Jakat-al Hasan 1882.

Last night we had a full turnout for this exciting and different Colonial game-I put this game on to showcase Brian's newly painted(and what a grand job he made of them too!) Naval Brigade,who were given the main task of the night-did they do well?..........................

This is the scenario-Dave and I were the Egyptian commanders,whilst Brian commanded his Naval Brigade(naturally!) and Paul and Graham commanded the British column.

Brian's Navy Boys made short work of the Egyptian infantry unit supported by an artillery piece,which were placed in the stronghold!-at this point he must have been thinking,"well, this is going to be a walk in the park"-oh really??????

Up "popped" two units of locally recruited riflemen,and gave them hell-at this critical point his Gatling and Gardener gun both jammed-oh how he laughed!!!!-welcome to wargaming boys!!

On the other side of the table,Dave's gunners,obviously trained by Stevie Wonder,and Paul's gunners,obviously trained by Blind Pew,were blasting away at each other but doing no harm!
Graham had to listen to ,and react to, Brian's pitiful pleadings and tears for help,as his Naval Brigade(beautifully painted!) was being shot to bits-but what could he do??-well, he decided to send him a full brigade-was this a mistake???..........................

Here they come,all smart and properly uniformed,marching in nice files-what could possibly go wrong??

As the "relief" brigade formed into line,they suddenly started shooting-at what??

Well,the "wily" commander(moi!) on this flank unleashed his locally recruited tribesmen,onto the hapless British,and even taking huge casualties on the way in,managed to chop the Redcoats to bits-hurrah!!

On the other side of the table,Dave and Paul are battling it out with volley fire-Paul and his British are getting too close for my liking!-but Dave remained calm and cool(even in the desert?)

In the village,Dave is holding his own(!!!) but taking casualties from Graham's remaining gun.
In the background you can see a brown bit of "smoke"-this is the remains of the Rocket Battery that blew up on take off!!!-we laughed,they didn't!!

In desperation,Paul has charged Dave's infantry with his Lancers,and has managed to get into them,causing them a bit of bother!!
However,the British were in dis-array(to say the least) and the village still had not been captured,and we had inflicted enough casualties on them to prevent them continuing their march to Alexandria,so the Egyptians had won the day!!
Well done to Dave and I,I feel sure that the British "team" will have something to say about this report,but it is the victors that write history,and Blogs!!!
Roll on next week,don't know what we'll be playing yet.