Death in the desert

The British Objective to reach the town

Battle was quickly joined on the southern route.

The scenario was that we had to get the remnants of he destroyed fort back to civilization. As the British (yes it was me) had lost the last two games this would end the mini campaign if we could get the troops back. I am not going to sugar coat it ! It was a disaster for the British from the outset. Firstly there was an escarpment which meant 1 of three options. A) Enter a bottle neck, B) scale the escarpment meaning we would move about 3 cm per turn. C) Split out forces, As time was against us and as we had limited ammunition we decided to split our forces in the hope that at least some would make it. Rob took the Northern Route, I took the southern.

I pushed my troops on as far and as fast as I could. But even in the first turn the Mardist troops were out and about. And they managed to charge my infantry that were in column.

The column held and an ongoing melee ensued. Being short of time to organise I hurled my second column into the brawl. While my Cavalry charged the Camalry. Both were victories for the British but not decisive so the Mardhist troops just withdrew a move.








AS My Cavalry were considered disrupted after the battle it allowed the Ansar foot to charge them. Nothing I could do evidently. Which resulted in them all being slaughtered.










Meanwhile on the Northern route.  The Marhdist forces had come out to play and in 2 turns Bob was wiped out to a man. Outnumbered and as we kept loosing the initiative poor Bob just got swamped. Each of his units was forced into melee against 3 or 4 times their number and without any initiative breaks no opportunity other than to stay for the most part in column. Disaster.

More and More Mardhist troops kept attacking and there was no opportunity to recover. I did manage to get one infantry column into a square but they only had 4 rounds of ammunition so they were never going to hold out for long. Whereas my other unit was attacked by 3 units of ansar and when rolling for my morale test rolled a 3 on 2d6 they fled the board immediately.

DISASTER!




Conclusion: an utter defeat. 3 times in a row the British lost in the Sudan,  Looking back would or could I have done much differently? Well I could have kept the forces together but I don't think that would have helped as that would still have meant that the British were out numbered 3 or 4 to one with limited ammunition. I think IF the Ansar had turned up in dribs and drabs we might have made a difference as It would have given us more chance to organise. But in retrospect on this game the British were ambushed and there was not a lot we could have done to change it .

Oh well.