The Men Who Would Be Kings: Who Would Not Sleep with the Brave?

Last night at BIG we had another crack at the Run to the Hills! scenario from The Men Who Would Be Kings. Once again we employed 36 point Field Forces, but flipped the attacker and defender so this time it was the brave Sons of Empire trying to retreat across the board, faced by the hordes of Madhi George...  As Matt Houghton had expressed an interest in the game I split the Imperial force into two, Matt taking command of the three British Regular Infantry with me taking the Sikhs, Lancers and Bazingers...

The scenario dictates that the defender (the Imperial forces in this scenario) deploy first along the short table edge. It was then with much trepidation we watched the Mahdist horde appear en masse on one flank!

With the weaker elements of the Imperial force (the Bazingers and Lancers) closest to the Mahdists I thought some prompt At The Double actions to get away were the order of the day. Unfortunately on turn two, the Lancers decided not to move, presenting their flank to a unit of Beja armed with stabby pointy sticks... Gulp!

Fortunately for the lackadaisical lancers, the Beja refused orders to attack!

Elsewhere though George's (nicely painted) natives moved across the desert with worrying speeds towards the badly deployed Imperial force!

Turn three saw the Lancers and Bazingers get their act into gear and into relative safety behind the lines of brave Khaki clad Englishmen and Sikhs...

With the Madhists getting closer, Matt ordered two of his Regular Infantry units into Close Order... 

A crashing round of Volley Fire took out almost half of one of the advancing Beja units with their pointy stabby sticks and pinned them...

Further up the table, another unit of Beja were blasted by British Regulars and the Bengal Lancers then swooped into the finish off the remnants! This saw a neighbouring unit of Beja, under fire from the Sikhs, become pinned as well. However two nearby units of Mahdists shrugged off the sight of their comrades being skewered...

George's Irregular Infantry started to make their presence felt at this point, killing half the remaining lancers and a number of the Regulars, pinning them and forcing them out of Close Order! The Beja Tribal Infantry then swooped in for the kill!!! 

Advancing At the Double they had a move of 8 plus 1d6 inches. The pinned Regulars were just 10 inches away.... Gulp!

George rolled a 1 and the Beja failed to make contact! Phew...

Further up the boards another Beja unit was in Attack distance of four Imperial units, the Close Order Regulars, the Sikhs, the Bazingers and the remaining Lancers. George decided to get his pointy stabby stick armed killing machines in on the greatest threat, the Regulars and the Beja charged into contact!

Unfortunately George had forgotten that being in Close Combat restricts the number of his unit that can attack, so instead of being 16 v 12, it became a straight roll off of 12 v 12, both sides needing 4 or higher for kills!.

George's dice then betrayed him giving him only 2 kills, whilst Matt killed 6 of the Beja, pushing them back...

This, and the failure of the other Beja to charge in to the pinned Regulars, was the key point of the game and from then on it was pretty much downhill for Madhi George...

The Sikhs and Bazingers then opened fire on the survivors wiping the remainder of the Beja out...

The last of the Bengal Lancers fell to "sniper" fire from the Irregular Infantry on the hill but elsewhere the unit of Beja who had failed to charge into contact found themselves decimated by the rifles of the Skihs and Regulars,

Another unlucky dice roll by George saw his pinned Irregular Infantry on the hill flee after a badly failed Rally test and the Sikhs and Regulars took down one of the last two Beja groups.

The Bazingers then got involved with the last unit of Beja Tribal Infantry shooting down a few before being engaged in hand to hand combat. Whilst they lost this and suffered seven casualties, they had over two turns managed to reduce the Beja to 50%...

Elsewhere on the board the Sikhs and Regulars rolled up the few remaining Mahdists they faced, the last Irregulars eventually failing a Rally test and routing...

Finally the other Close Order Regulars took out six of the last Beja, leaving the honour of the coup de grace to the Bazingers who shot down the last two Mahdists!

Another crushing victory for the Imperial forces in the Sudan, but a much closer battle than the previous one and one that could have easily gone very differently if George had been blessed with a couple of slightly better dice rolls and not charged to Close Order infantry at a key point of the battle (taking out the final two Lancers would have made three Imperial units take pinning tests and opened them up to the possibility of being massacred with pointy stabby sticks in the next turn).

Once again much fun was had and I think George might be buying some new dice for next week...