Played face to face with Hugmenot as the last in our play through of Indian Unity. We both agreed that while it was fun, it did not have the variety and ultimate enjoyment of War on the Equator. Having said that I should point out that the scenarios are surprisingly balanced in total they merely lack some of the elements that would improve the experience (e.g. the continued experience of a combined arms force attacking hordes of infantry got somewhat repetitive, despite a number of interesting victory conditions.

When we sat down to play this one we both felt that this would be an Indian victory and the only question to be posed was at what level. We even toyed with the idea of a fourth victory condition being for the Indians to hold the road free of un-DEM Hyderabadis over the first two boards but did play it as written.

As the Hyderabadi player I placed two comapnies (hordes?) of Razakars in the town facing the Indian entry, two companies in the woods on the entry board (hidden) and two companies in the woods to the north of the road on board 6 (also hidden). The cavalry advanced along the road on board 6 and the north edge of the woods on board 6.

Daniel's Gurkhas advanced cautiously and took the town. The Razakars put up a great fight, not through causing losses (none were incurred by the Indians taking the town) but by surviving and delaying subsequent Indian activity. The town was not completely secured until after a ten turn fight.

My hope was that Daniel would overlook the possibility of the Razakars being hidden in the woods on the entry board and push on to secure his exit. When he asked if it was possible to have the Razakars hidden there, I said that I wasn't sure and went to the SSR's to check. Despite feeling that my answer had given him the option to avoid checking he sent some troops to check it out and found the men there. The next 10 turns saw an ultimately futile attempt by the Gurkhas to eliminate the Razakars in the woods. One sidelight was an intricately devised cavalry charge being launched without any significant result. At least I got to visualize the charge. The failure of the charge is a foreshadowing...

Meanwhile Daniel had pushed his leading elements into the woods on Baord 6 and found my Razakars hidden in the eastern portion of the woods north of the road. Since his force was split in two, with the fight going on in the woods on board 16 mentioned above, he was incapable of generating the force necessary to overwhelm the Hyderabad forces. Around turn 16, he decided to begin moving sufficient forces to exit the board. His initial force was only 10 steps worth and one of those steps was lost due to a cavalry opportunity fire. Immediately after the casualty the Hyderabadis were able to seal off the road and severely restrict the Indian from exiting steps. Two Razakars dug in on the road and other events led to the diversion of Indian attention from further attempts at breaking through.

I should mention that the Indians were never in danger of losing the victory condition pertaining to losses. Only three step losses were incurred by the Indians, unfortunately for Daniel all of them were for units that were attempting to be in the exit party. So while the losses weren't germane to the overall victory condition they were especially critical to denying the Indians the Major Victory.

The other events were quite simply a swarming of the remaining Hyderabadi forces around the town. First four platoons of cavalry made it safely onto the hill with the town forcing the Indians to pull back to maintain a garrison sufficient to keep the town under control. Mortar fire and air attacks were sufficient to cause severe disruption to this force. Interestingly, it wasn't the cavalry that was affected but rather the leaders. While the Indians were trying to neutralize this force the Razakars in the woods escaped their assaults and began moving towards the town from the south. Shermans moved in both directions to cause the wild-eyed attacks to change course and burn time.

It became apparent that the Razakars would not be able to make it to the town and the leader with the last two good order cavalry was disrupted and they were 5 hexes away from the town anyway. In a desperate move the cavalry took direction from the disrupted leader and moved to within 2 hexes of the town while the leader of the Razakar section left his charges to be diced up by the Gurkhas to be adjacent to the cavlary and provide direction to teh cavalry on the 25th turn. The Indians, aware of the danger tried to caputre the leader but he evaded capture and displaced onto the cavalry.

At this point the only chance that the Hyderabadis had was to have the cavalry charge the town. During the first activation of the 25th turn the Hyderabadi cavalry charged. Unfortunately the Opportunity Fire disrupted one platoon and demoralized the second leaving them milling confusedly at the gates of the town, one hex from victory.

This was surprisingly competitive, although I believe that the result was expected (an Indian minor victory) it was at least in doubt until the 25th (of 26) turn. That gets a "4". Daniel had horrible luck with morale checks and recoveries which greatly aided the Hyderabadis and made the final result closer than perhaps in will normally be. This one is best played against a live opponent, the hidden troops are critical to the balance.

Played face to face against Matt W in 3 ½ hours.

The last Indian Unity scenario left for the ribbon. A bit of a strange scenario because I felt it would be next to impossible for Matt to stop me from achieving a minor victory if I played just to win. But such is not my style my attacking; I go for the whole enchilada until it’s evident I will have to content myself with bite-sized morsels.

The first task for my Indian troops was to capture the town. My initial assaults were probes (because we do not inspect stacks) and then I committed my engineers and armor assets as soon as I knew where they were needed. It took longer than anticipated, those Razakars are resilient as long they are full strength, but the town was mine and I did not suffer any losses.

