The "Cyclops incident" Sudan 1898!!

"The desert sands were stained with red,the gatling's jammed,the Colonel's dead,Brian gave a desolate sigh,and promptly poked himself in the eye!!
Now why Brian decided to poke himself in the eye,half way through the game last night,we'll probably never know-was it boredom,or an attention seeking cry for help from a tortured soul??
But the fact remains he did poke himself in the eye-of course we were very sympathetic,amid peals of laughter,and jokes about Nelson,Dr Hook,and even Pete Burns!!
Now on with the game.....

The scenario,Brian(aka Cyclops) was in charge of the British column "A",Richard was in charge of British column "B" and Lord Lucan (AKA Dave) was in charge of the Punjabi contingent,Graham was in charge of the Ansars,leaving Paul to command the Haddendowah,whilst I tried to instill some kind of order as referee.

Now it must be pointed out that Richard is a relative new-comer to Colonial games,and is more used to sedate lines of properly formed troops moving slowly across the board,the last thing he expected was to be attacked immediately by wild tribesmen and cavalry,from all angles!!
This shot shows his Seaforths being attacked,and behind the "mountain" his Camel corps are being hacked to death by Baggara cavalry!
The Punjabi infantry in the foreground are busy shooting everything that Graham sends against them!

Dave's Punjabi infantry,good position,backed up by a small mountain gun,nothing was going to shift them.

Meanwhile,Brian,who still had both his eyes at this point,was trying to get to Punjabi hill,with his column,is being put under pressure from the Haddendowah.This was a good move by Paul,who managed to split Brian's forces,causing him some trouble.
I do believe it was at this point that a controversial refereeing decision,prompted Brian to demonstrate that when he was in the Army(British),he could call down accurate artillery fire using only his line of vision,and whilst waving his fingers perilously close to his face,managed to blind himself for the rest of the game-oh how we laughed!!

Paul's force attacking Brian,this was the last move of the game,and if Brian could throw a five on his dice he would win this vast melee and save the whole of the British force,including Richard's remaining troops,but alas not the brave Punjabi's who had fled!!-Old Cyclops only managed to do it didn't he!!!
This was a brief but interesting game,if only Brian could have seen it!!
Dave brought some figures along to show us,here are some photo's......

Very nice Dave!!
I received a very large parcel from Warrior Miniatures,full of "El Cid" figures,Moors and Spanish,so can't wait to get stuck into them!!
Roll on Thursday,one last shot of that great "pupil" of history,who gave" one in the eye" to the Sudanese,oh dear,the jokes couldn't get any "cornea" could they??

Oh hell!! with that look we'll all be given a "black spot" next week!!