Sunday in the Sudan

 As mentioned in my previous post, today eight of us got together at Barrys to play a game Barry had devised, loosely based on the First Battle of El Teb, a brief outline of which follows, courtesy of Wikipedia:

Monday, 4 February 1884

After around two years of fighting between Sudanese forces under Osman Digna and the European trained and organised Egyptian forces, many Egyptian held towns found themselves besieged. The port of Suakin, on the Red Sea, could be supplied by ship and still held out, but further inland, the towns of Tokar and Sinkat were completely cut off. In February 1884, a 3,000 strong force was dispatched from Suez to Suakin to relieve the beleaguered garrisons. The command of this force was entrusted to Baker Pasha accompanied by other European officers. From the start the expedition was beset with problems. The greater part of the infantry was formed from Egyptian Gendarmerie Battalions who had enrolled on the condition they would serve only for civil service in Egypt. On the news they were being sent to Sudan, many of them deserted, and the others grew dispirited and mutinous.

On Sunday, 3 February, Baker moved his force by ship from Suakin to Trinkitat, on the coast near Tokar. He set up a camp on the beach and set off the next day. The Egyptians, who were not used to marching in formation, advanced in a confused mass. At the halting place of El Teb, on the road to Tokar they were attacked by a Mahdist force 1,000 strong. Despite their superiority in numbers and weaponry, the troops became panic-stricken, and fled after firing a single volley. The Mahdists caught up with them and inflicted huge losses, killing all the European officers who tried to resist. Baker, unable to rally his men, retreated to the camp with the few survivors and managed to protect it from the Mahdists. Of a force of 3,500, barely 700 returned.

After returning to Suakin, Baker tried to organize the defence of the city, but the Egyptian troops had grown distrustful of the British officers and refused to obey. This defeat sealed the fate of the garrisons: the Sinkat garrison sallied out to try to reach Suakin on foot; they were massacred. The Tokar garrison surrendered without a fight.

We used an amended version of our usual "house" rules, authored by Mark. Host Barry had added some special rules to try and recreate the flavour of the actual battle, but in the event, these did not really provide what he was hoping for, and our battle was nothing like the real thing! I commanded the Mahdist cavalry, with Paul and Mark taking the infantry. The Egyptians were led by Nick, with Rick commanding their cavalry and Andrew one of the infantry columns. We had a surprise visitor, in the shape of our good friend Chris, only recently discharged from hospital after suffering a heart attack, a couple of weeks ago!

Here are the pics and brief outline of what happened:

I forgot to take pics for the first couple of moves, but as the Egyptians were just marching on and all but one cavalry unit on the Mahdist side were concealed, it did not really matter much!

Egyptian cavalry under Rick and infantry under Nick,

Eventually, the Egyptian cavalry scouted out the location of all three Mahdist cavalry units!

The Egyptian lancers came over a rise in the ground and ran straight into one of my units - I had an 8 - 6 advantage in dice, but managed to lose spectacularly, and one Mahdist cavalry unit left the field.

Meanwhile, the Mahdist infantry put in an appearance adjacent to where the recent cavalry fight had occurred.

The two remaining Mahdist cavalry/camelry units charged the other two Egyptian cavalry, with mixed results - each side won one melee, forcing their opponents to retire.

The red fezzed Egyptian infantry continue to advance up the centre of the table.

While the mounted troops of both sides jockey for position.

More Mahdists appear behind Ricks leading unit, but infantry were unable to charge cavalry, and they only had edged weapons, so there wasn't a lot they could do unfortunately.

The Egyptian infantry faced each table edge as the Mahdist infantry moved forwards.

And the Egyptian cavalry caught up with their Mahdist counterparts again.

Nick had one unit of cavalry under his command - they charged into one of Marks Mahdist infantry units.

And here is Nicks roll - needless to say, the Mahdist unit disintegrated and fled!

He then broke onto the flank of the adjacent unit and put them to the sword as well!

On the other flank, Paul advanced on Andrew with more fanatical Sudanese tribesmen.

The Ansars got into combat and drove back then destroyed one unit of the Egyptian infantry.

Nick put his guys into square "just in case"

Then Ricks lancers got into Marks last remaining infantry unit and soon they were routed too!

Paul had lost one of his units and the second was struggling to make any headway against Andrew's line.

I had my two mounted units working their way back around the hills to try and get them in amongst the Egyptian infantry - but....

It was all too late - the Egyptians only lost one unit and virtually destroyed the entire Mahdist force!

That was a very quick game - we probably got started at 1045, stopped for lunch around 1215-1245 and the game was all done and dusted by 1330! Despite Barry making the Egyptians roll to go disordered every more, they seemed to be rolling very well, and none of the mechanisms that Barry had created to discomfort the Egyptian players had any effect! The Mahdist ambush was too far away from the infantry columns and most of them didn't even get into contact with the infantry, having been destroyed by the cavalry before they could get there...... the best laid plans and all that! Barry had played a solo test game during the week and things were a lot different apparently, much closer to the account of the actual battle above, so I am not sure why it all went so horribly wrong for the Mahdists today!

Anyway, it was nice to get Barrys early Sudan figures on the table - the Egyptians in all white with red fez are particularly striking, and no one was taking this one too seriously, I don't think we Mahdists were actually that surprised by the result, although Barry might have been a bit frustrated it turned out to be so one sided!