If the Lord Spares us - Middle East WW1 Rules

[T13A]

Hi

Just mulling over projects for 2023 and was thinking about World War 1 Middle East using the Too fat Lardies, 'If the Lord Spares Us' rules. Anybody use them with Pendraken figures (what else!)? Greatful for any information on the rules, how they play and what people think of them, etc. Many thanks.

Cheers Paul

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

I believe the Kiwi members of this forum do.

[pierre the shy]

Good Morning Paul

yes Paul R and I use ITLSU, though we haven't played them for a while. I have 1914 BEF and Germans and Paul R has Turks and Imperial Middle East armies using Pendraken 10mm figures.

We really love them - the cards give uncertainly about when a unit will be activated and we have the supressions sorted out with the markers for each company.

Here's a link to a After Action Report for a convention game we played back in 2014 (is it really that long ago?    ) - https://www.pendrakenforum.co.uk/index.php/topic,10436.0.html

Should you wish for inspiration here is Paul R's painting diary for his 1917 Middle East project:
https://www.pendrakenforum.co.uk/index.php/topic,10663.0.html

If there's anything we can help with - house rules, surpressions etc please ask away.

Slowly working towards a Cape Helles landing game next April, but other stuff to do before that.

Cheers
Peter   

[fred.]

We have played lots of ITLSU over the last few years, all in 10mm, though not entirely Pendraken. We haven't used them for the Middle East though, we have used them for the Western Front, both 1914 and 1917-8.

We really like the rules - the blinds, the card activation, command, and the way firing all work give a very good WWI feel to a game. Melee (as with many Lardie games) is a bit cumbersome to work out all the dice you need to roll, but you don't get many melees in a game so its not a big deal.

The rules take a bit of effort to get into - the examples help a lot - but once you understand the system it plays very smoothly.

Here are a couple of photos from an 1914 game


The forces mass, the yellow dots are the objectives


The German cavalry press on the right flank. In this you can see the clear acetate ovals I use for blinds, and some of the chits we use instead of cards. These are plastic miniature bases, with labels stuck on them. Which are then pulled from a bag. I found these easier to make and to shuffle than cards. 



The German cavalry fail on their attempt to flank the French

[T13A]

Hi

Many thanks all, I knew you lot wouldn't let me down! 

Can anyone recommend any books on battles/campaigns in the Middle East that are useful for the level that the rules are aimed at (hope that makes sense)?

And were any adjustments made in the rules for 10mm figures?

Thanks again.

Cheers Paul

[fred.]

Can't help with books I'm afraid. 


Rules wise, no changes for 10mm figures. The rules are written for 2 15mm infantry figures to represent a platoon - so no great relation of figure scale to ground scale. We used deeper bases for our infantry, but seems to work fine. 

I generally play most rules as written with 10mm figures - with skirmish games it often pushes the ground scale and figure scale fairly close to each other!

[steve_holmes_11]

My friend in Singapore tried them with his group.
They eventually opted for Brigade Games Contemptible Little armies.
They described Contemptible Little Armies as bloodier and simpler.

[fred.]

Just done a bit of Googling on CLA

North Star starts their description with "Contemptible Little Armies 3rd edition is a set of skirmish rules for use with 28mm miniatures."

So sounds a very different game to ITLSU - although looking at battle reports, if they are skirmishes they are certainly big skirmishes. 

[steve_holmes_11]

Just done a bit of Googling on CLA

North Star starts their description with "Contemptible Little Armies 3rd edition is a set of skirmish rules for use with 28mm miniatures."

So sounds a very different game to ITLSU - although looking at battle reports, if they are skirmishes they are certainly big skirmishes.

The impression from my friend is that the game scale is "flexible".

I know some gamers are immediately turned off if the first page doesn't explicitly describe ground and troop scale.
Others are quite happy with a bit of bathtubbing.

Then, a few days before our game, I came across some recommendations for Contemptible Little Armies. The reviews suggested that it was an odd beast that played like a skirmish game but felt like it was at a higher level as it involved vehicles, aircraft, and artillery.

