Monday 26 June 2017

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


28 comments:

  1. Good stuff. The table certainly looks good with the troops in formation.

    I don't know much about the conflict, but the Egyptian forces certainly capture my imagination. Other's can play the British, I'll be happy with the Egyptians :)

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    1. Thank you Roy. It is worth remembering that the British were better trained troops with better weapons and higher morale. But if you want the Egyptians why not, as long as you don't expect to win very often.

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  2. A simply splendid posting, Clint, which was packed full of enthusiasm for the game. Great minis and layout, and by the sounds of things some solid generalship on your part too. The pics and your narrative made things sound very intense, so I was captivated from the moment the AAR started.

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    1. Thank you Simon. My Generalship not so much as being able to roll well when I needed to. I do not consider myself a very lucky player but in some games (like this one) I do roll well.

      Most importantly it was a fun game. And I did better than the general in real life.... But I did not have to march through a desert and the ambush was semi expected by me!

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  3. Nice pics of the game Clint and congrats on getting Hicks out alive :)

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    1. Thank you Tamsin. Hicks would be forced into retirement in some remote country house. But at least he would be alive. So better than real life I think.

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  4. Great Batrep Clint, looks like you had a lot of fun no matter the result

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    1. Thank you Dave that sums it up very well. A good day, a good game and it played well and looked good. As mentioned above it could easily have been a show game.

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  5. Nice report. Really nice looking game. I hope everyone had fun!

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    1. Thank you Rod. I suspect all enjoyed it. I did mention to Matt how good the game looked.

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  6. Nice looking game and an interesting report.

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    1. Thank you Lee. We all appreciate good looking games. As for the battle. In real life a one sided affair. Matt did balance it better than reality but one just could not slow down the natives enough.

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  7. Tremendous game and report Clint and reminds me that I need to watch Khartoum again.

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    1. Thank you Michael. We all need to watch that great film again. And I can confirm it was a god game it played as well as it looked.

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  8. Superb looking game and report of the action, I was hoping against hope that you'd hold out seeing as you'd obviously sacrificed someting worthy to the dice gods.
    Still you did a lot better than Hicks!

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    1. Thank you Joe. We can all play what if. But the truth of the game is that we were hemmed in and could not bring enough firepower to bear. Much like real life!

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  9. Nice report and it looks great dude. Sometimes playability has to overrule accuracy. It can't be helped in some cases.

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    1. Thank you Simon. I find Colonials very hard to judge. I find it REALLY hard to get the balance right. And what may be right in one game is wrong when the terrain changes.

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  10. I think we have another club game there. It looked impressive, Matt's collection was bigger than I expected. I think a refight is called for so I can get in on the action

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    1. Thank you Tim. It was impressive. Matt's collection is growing all the time. And it would be good to have you in the refight.

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  11. Bloody and great looking game...you have to paint more vultures now, they have a lot of to eat!

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    1. Thank you Phil I do have 1 more Vulture to paint.
      Did you know there are 22 species of Vulture in the world... See wargaming is educational. lol

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  12. Terrific batrep Clint and the photo's are a real treat - plenty of 'eye candy' there!
    Roll on the refight :-)

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    1. Thank you Addict. While I am sure there will be a refight I cannot say when. Game I do know of are some Chain of Command (when I paint enough) a North West frontier game by Mat and a Napoleonic Skirmish.

      I am also hoping for some Aeronef but that is on the back burner for now.

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    2. All sounds good, I'm especially interested in the Napoleonic skirmish - do you know what rules you'll be using?

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    3. Thanks Addict. The Napoleonic Skirmish is for a show. I know the rules are Chosen Men by Osprey but Napoleonic's are really not my thing so I doubt I will paint anything for it although I may get a couple of games in before the show. (Just to show willing)

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    4. Thanks Clint, I've not tried those myself, so I'll look forward to hearing what you think of 'em.

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    5. The game will not be until September. So don't hold your breath

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