Amelia and Matilda: Epilogue

The Butcher's Bill

German Casualties:
6 sailors
1 native butler

Belgian Casualties:
4 Force Publique soldiers
Jones Junior

British Casualties:
2 civilians, Rose Sayer and Charlie Allnutt.
5 Royal Navy, including Lt. Cmdr. Simper-Spiceman and Lt. C.J. "Cover Drive" Smythe.

The world of cricket, robbed of one of this generation's finest batsmen, mourned its loss...

*

The game was quite a lot of fun, but it seemed the Brits were desperately unlucky. The positive modifier the German gunners received for having an officer directing their fire was a decisive factor. But even so, the Germans seemed to get all the lucky hit location rolls, whereas the Brits never seemed to be able to land a telling blow (despite landing two critical hits on the Louisa). Then when it seemed the African Queen would do their job for them she failed right at the last, if only by a hair's breadth.

Oh well, c'est la guerre.

The rules were a strange Frankensteinish amalgam of Chris Peers' "In the Heart of Africa" and a modified version of the Sky Galleons section of the "Space 1889" role-playing game. Huge chunks purloined from that nice Mr. Patrick Wilson's game, "Boilers and breechloaders" were also shoved in and stirred around with a big stick. Only seems fair, as he did send me the ruleset for free, which was awfully nice of him.

Amelia and Matilda are available from Old Glory, the African Queen was an HLBSC kit, and the Louisa was a Richard Houston special (purchased via TVAG). Figures were from Foundry, Copplestone, RAFM and Old Glory.

The story was inspired by the C.S. Forester novel "The African Queen", which in turn was loosely based on the real life battle between HMS Mimi, HMS Toutou and the Hedwig von Wissmann. If you're at all interested in this forgotten battle of the Great War then perhaps you should give this book a go.