Picking up those brushes again.

Hi and welcome to the occasional mutterings of Dave Doc, a military modeller and some time gamer. Gaming and model making has given me a real education, History & Geography(obvious really), Artistry, Politics, Economics, Logistics, Project Management -you try building miniature armies without the last 3.

I will use the blog to record my creations & the odd occasion I actually do some gaming.

I have always been inspired by the aesthetic side of gaming. Playing on well constructed terrain using excellently painted units is always a joy.

Sunday 17 April 2016

Sudan - A first game

Well instead of heading to the wargames paradise of Salute I though I would finally get in a game with the Sudan Collection.

So a quick e mail exchange with old friend Gerry resulted in a visit to Gerry's  "Situation Room". A finer set up I doubt you will find. We used a mere 18 feet x 6 of the total available. While there we were able to survey the setting up of part of his upcoming battle of Borodino - the wing around Utitsa which you can see in the background.

The weather gods have not been good the last few weekends for completing the large playing mats so we played on the base green surface with my added terrain items.
 

The scenario saw two Egyptian battalions and a gun - with limited ammunition,  lets not make it easy eh..- under siege in a village from a larger force of Mahdist.

 The besieged village of Jandu

The relief column - the Black Watch, R.I.F. , RMLI, a Naval Brigade detachment with Gatling gun, and a squadron each of 19th Hussars, 9th Bengal Lancers, and Guards Camel Regiment. These were also accompanied by supply baggage, engineers and war correspondents.


The Camel Corp squadron dismount in open order to see if there are sneaky Mahdists hiding in the brush. Rather than have hidden map deployments we usedf "blinds" so blank cards and some ambush cards randomly filled each feature so it was completely random as to if "hostiles" were present.

 Mahdist attacks
Pressure builds on the village - time for some "rapid fire" and damn the ammunition!

A company manning the wall were cut down to a man - Scott Pasha was found looking for his escape camel!
The gunners aided by the infantry poured fire onto a spear of Mahdists . They ended up fighting them off hand to hand! The reduced attackers retreated to lick their wounds.  Where was the relief column?




Meanwhile a few ambushes had been sprung against the advancing column ,time to deploy the Gatling and get into line lads!


A vanguard mob of 400 Mahdists appeared having broke off from the village siege and howling as they charged across the field towards the screw gun battery, they encouraged a further mob of Fuzzies to follow them.. this could get tight!



Steady lads - take aim! pick your targets! fire at will... the mobs just reached the battery under withering fire - hacking down the lead gunners - before turning tail...and fleeing


A reformed spears of 1300 Mahdists led by an Emir picked up a head of steam and headed for the fray, the Column commander let them come - whole swathes fell under the disciplined volleys , but still they came - they hit the line , and the Naval Brigade - who suffered a round of Melee before the mob were finally subdued by being charge into the rear by the Bengal lancer - pressed front and rear the mob withered.


At that we called it a day - the garrison had been saved - and the war correspondants had a fine story in the bag for daily papers!

 All tidied up.

Gerry and long time gaming buddy Steve 

We had used the Sands of the Sudan rules - as with any first run out , we got a few things wrong, and identified a few things we thought needed tweaking.. we wrapped up and headed for the Curry house.

Overall a great first game , and day out. A big thanks to Gerry for his hospitality as ever. Looking forward to the next one. 

28 comments:

  1. Amazing looks really fantastically huge

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    1. Oh it's a big old table.. Only used just over a quarter of it... Now you see why I need so many in the collection.. We only used two of the 6 boxes of painted Mahdists...

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  2. Wow, most impressive game!!

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  3. That's an amazing "situation room" that Gerry's got. Oh, to have a space like that for myself :)

    Great looking game Dave :)

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    1. Tamsin, indeed it is a great place to game. And thanks

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  4. It's all more than a bit impressive! The dangerous thing is that, with all the plastics about now, it's cost effective even in 28mm. Great work.

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  5. Wonderful looking game gents and very keen to get your thoughts on the rules and how they played for you.

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    1. Thought you might like it. Made some notes over the day ,I will send you an e mail.

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  6. Superb table...and 'Situation Room! Not jealous...not jealous at all...my kitchen table works just fine!

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    1. oh i can feel your "Not Jealous" from here!

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  7. terrific all round. thanks Dave.

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  8. Oh my Lord, 18x6 and that was the half of it! You lucky, lucky chap Dave - looks truly epic in every way.

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  9. What a cracking game!

    I'm envious about pretty much everything in this post but delighted for you all to have had such a grand day of fun. Huzzah!

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    1. Cheers Paul, indeed it was a good day out.

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  10. Great and very interesting AAR. That gaming room is impressive!!!

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  11. Dave,
    Cracking stuff. Looking forward to playing this in June.
    Graham

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  12. Smashing stuff mate. Good to see you finally putting all that effort with brush to good use on the table.

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  13. Great to see your collection in action!
    Of course that answers my questions whether you visited Salute... ;-)

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    1. cheers Stefan, and yes indeed a good way to not be at Salute

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  14. Brilliant bat rep Dave!!! All looked awesome, I've been following the situation room for a good while now. Gerry puts on some mammoth encounters.

    A curry afterwards, that's quality gaming!!!

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    1. Cheers Paul.. What better than a game and curry eh!

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