Eye Spy an Ambush - Sudan Death in the Dark Continent Game

I had Martin over at the weekend for a full days gaming - we would be joined by James in the afternoon. So for the morning we decided to revisit Death in the Dark Continent rules . We had played a game previously where it had gone very one sided with the European forces annihilating the natives. , and we wanted to revisit it.

This time I set up an ambush game with high quality Beja opposition (Elite Warriors) in tough terrain  to ambush a column of 3 Egyptian battalions , a field gun,  a Naval Brigade detachment with Gardner gun and a baggage train. I wanted to see how things would go if we have the Beja a lot of advantages - and after all its was Martins turn to be the Army!!

Beja , spy the opposition from the rocks...

It looks quiet out there.... too quiet..

Column has to cross the table with 2/3rd of its fighting units in tact.

Right then - time for the off... what can possibly go wrong...

On the left two warbands appear , the Egyptian 1st Battalion lines out and blasts away - Martins dice are hot..

2nd Egyptian battalion marches around the mesa .. and discovers a bad tempered war band - that surprises them and puts the entire Battalion to the sword...more Beja appear from the gully.. 

Despite how useful it would have been I could only roll a "1" for movement for the war band in the gully - it  took too long to get out and play a part harassing the column in the centre ..

The columns fire was telling and Beja decided to retreat back in the tall grass across the wadi. 

The Egyptians enter the marsh and tall grass area - the gun team from the navy find a  path through the gully..

The Beja bounce another Egyptian battalion destroying it ,the 3rd one saw them die and then ran off themselves. Next target was the sailors.

The Navy look on in distain as the Egyptians melted , and they blew huge chunks out of the Beja in front of them -- but at this point  the column has lost too many stands to still win - the Navy withdraw for now... 

It was a good game , which did look to be going either way - while the columns had reasonable fields of fire it blew the Beja away - mind Martins average score a d20 must have been 16 - (when you hit on 14+!). However when the visibility was down and the Beja could get in they were lethal as my melee dice were on fire too!

It was a hard scenario for the column to win I think, with tough terrain to cover - but the result at least proved that the rules can deliver for the natives in the right situation. 

We will play them again , but still think there are some things we don't like which will need a tweak.