Beside the Nile at End Game Cafe

This week we had our weekly Camp Cromwell game at the End Game Cafe for a change.  We changed our night to Wednesday for the occasion as the cafe gets full with another group on Tuesdays.  There were several other games of a sci fi or fantasy nature going on, but room for us to reprise our British column being attacked by the Mahdi scenario.

An Egyptian division is in the village, a British column is marching beside the Nile to join them.  The Mahdi's forces start off table on the right& can come on anywhere subject to the usual command test.

The battle started with the Mahdi's cavalry attacking the Anglo-Egyptian cavalry at the head of the column.  Dice trumped logic when the hussars were pushed back while the Egyptian horse initially did well.  One hussar unit broke, but the other was saved when the 1st Mahdi cavalry division was broken by the Egyptian horse & fire support from the infantry & artillery. 

Seeing the cavalry having some success, the first 2 Mahdi infantry divisions came on to attack the rear of the British column.  The British division lost half their units before the Mahdi's divisions ran out of steam. 

The Mahdi's 3rd & 4th infantry divisions came on between the other infantry & the cavalry & attacked the 2nd British infantry division.
On their right the surviving British infantry were shaken, but so were the survivors of the 1st & 2nd Dervish divisions.  Unable to charge, the Dervishers were gradually being whittled away by rifle fire (which was still deadly enough even with -1 for shaken).
On their left the surviving British & Egyptian cavalry was hanging on against 2nd Mahdi cavalry division.
Now all the Mahdi's force was seen to be attacking the British column, the Egyptians are forming up outside th village to come to help out, but the are too far away to be likely to be of any help.

The forces had different Army Break tests.  The Mahdi's criteria was to break on losing more than half his 6 divisions (2 cav & 4 inf).  The British column's critera was to break on losing more than half their total number of units.  The Egyptians in the village had a separate test.  The Mahdi lost his 1st cavalry division, then the 1st & 2nd infantry while the British lost half the units in every division.  With both sides teetering on the edge of failure, it was the Brits who lost out. On seeing the Brit's break, the Egyptians returned to the village.

As good as home base is, it's nice to play away & to promote historical gaming.  We intend to make this a regular thing with our more portable games.  Naval & air games would be good options.