Next, I had to decide whether to force my way through the road and then aim for a major victory only after exiting 10 steps off the far edge. I decided against it for two reasons. The Indians are the attackers and the much stronger side in this scenario, and I felt they should dictate the flow of the game, not the Hyderabadis. The second reason is I was behind my timetable and wanted to gain time by using all my units in the attack for as long as possible.

I kept a small reserve in town and send all the remaining troops in the three wooden areas to find the hidden Razakars. My concept of fairness may have saved me here. When asked whether it was possible to hide Razakars into a specific area, I thought Matt’s answer indicated he did not. But as it allowed to do it and I would have sent troops there if I had checked the scenario special rule, I sent a few platoons there to check it out anyway. Lo and behold, there were four platoons hidden there! I was never able to get the upper hand in that wood, and one of my platoons even failed a dozen recovery rolls. I guess a hundred hour war was just too much for some gentle souls.

The battle for the large wood in the middle was proceeding well but then Matt brought in the cavalry. It’s not their charge that I worry about but rather their ability to quickly move behind my lines and threaten the town.

I made a strategic mistake here. I should have pushed stronger on the road to ensure I had enough steps in position to exit if need be instead of diverting assets to deal with the cavalry. Matt seized the opportunity to dig in some units on the road.

Maybe I could have forced my way through but I thought it would be more interesting to try to contain his imminent move towards the town. Excellent decision because both sides had to set up and resolve tactical small puzzles for the reminder of the game.

Matt played this phase a little better than I did but fortunately I had kept enough of a force in town to prevent his last charge from reaching town.

Minor Indian victory!

I rated this one a “4” but there are two caveats: (1) it’s best played against an opponent because the hidden units play are critical for the defender, and (2) the Indian player should not be in the mindset of just attaining the 8 steps losses or less and 10 steps exited victory conditions. If the Indian commander goes for these two victory conditions, I think you will find much enjoyment from this scenario.

Having come off the intense and fun Violent Resistance scenario, we knew this last one was not going to be very balanced or good for the Hyderabadi player. This scenario represents the final gasps of the Hyderabadi revolt, where the remaining combatants were the fanatical Razakars and the Nizam's elite Cavalry guard. Unfortunately for them, they were facing Gurkhas with Tanks, mortars and planes. The Indians here have to capture the town closest to their entry point, exit 10 steps off the west edge of the map and not lose more than 8 steps.

Since Tanks counted double, the tanks alone were considered 12 steps so the plan was move the tanks in close on the first turn, cause some havoc to the units in town, and then zoom down the road and hope to get past the hidden RAZ units in the woods on the center board, leaving the very capable Gurkhas to finish off the resistance in town.

For the most part, this worked and the Gurkhas were able to clear the town by turn 4 and the tanks were able to rumble down the road and clear leave the map soon after that. The remainder of the game was spent by the Indians fortifying the hills around the town and the Hyderabadis trying to get their RAZ and CAV units in positions to try and assault the town.

I mentioned in the title that this provided comic relief, and it pretty much did as both Wayne and I immediately saw the futility of the Hyderabadi position. Between the slow progression of the RAZ units and the fragility of the CAV units when exposed to Direct fire, bombardment and aircraft fire, not to mention that if the RAZ and CAV units made it to the town, they would be facing the natural born killers known as Gurkhas.

Despite the odds, the Hyderabadi player pressed on and finally moved in for a final assault rush. However, between op fire on the CAV and the LT COL of the Hyderbadis jumping into an assault combat, only to be demoralized and killed in the next turn, the attack fizzled and the game was called.

This scenario gets a 3 because I think we had more of a laugh discussing the options and Wayne chanting "Spitfire, Spitfire..." and then "Miss, Miss!" on my aircraft rolls. Most of the time, it worked! :)

However, as an end to booklet, it was anti-climatic and didn't provide the fun of the previous scenario. Overall, I would recommend the Indian Unity book as the majority of the scenarios do provide a great challenge for both players.

Played in three session against Tony L, this is a poor scenario in terms of balance but gets a three because we both had a good laugh while playing. Tony has described the situation well so I won't rehash it here. I could describe how the RAZ and CAV watched three platoons of Sherman's gaily drive down the road and off the board to meet the first Indian objective with hardly a scratch on their paintwork. I could paint a picture of brave horseman galloping across the Indian plains been repeatedly strafed by Spitfires and the very occasional Tempest with the predicted results, or describe the brave attempts by Lt's 7-0-0 & 6-0-0 to lead the militia in a concerted attack while being shelled, shot at and generally discomforted by grinning Gurkha's on the hilltops surrounding the town. The highpoint was a thrilling charge uphill by the surviving Royal Bodyguard in the face of MG and Rifle fire, a glorious failure. I am sure you get the picture. ****So that's Indian Unity finished played over more than three years we both enjoyed the experience two excellent scenario's, six ok scenarios and two poor ones. I suggest playing them in chronological order to get the feel of this short war ( playing scenario 10 as the third battle). Like Tony I recommend giving this a go ****