figures failed their charge rolls (twice !) and spent most of the game in the open, firing on Burmese musketeers secreted securely in trenches behind the stockade.

At right, the Burmese army's only elephant 'maneuvers to the rear.' Although liberally supplied with heavy jingals (that's really big, two man muskets for civilians and girlfriends) the Burmese had only one elephant. Which, of course, had two more jingals mounted on its back. The Burmese had hoped to use the combative pachyderm in tricking the British into shifting their reserves over to the left flank. However, in the end it merely served to draw fire onto itself, and off of the Burmese musketeers and spearmen defending the stockade from repeated British charges.

At right, the very same portion in the Burmese front line as seen in photo #2, only much later in the game after the location of all Burmese units had been revealed. In the foreground, in mostly white uniforms, is a unit of palace guard troops. These gentlemen are no different in morale or training from the ordinary provincial Burmese troops. However, they do have more rifles and less spears. Beyond the white coated guards can be seen a unit of ordinary, provincial (i.e. 'crummy') Burmese infantry... with more spears and less rifles than the guards. To the left of the photo, in the Burmese rear, are several more jingals and a large bombard.

At right, a semi-dirigible view (crane shot ?) of the final British charge on the stockade. The stockade has been shifted to the right so as to represent the 1 inch gap created by the abbreviated bombardment of the Royal Artillery, and through which the much debated battery and counter battery fire took place. On the left in the foreground is a courageous unit of Sikh infantry (they passed their charge roll). On the right is an almost as courageous unit of English infantry (they also passed their charge roll, but just barely.) The strange little pieces of terrain immediately in front of the stockade are custom built casualty figures designed to show where the British wounded have fallen.

At right, very late in the evening, the British finally clamber over the stockade on the Burmese right flank. This would not have been possible had not the Burmese palace guard failed their morale test and run away, the Burmese commander kept saying "maneuvered to the rear," instead of standing to defend their entrenchments. The dice roll forcing the Burmese to maneuver to a less inhospitable location was a very near run thing, and would not have happened had not the commander of the palace guard been sportsmanlike enough to check, and then recheck his voluminous paperwork. This discovering that the colonel of the palace guard had in fact been killed several turns previous to the crucial morale check. Consequently the guards maneuvered with alacrity to a more commodious locale.

At right, in the foreground members of the Burmese 'Royal Marine Regiment,' actually sailors of the riverine fleet on dry land, strive manfully to defend the big, old fashioned bombard that has wrought such devastation on the Royal Artillery. In the background, one of the few English units to actually pass its charge roll and close with the enemy, and in between the English and the Burmese marines are the hardy survivors of the long suffering Sikhs. To the left of the photo can be seen the Italian artillery advisor responsible for the superior performance of the Burmese bombard. Shortly after the discovery of the hidden Italian advisor (the Burmese really did use them for their artillery) the game embarked upon yet another 'disputation phase.'

Eventually the British drew off, recognizing that their high casualties prevented them from grinding out a marginal victory. After which numerous campaign dice rolls were made, and - much to the surprise of the Burmese high command - the Burmese rebels leap frogged the British, and came within 3 points of achieving full independence.

Quite possibly the very first game held at the club in which the 'helicopter shots' could actually have been taken from a helicopter... Albeit a 1/400th scale helicopter model.

At right, turn #1, the NATO fleet enters the gaming table from the eastern edge. The lime green tape measure is not supposed to be there, and the bright yellow (broken) golf tee sitting next to the only Royal Navy ship in the fleet is testing on whether or not it will look something like a water spout from enemy shell fire. This proved largely superfluous, as neither fleet were able to use any of their 'non-missACular' (a coined term for non-missile) weapons on their opponents.

At right, the Russian fleet steams past the giant gamer hand, in between their own weapon profile cards, and past the enormous floating beer bottle. The Red flagship, the Kirov, can be seen (next tot he beer bottle) launching two of its numerous helicopters, represented by little red pieces of paper with numbers on them. In the center of the fleet is Commodore Weenovsky's ship, the Crap-ov. I may be in error about the name. It was the weakest (i.e. worst) ship in the Russian fleet. However, on the up side it was so crummy that the NATO commanders didn't bother to target it with any of the numerous, indeed more than numerous, cruise missiles fired at the Red fleet on turn #2.

There is no photo chronicling the events from turn #3, because; 1.) the TBC correspondent was off chatting with Col.Winky's wife, and missed the whole thing, and 2.) it all apparently took place in the air, and thus on the umpire's paperwork, and therefore there wasn't really anything to photograph anyway. Suffice it to say that NATO launched all their missiles. No sense in saving any just in case the Russians managed to sink any opposing ships before the next turn. Of the 30 odd missiles targeting the Reds only around half were intercepted, so the rest poured down on the hapless Kirov. (As was previously mentioned Commodore Weenovsky was safe, because no one wanted to waste a missile on his useless boat.) However, the Russians simultaneously fired of a slightly smaller salvo of their own missiles. These were all targeted on the US flagship. Only half made it through the American defensive fire, after which the Americans fired off a huge barrage of anti-radar chaff to confuse the in coming missiles. They succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. The Russian missiles lost track of the flagship, weaved around for a bit, then spread themselves out amongst all the other ships in the NATO fleet. Consequently the game ended in a Russian victory, with the Kirov a useless flaming hulk, the US flagship safe, all the other ships in the NATO fleet severely damaged, and Commodore Weenovsky sailing about in stunned safety.