David very kindly agreed to come round and playtest the Black Powder Sudan ideas.
Table set, Anglo-Egyptians have to make it to the oasis.
David took the allied forces, I used my newly painted Mahdists.


David deployed the Anglo-Egyptians. Left-to-Right: Egyptian Cavalry (not the best) and Egyptian Artillery to the left. British in Khaki, Egyptian garrison forces (not great morale), Regular Egyptians (better), Sudanese Infantry (not great shots, decent fighters) and Red Coated British Infantry.


David makes a quick advance down table with his left hand brigade. David's right hand brigade failed to activate, apart from his artillery. Two Mahdist brigades of units appear. I randomised where they were arriving, and this was a roll of 1 and 2.


My two left-hand units try to advance, but the central one is disrupted from David's artillery fire as he formed out into line, while his cavalry pulls back, uncertain of what to do. My right hand brigade slowly advances behind.


My left-hand unit charges in. Closing fire shakes them though. Egyptian garrison troops fight hard to hold their line.


Both sides stand!


Seeing the fight, the Egyptian line troops blunder and retire back two moves.


Despite being outclassed, the Egyptian Garrison forces rout the Mahdist unit!


The two other units cannot get going and keep getting disrupted by accurate fire from David's line. On the right shooty Mahdist lead the way through the scrub.


Anglo-Allied troops and artillery pile the shots in.


The left hand unit shakes and breaks. This also breaks the left-hand brigade. They would recycle on a passed command roll. Not that that happened!


Which leaves a massive hole in the ranks!


Egyptian artillery and British Red Coated unit blow away the Mahdists skirmishers.


A Mahdist unit charges in, closing fire disrupts them. David had attached his brigadier to rally the unit.


But the Red coats rout, taking the Brigadier with them!


And the Egyptian artillery breaks with them.


The Mahdists burst into the backfield. Technically, this should have broken the British brigade, but I forgot!


The Anglo-Alllied line turns and shots the Mahdists that had broken through, who promptly break, breaking the second Mahdist brigade.


With the failure of the third Mahdist brigade to arrive, and two broken brigades, the Mahdist forces melt away into the night. Victory to the British.

A great game, lots of laughs.
Few points for consideration, especially as we move towards a campaign.

• Neither side had a CinC, which might have made a difference to early manoeuvers
• Mahdists only had a command rating of 8, a 9 would have given them a lot more flexibility.
• Mahdist brigades need to be much stronger, threes are too brittle.
• Garrison troops got lucky! 
• Troop mix worked well for the Anglo-Egyptians

A good game there Will, with both sides having highs and lows in the game and a close run thing at the end.

Nice one, Will !

A cheeky mid-week game - always nice!

Seems that as brigades break it's a bit dramatic on the gaps created! I can't recall the maths of BP and if odd or even sized brigades are better. I would have thought 3 units is good. As they will only test to break after loosing 2 of the 3 units. 

It's an auto break once you reach half or over of your units per brigade, so three break on two losses, and do fours, so the sweet spot is odd numbers.
Losing two out of three brigades is an army break
The idea with the Mahdists yesterday was rolling replacements, but they never rolled high enough to roll on to table!

Must stop playing games that involve luck... 

So lots of 3 unit brigades feels the optimised answer

I did see some of those initial rolls and thought you might be in trouble.

Perhaps try FKaP or TTS where you use cards rather than dice?

Excellent AAR!

Good stuff