A Bit of a Change of Scene, All of a Sudan

 Arranged at rather short notice, I was delighted to welcome a visit from Count Goya today. He hasn't been here for a while, what with pandemics and suchlike, but I met him off the Edinburgh train, and then he very kindly treated me to lunch (naturally, I chose the most expensive venue in the High Street), followed by a very quick introduction to The Men Who Would Be Kings at my house. He brought all the kit with him - cloth cover for the battlefield, scenery, soldiers, dice, counters - everything! All packed in a big toolbox - at North Berwick railway station I had to protect him from people pestering him to see if he could come and fix their central heating. 

We didn't have a lot of time to try out the game, so the intention really was just to get a general idea of how it works and feels. Goya has played just a few games before; my total experience consists of reading a pdf of the rules last night, and watching an introductory YouTube clip. As I said to Goya, I am the man who has read the course material, but cannot remember what it said, which rather neatly summarises my whole academic career.

The game is neat, looks good, and was particularly interesting for me since it is a period about which I know very little. We didn't get very far through our game, which was a small action from the Mahdist Wars, before it was time to call a halt, but it was a fascinating glimpse, and I'd like to have another go before too long. Predictably, unfamiliarity dominated the time it took to do anything; an awful lot of table-checking and re-reading rules. We were getting slicker as we went along, as we were meeting less concepts for the first time. It would help, I think, if the rules gave more worked examples, to turn on a few more lights during a read-through, but I guess the Osprey format limits the space available.

We also would have benefited from rather more pre-work of our own on identifying and listing (and evaluating) the attributes of the units and their leaders. With more preparation, and a more realistic time to spread out, this looks a very decent game indeed.

And the soldiers were pretty, as well, of course.

Thanks again to Goya - a most enjoyable day.

 

I was the British, which gave me less troops to manage, as a rookie. Early on, my cavalry unit spotted some chaps on camels heading my way. Confident that we could sort this lot out in short order, we closed with them, and they attacked

 

 

My cavalry were driven back, and then wiped out on the follow-up. Not a promising start...

 

 

Now the main Mahdist force came onto the field

 

With only my 3 regiments of regular infantry left, there was nothing to do but set ourselves up in positions where our superior rifle fire could be used to best effect. We eliminated the camels, and as the Mahdist troops advanced, we began a long-range rifle-fire exchange in which we seemed to have the edge, which was the stage we had reached when we had to call time. Good game - something completely new for me!