Thursday 4 February 2021

Sudan 1885ish AAR The Men who Wold Be Kings Rules

Monday night we revisited The Men Who Would be Kings Rules this time the Sudan 1885 was the setting!

We chose Scenario H, A Sigh of Relief from the rules and regarding terrain we set up some 'hills', rough ground and brush simulating what we see in the pictures from the period. The Mahdist would be on the attack and both sides would get 25 point forces, we did not give each Units Leader a Trait but instead they were given a Commander in Chief who had a Leader Trait that they had to use once per turn on a Unit within 4" of them.

Mahdists
Commander Osman Dirka, Brave Leader Trait
5 x Tribal Infantry at 15 points
2 x Well Armed Sharpshooting Tribal Infantry at 8 points 

British Initial Force (On Table)
A Heliograph Team was the objective
1 x Regular Infantry, Highlanders at 6 points
1 x Poorly Drilled Gatling Gun at 4 points

British Relief Force (Reinforcements)
Commander Captain Darling, Destined for Greatness Leader Trait (naturally!)
3 x Unenthusiastic Regular Infantry at 15 points

The Scenario played so quickly we actually played the it twice swapping some players over!

Game 1 AAR

The British defenders set up with the Gatling Gun Team covering around half the battlefield and the Highlanders in close order covering roughly the other half. The Mahdists choose to attack from the short edge of the table facing the Gatling, a good move as the Highlanders in close order weren't as manoeuvrable as the Gatling!

The Mahdists plan was simple, CHARGE! Their Units moved really fast (save for there Sharpshooters who continually failed their activation roles!) and closed on the British quickly! Naturally while the Highlanders struggled to redeploy the Gatling Gun Team failed their first two activations so managed to get only one shot off before they were overrun! Things were looking bad for the British!

With the Gatling Gun gone and the Highlanders pushed back the Mahdists swarmed about the Heliograph Team...

The British relief forces had arrived at this point, and even at long range their firepower began to tell! Their volleys quickly Pinned the Mahdists driving them back from the fraught Heliograph Team! 

Captain Darling, wearing his customary blue tunic directed fire personally and drove the Mahdists left wing back with heavy losses!

Meanwhile the depleted Highlanders counter charged the last of the Mahdists threatening the Heliograph and despite losses drove them back heroically! Victoria Cross stuff in my book!
This along with the long range volleys of the rest of the British reinforcements ended any threat from the Mahdists left wing, the battle was over...queue Land of Hope and Glory (I know 17 years too early!)

Okay with that game taking less than an hour and a half the players swapped sides and we played this sucker again!

Game 2 AAR

This game the British deployed their Gatling Gun facing one short table side and the Highlanders in skirmish order facing one of the long sides. So the obvious the direction of attack for the Mahdists out of the Gatling Guns line of sight! On they came with the same plan, CHARGE! To make things worse for the British this game the Mahdists activations were more successful and they advanced VERY quickly!

The Highlanders defended the Heliograph Team ferociously while yet again the Gatling Gun proved ineffective being overrun in short order, this picture shows the Highlanders after defeating the first Fuzzy Wuzzy charge to hit them!

The overall view at the above point in time, the first British reinforcements can be seen at the top of the picture while the Heliograph and Highlanders are in the centre surrounded by swarms of Mahdists!

The Heliograph in trouble (in fact it was overrun next turn) as Captain Fergus the sole survivor of the Highland escort can be seen falling back before a sea of Mahdists defiantly blazing away with his revolver!

After capturing the Heliograph the Mahdists surged forward but here (like in the first game) British firepower told inflicting numerous casualties.

Despite the slaughter in their ranks a couple of Mahdists units hit the British 'Thin Khaki Line' taking them on in close combat but were repelled. Of note was the fact that Captain Fergus survived his face off with the Mahdi Horde, another VC in the offing me thinks!

Another British Victory, queue up Land of Hope and Glory yet again!

Our thoughts on the evening;
These are a very good set of rules for our Monday evenings, the rules are easy to learn, the games play smoothly, they capture the feel on the Colonial period and come to a conclusion quickly. Having only one Leader per side with a Trait which could apply to any one force unit a turn worked very well and while we get used to the rules saved checking multiple traits for each Unit, we will eventually change to this (but still maintain an overall Commander still! It will be interesting when this leader gets a 'bad' trait and will be forced to use it haha!). The rules gave a good historical outcome based on our reading of the Sudan campaign, i.e. blokes armed with pointy sticks are bound to lose against blokes with guns! 
BUT (Yes there had to be a but!)
We had two issues, firstly the Scenario didn't seem very well balanced. This is only the second scenario we have played from the rule book. We played twice in the night and couldn't see any chance for the Mahdists at 1:1 to beat the British despite the latter's tardy arrival schedule, we decided we would replay this again one day but change the force balance, a base of 24 points for the attacker and 18 points for the defender still keeping 6 to 10 of those on table at the start.
Secondly the Rally rule irked us. A Unit gets pinned approaching its foe if it fails to rally they stand in front of the foe next turn and get blasted (possibly charged) or the Rally next turn and get blasted again! This can become a cycle of despair for the Unit initially Pinned. After a long discussion next time we use these rules we'll make the following changes and test them;
1) if a unit is Pinned it Goes to Ground (even if not normally able to do this) and beside the usual effects of this we are adding 'if targeted by fire at short range 2 hits are required to score a kill'.
2) if a Pinned Unit rallies successfully they can carry out one of the following actions in addition to Rallying; a) Fire at half strength rounded down, b) move at up to half their normal Movement allowance or c) maintain Go to Ground status

Another good night was had, next time we'll be visiting WW II with Great Escape Games Iron Cross rules.