Battle of Gurarat 1884.

Last night we had the closest run Colonial game I can remember,for a long,long time!
The basis for the game was that Brian and Graham were sitting in my kitchen,with a map of the table(minus the village!) and being "fed" information from a Heliograph team,which was plotting a safe passage for the main square,whilst trying to locate the village!!-meanwhile the Dervish hordes,being controlled by myself,Paul and Dave,were moving  to surround the square and,hopefully, wipe it out!!

Top photo is the scenario,second is the list of messages,given to Brian and Graham,move by move,and last is the list of troops they had to form their square.

This is the map,of the table(remember that Brian and Graham had this map,minus the village!)
The heliograph team moved from hill "A" to the oasis,then onto hill "B"(and subsequently got wiped out!!!!)

Top photo is the table at the start of the game,bottom is the square's composition as decided by Brian and Graham(I think that if they'd operated the cavalry outside of the square,and maintained the rest of their troops in this formation,they would have won!)

The storm clouds gather!-top is Paul's command,bottom is Dave's-my troops were moving out of the village and onto hill"B"-the British were worried!!!,can you tell?????

Concentration! but the square is looking good-if it only maintains that formation,they should be okay(my troops are leaving the village in the foreground).

Oh no!!-the British have broken their square,for the sake of fire-power,and are putting the cavalry in the gap-fatal mistake-Brian's Naval Brigade look good though!

Dave has launched a superb attack on the rear face of the square,in the top photo you can see that he has also attacked the cavalry, making up the right face-he won the melee with the cavalry and drove them back into the middle,leaving a gaping hole!!!-hurrah!

These two photo's show both my attack on the corner of the square and Paul's attack on the left face-spectacular,or what???
The British were now panicking,moving troops around,facing first this way,then that way-no cohesion,flanks up in the air-all is lost-another hurrah!!

This overhead view captures the spirit of this game,but to give the British commanders their deserved due,they didn't give up too easily,and fought on!!

The end-the square is no more!! only one thing left to do...........................

Hang the war correspondents!!(on my scratch-built gallows!) starting with Melton Prior!!
This was a great game,and actually very closely fought-at one point the Dervish commanders thought that they were beaten!!
Well done to us all,and roll on next Sunday!