Game 100 : The Relief of Khartoum

 This is game 100 and a milestone. Bizarrely it wasn't in 10mm. It was 28mm Sudan fighting using the "Sands of Sudan" rules by Carlo Pagano who spent a lot of time collating all the old bits of information of the original rules by Peter Gilder.

The figures and terrain are all from Dave Docherty's collection, nearly all of it was used to play the game. Dave and his friend Martin were the umpires. The table, as you know, has 2 x 24 feet lengths. A column would march down each, Omdurman being the ultimate target at the other end, plus the relief of the Egyptians and the retrieval of the wives!

They are certainly alive and kicking. Briefly, the players are the colonialist forces trying to relieve Gordon, and the bad guys are card generated and played by the umpires. The Colonialists have to advance 24 feet along the table to Omdurman. Near to Omdurman is a forward base garrisoned by 2 Egyptian btns. They would need rescuing. In addition, the Officers wives have wandered through the desert to this base for a "jolly outing". The main column also has reporters who will obviously exaggerated both success and failures.

Many pictures were taken, here are a few to enjoy.

On my table length, Graham and myself were being umpired by Martin. Here you see Omdurman at the end of the table and the "isolated Egyptian btns". There is a wadi that crosses the whole table. Also on our side at the other end was the Suakin railway with engineers busily laying new track.

The Egyptians cam under almost immediate attack. They would survive 3 major attacks and then were running perilously low on ammo. This meant an attempted breakout towards the relief column led by the Guards. One Egyptian btn escaped whilst the other succumbed to overwhelming attacks.

On the other table were another of Dave's group, Steve, and Bob who is a regular. They had to take this unnamed Mahdi town. Immediately to their left is the River Nile and we did have gunboats!

Mahdist mounted troops getting cut ti ribbons by infantry and artillery fire and the despatched by the Bengal Lancers.

Controlled volley fire from front and rear drives off Fuzzi Wuzzi attacks. The colonialists tend to be safe providing the y are not caught in flank or rear or are heavily outnumbered frontally. Even then, the baddies have only about a 1 in 9 chance of withstanding withering fire.

The ultimate cauldron with the Mahdists managing to get surrounded on all four sides. The rules do assume that all fire is directed correctly, so no friendly fire!! The above action saw the end to part one of the battle. The colonial columns had been deemed to have reached and taken their objectives and now the next action would be the relief of Khartoum.

Khartoum with its garrison. All the Mahdist forces are present and all are deployed. There is also a replacement system for the Mahdists, essentially all losses are recycled at their rear lines on the opposite flank to where they started.

This is Graham & myself facing the strongest attack we had yet encountered. We were somewhat lucky, the artillery on drove off the Mahdists after a second round or melee, as did the Guards. If either had gone another round, it is quite likely that both units would have been wrecked. The Indians brigaded with us were having a rather good day of it. Two complete firing lines were wrecking any attack the Mahdists tried to mount well in advance of their position.

The Indians create slaughter on the Mahdist attack. The Guards behind them to the right, volley awat Mahdist cavalry at the last moment.

On our right flank, Bob & Steve have the river boats moving along the Nile. Eventually, Khartoum would be relieved from the Nile whilst at the same time the Mahdist position in the centre would collapse. 

This shows the final position. The Nile riverboats have troops entering Khartoum. Graham & my forces now have no enemy between us and the gates to the city. Khartoun itself has held out against various assaults and Gordon stands ready to welcome the relieving troops, off course along with the reporters!!

Rogue's gallery. We also had a visitor, another Steve, who was testing out our new entrenchments in front of the Situation Room. Game 101 will se us back with 10mm Napoleonics, we're fighting Plancenoit as a stand alone battle. Looking forward to it!!!!