My friend Bob came over yesterday and helped blood the new Fort Burri terrain piece that Bill Daniel brilliantly brought to life. We anticipated a ditch full of dead Dervish but it didn't turn out that way.
We used, ‘The Men Who Would Be King,' and tweeked the rules as we went along. It's become our go-to Colonial rules recently in one form or another. I'd like to introduce, ‘A Good Dusting,' to my friends but after my last game hosting misadventure I'm a bit gun shy.
Anywho, it appeared initially that Bob was going to easily repulse my Mahdist forces. Comfortably ensconced within Khartoum's defenses resting on the Blue Nile were 7 units of Egyptian infantry, 1 each of Sudanese and Bashi Bazouks, four cannon and a Gatling gun. Two gunboats provided offshore artillery support. Both gunboats also carried one unit of infantry but for this scenario they could not be landed.
My 18 units of Ansar and Hadendowah foot and 2 units of cavalry began to suffer a lot of Pinned results as they entered into artillery range. Bob's die rolls were really good…at the beginning. Despite using lower firing values for the garrison and denoting his artillery as ‘Poorly Handled' (to reflect the generally low quality of Gordon's forces), the Egyptian gunners on the ramparts and gunboats pounded the snot out of my troops. And for a while I just couldn't pass a Pin Test.
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Unfortunately for the Egyptians, their die rolls grew cool and mine began warming up. I managed to string together a lot of successful rallies and passed Pin Tests, enabling me to concentrate a couple waves of attacks on the Burri Gate and an adjacent rampart held by a unit of Sudanese. Things went south quickly for the garrison as the Sudanese, Bob's sole unit with a +1 Discipline, folded like a cheap table, leaving the unit of Egyptians holding the gate to be overrun.
The Sudanese infantry quickly pushed out of it's position:
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Burri Gate falls to a furious attack of Mahdist infantry and cavalry:
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Meanwhile, Fort Burri, assisted by the gunboats, has successfully held in check nearly all the Mahdist units to it's front:
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The Egyptian infantry manning trenches behind Burri Gate did a good job at limiting the Ansar breakthrough at the gate but couldn't prevent other units from attacking the fort across an inner wall defended by Bashi Bazouks. The Mahdists made quick work of them and the Egyptian artillery crew in one of the bastions.
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At this point, Gordon Pasha and his personal staff had to swing the Gatling gun into action:
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It was not enough to stem the tide. Gordon Pasha and the few survivors fled the fort. However, despite losing the crew of one it's guns, the Egyptians defending the artillery platform next to the Burri Gate, in conjunction with the entrenched infantry, prevented any exploitation:
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At this point we called the game. We had a ball. Bill's fortifications exceeded my wildest dreams. Khartoum, the various Egyptian and British campaigns in the Sudan, and the Mahdist movement have always fascinated me. Thanks to Bill, Wackmole9 here on TMP, I can finally play all those Khartoum games I've imagined.
Bob and I agreed that using TMWWBK for this kind of game stretched the rules. But in the end they worked well and let us have a lot of fun. Heck, part of the fun was figuring out what fire, melee, morale and discipline values to use. I think the next Sudan game will be Muhammad Ali Pasha's sortie against the Mahdist forces as they attempt to cross from the left bank of the White Nile to the right.
