1) Opening march. The Tommies and Gyppies weren't allowed out of column until enemy action began. It's a long march to Khartoum, and they'd elected to go the long route (since that meant there was water all the way).
2) Fuzzy appeared too soon, and the players had plenty of time to respond, with no other threats. In fairness, they did all the right things.
3) Such as forming a line to face the Hadendowah, while turning their flank. There turned out to be more Fuzzies behind the camels, but a strong cavalry attack (that's Sir Percy MacHogg leading the 21st) swept them away.
I'll post more later. I need help resizing the pictures.
:-bd =D> :-bd
The camelry are converted Pendrakens, btw.
Nice stuff
4) Forming a line to face the Hadendowah, while turning their flank.
For reasons unknown, the Imperial forces continue to advance, instead of deploying and bringing up their guns and the rest of the lobsters. They got away with it, but if there was a stage at which a good roll on the troop generation table for the Madhists would have played merry Hell, this was it.
Lady Priscilla ffeatherstone of FotheringHay had gone off to visit an old flame, the governor of Suakin. He lent her a troop of Bengal Lancers the next morning, and here they come.
Outnumbered three to one, and taken in rear, the Beja horse had no chance. A certain Mr Churchill, war correspondent, was lightly wounded in the engagement.
More Fuzzies came out of hiding here, but again in isolation and far away.The Malik is about to land a party of rough, tough, jolly sailor men, reeking of rum, tar, and parrots, and rotten with pox and scurvy. And a heavy naval gun. Allah, I was too generous by far with the scenario for the infidels!
With a party of Ansar spearmen turning up, the rebels began to form a bit of a line. If only there'd been a few in the village too!
The Coldstreams shot the first line of Fuzzy Wuzzies into disorder, and the Abu Klea Dragoons broke them on first contact, going on to rout the spearmen to their rear, who'd been badly shot up by the naval forces.
The Madhi himself turned out to be present, and he threw himself into action in hopes of stopping the 21st. But the 13th Bengal won the war at this point with a dismounted volley that dropped him as he charged. The Expected One was no more!
The Ansar stopped just short of catching the Egyptian Camel Corps, who had not deployed and dismounted. The melee would have greatly favoured the natives, but bad news had travelled fast.
The end of Madhism. The besiegers retreated from Khartoum a few days later.
Gordon was received as a hero on his return to England, and with the fall of Gladstone's government was soon considering standing for PM, with Her Majesty's support. Sir Percy MacHogg, General, regrettably had not hidden his guilty liason with Lady Priscilla, and the Queen refused to receive or decorate him. The Royal Society expressed public disappointment that Sir Harold Chalmers, Colonel, Coldstream Guards, had not brought back any specimens of natural history as requested in the pre-game briefing, and his prospects of election to the society are said to be poor. Lady Priscilla was last seen carrying a very large diamond away from Kimberley in the presence of her trusty scout Hannes ,Grootpiel' van der Merwe.
The game ran much more smoothly than the previous one, though one player whom I shall not name would do well to wake up when giving orders, and stop trying to move troops who have already moved, or to give orders to those he doesn't command. To be honest, he complained about being unable to orient himself - in a march column following the Nile south! Lee supplied about a hundred photographs and two videos, and I provided a labeled map, so I must conclude there are some defective intellects in the world.
Ouch
Kitty is always SO polite ;)
I'm a cat, you know.
I liked the exchange in Dr Who after the old geezer has been telling Jasmine how wonderful he thinks she is:
She: You're alright too.
He: I've been saying all those lovely things about you, and that's all you can reply?
She: I'm from Yorkshire, remember? That was a love letter!