The complete blog post: 


Their figures were Pendraken (obvs).

The idea of substituting several 10mm figures in rules designed for single mounted 28mms has intrigued me for a while.
it seems particularly useful for avoiding "The locomotive was longer than half the table" situations.

[paulr]

I don't have any particular book suggestions

I'd recommend the following websites

Via the waybackmachine
https://nzmr.org/sitemap.htm
http://www.ottoman-uniforms.com
 
And still live
http://www.germancolonialuniforms.co.uk/

There are quite a few useful maps on Wikipedia

There is also a lot of useful information including some very useful maps on Turkish Wikipedia
(Google Translate does an ok translation)

https://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suriye-Filistin_Cephesi#Y.C4.B1ld.C4.B1r.C4.B1m_Ordular.C4.B1_Grubu

[pierre the shy]

All depends what scale of game you want to do I guess.....typically our games of ITLSU have at least one brigade (so 3 or 4 12 to 16 stand infantry battalions/cavalry regiments) plus supports per side, though we have played bigger games with a divisional level HQ controlling multiple brigades. The ITLSU rules, to me anyway, handled the scenario seemlessly. Might take a bit longer to play through a complete turn with more units but I find ITLSU a very uncomplicated set of rules to use myself.

I haven't seen CLA but sounds like its more on a scale of a few companies or 1 battalion per side.

 

[Martin1914]

Hello All

Paul, ITLSU is a favourite of our small group of gamers. An early Lardy set, its card based mechanism is easy to follow after a couple of play throughs. 10mm is our choice and I feel suits the figure/man ratio indicated in the rules for the level of command.

As for books, my go-to source for action details are the Official Campaign Histories for Sinai & Palestine (3 vols) and Mesopotamia (4 vols), which I got from Naval and Military Press here in the UK. Were £35 each, so if you're after a single volume there's The Last Crusade (Bruce) for Sinai and Palestine, and Battles on the Tigris (Wilcox) for Mesopotamia. Both worth a read. Also have a look at Wikipedia and the Theatres of WW1 pages. Both Palestine and Mespot are further broken down into individual battles.

Hope this is helpful
Regards
Mart

[T13A]

Hi

Many thanks to everybody above. OK, I surrender, rules ordered (PDF) from Too Fat Lardies and The Last Crusade ordered from Amazon, also a couple of Osprey books put on my list for Father Christmas.

Only had time to skim through the rules so far and just a couple of quick questions (hope you do not mind).

Is the 'card pack' mentioned available anywhere or do people make their own?

When using Pendraken 10mm figures do people still use the same size bases as mentioned in the rules (e.g. 25mm x 20mm for Infantry I think) with the same number of figures as suggested (2 for an infantry base, I noticed in the photos that Fred kindly posted above that the infantry bases seem to have 3 figures on them)?

Thanks again, cheers Paul

[T13A]

Forgot to mention, I will be putting an order together over Christmas for Leon.

Cheers Paul

[pierre the shy]

Hi

Many thanks to everybody above. OK, I surrender, rules ordered (PDF) from Too Fat Lardies and The Last Crusade ordered from Amazon, also a couple of Osprey books put on my list for Father Christmas.

Only had time to skim through the rules so far and just a couple of quick questions (hope you do not mind).

Is the 'card pack' mentioned available anywhere or do people make their own?

When using Pendraken 10mm figures do people still use the same size bases as mentioned in the rules (e.g. 25mm x 20mm for Infantry I think) with the same number of figures as suggested (2 for an infantry base, I noticed in the photos that Fred kindly posted above that the infantry bases seem to have 3 figures on them)?

Thanks again, cheers Paul

Yes we stick to the base sizes and number of figures per base (normally 2 per base) suggested in the rules.

As each game is different I normally make "cards" for each game using a word template and printing the required ones onto heavy paper. Copy and paste function does have its advantages! Just make sure you print out the right cards for the game!