The Battle of El Obeid (or Shaykan), Sudan, 1883

 

Full film. (only first 15 mins relevant to this post)

Well Yesterday I was lucky enough to play The Battle of El Obeid. The Vid is one of the opening scenes from the 1966 Film "Khartoum." A game put on by Matt. I was teamed with Bob and Peter allied with Matt to be our enemies. Here is the game in brief.


The whole Egyptian column.

Bob had the tail of the column

I was to play the part of
William Hicks
And had the head of the column.

A gift for Matt
The Vulture was from
EMP Miniatures
(Stocked by Col Bill)

The column starts to deploy.
But my Artillery fails to unlimbers and set up.

Fousands of em.. no wait that's the wrong film
The Mahdi's troops are very numerous.

Too many units to kill
we would have to pin them.
But still too many
Just as you would hope in a colonial game

I wheel my cavalry to the left flank to provide a firing screen.

the head of the column
hold of 2-3 attacks beating them back each time.

The rear of the column also gets attacked
this time by Camalry

My cavalry are contacted and a melee ensues.
The head of the column loose a significant number of men
As do the Cavalry
But they both win the fight.

Colonel Bob is attacked on both flanks and has troubles of his own
The camalry are dying but very slowly and Bob cannot spare any troops to help me

Again (Bloody good dice rolls)
stop me from going under but I keep loosing men.
 

I cannot keep enough of the Mahdi's troops pinned and fight melees at the same time.

Weight of Numbers finally prevail

My units are so depleted that even when they win they loose too many men

The Vinegar Strokes.
I just do not have sufficient men to hold out 

I start loosing morale checks and have to flee
pushed back by Matt and Peter

Utter defeat .I manage to get 3 figures from the table

Conclusion: Bob faired a little better than me he still had intact units at the end of the game. However I did manage to get Hicks to escape (one of my 3 figures) but the rest of my troops were either killed or captured. So I did better than the real life general. As mentioned Bob did far better, but he was fighting fewer of the Mahdi's troops. This is no criticism of him at all. It is just the way Peter and Matt decided to attack us. If they had as many troops against him as my forces I would have taken less casualties.

Overall it was a good game and a fairly true refight. I do dislike all rules where Infantry can (and do) charge cavalry. As I struggle to find historical relevance in this. While I am sure it must have happened. 99 times out of 100 the cavalry could evade though by out running the infantry. Still the rules are very simple and cannot cope with too many things. Again not meant as a criticism just an observation. I did make the point that at the end of the game Tribal infantry nearly move as fast as regular cavalry. And that Cavalry have to roll for activation while tribals can move freely. This is a minor quibble and generally the rules did give a good game.

I had some lucky dice rolls (far luckier than normal) but so did Matt and Peter. I never could seem to keep them pinned long enough to stop 2 or 3  units from charging each turn.

But a very good game and one that would have graced any show it looked so good.

Congrats Peter and Matt on the win