It’s been a while since this collection had a proper large game so last weekend saw an opportunity to get together a bunch of friends and re fight the campaign to relieve Gordon who is besieged in Khartoum. I have use of old friend Gerry’s massive tables , which would allow for a game with the whole collection using the two 24x6 tables. I used mats created by Tiny Wargames to overlay the tables with some hills under and then a whole load of scatter terrain. I also made use of the gap between tables and made up a 4 foot long river board to drop onto the gap which we could use as the Nile. The game would be played over 3 days with 2 umpires playing the Mahdists and 4 imperial players .
The Camel Corps crossing the sands of Sudan
Gordon awaits his rescuers
The Suakin field force builds the railway toward Berber.
The New South Wales field battery
The 9th Bengal deploy
The river column proceeds up the Nile
The locals are not happy!
The capture of Metemah
The Mahdists come crashing in
The 19th Hussars are heavily outnumbered by Mahdi’s cavalry
The Cameron Highlanders Commander orders red coats to be worn
Khartoum is in sight
Major Kitchener is sent to scout ahead to find a route through
The Naval Brigade deploy
The city walls are under pressure and the Nile is falling
The city garrison prepares to sally forth as the relief columns approach.
Kitchener finds a way through to the city gates
The first of relief force arrives in the nick of time as the garrison holds off a final assault. Gordon is saved . Though as Redvers Buller said “not sure the man was worth the camels!”
A thoroughly enjoyable 3 full days of gaming was had . We will do it again .