DEATH IN AFRICA 1883 AND GANGSTERS

I managed to catch up with some gaming this week.   During our Thursday meeting at the SESWC club, we tried out the death in the Death in the Dark Continent set of rules by Chris Peers. The game was organised by Colin Jack, who umpired it, provided all the figures, terrain and the scenario. In this battle the Egyptians were commanded by myself and Angus Konstam, whilst the Mahdists were led by Donald Adamson, Campbell Hardie and Bart Zynda. The game was played along a 6ft by 8 ft table.



Madhists surge forward

The Egyptian objective was to advance down the table and capture the village of Ey Bai at the far end whilst the Madhists simply had to prevent this.  It quickly became apparent to Angus and I that this was beyond the ability of our force - our best armed troops were all raw - and we decided to form a firing line and hope that the Madhists would destroy themselves against it.

We only attacked on our right flank where Angus threw the Egyptian light horse against a unit of Ansar.  The cunning Madhists had deployed a unit of soldiers in a hidden position  at the side of the table and after defeating the Ansar our cavalry were surprised by the ambushers.  They attempted to ride round the Madhists lines to escape but were cut down by a unit of Beja.



Hicks pasha watching the steady Remington fire

In the centre our infantry did well initially destroying the Madhist cavalry and inflicting heavy casualties on the Ansar screening the advancing fanatical Beja units.  Things were going well until I decided to throw my Egyptian armoured cavalry into a Beja unit.  The cavalry broke in the melee and the resulting morale tests disrupted 3 of our 4 well armed infantry units.   The Beja saw their chance and charged 2 of our infantry units who firing widly into the air broke under the attack and fled the field.


Just before my fatal decision to charge with the heavy cavalry....

At that point with things looking very bad for the Egyptians we ended the game.  Death in the Dark Continent worked well and were fun. They are different from Chris Peer’s other more skirmish type rules - but still very simple - the actual rules are only 26 pages.  We will be trying them again.  I may even write a review.  Here are the orders of battle of the 2 sides.

EGYPTIANS
Hick Pasha, disciplined
Raw Soldiers with breechloaders (1)
Raw Soldiers with breechloaders (2)
Raw Soldiers with breechloaders (3)
Bazingers, untrained soldiers with muskets (1)
Bazingers, untrained soldiers with muskets (2)
Bashi Bazouks, untrained skirmishes with muskets
Mounted Bashi Bazouks, untrained light horse
Heavy cavalry
Medium rifled field gun

MAHDISTS
Uthman Digna, organised
Heavy Camelry
Jihadiya, soldiers with breechloaders
Jihadiya, elite soldiers with muskets, hidden
Beja, elite warriors (1)
Beja, elite warriors (2)
Beja, elite warriors (3)
Ansar, untrained skirmishes with muskets
Ansar, skirmishes with spears
Untrained light field gun
 
On Saturday I went to Hugh Wilsons for a big 1920s Gangster game.  Colin Jack worked out the scenarios and he and Hugh provided the figures and terrain.  Many thanks to Susanne Wilson for providing the US themed lunch.  



Hooverville.....

The rules we used were a modification of Legends of the West and came from an article in Wargames, Soldiers & Strategy.  There were 10 players at the game.  We played as 2 two man teams and 6 individuals in 2 mini leagues were we each played 3 games and then had a final round of games to decide the overall winner and loser.



Docklands before the bloodbath....

The long table was split into 4 districts each of which had a different scenario to play - the Docklands, Mainstreet USA, Hooverville and an aerodrome.   My gang got to the top final game after 3 fairly bloodless games.  In an exciting dockland shoot out with Dave O'Briens 18 strong Chinese tong - my guys were giving better than they took - nailing 9 of Daves for 5 losses on my side - until they headed for the hills or at least Brooklyn heights.



Aerodrome with impressive 1/48 diecast DC3

 Heroes armed with Tommy Guns and 38s are very effective.   No one made any use of vehicles and that is something we should look at in our next game.  There are a few minor things I would like to change in the rules to better suit gangsters but it all worked and it was great fun. 



Dave's chinese tong gang take cover from my shooting...

This coming week we are preparing our game for TARGE the Kirriemuir Wagames club show on Saturday the 10th.  So my next report will be all about TARGE 2012.