Sir Garnet Quilp meets the Amir 1876

1876  Lt Colonel Garnet Quilp, "Chinese Quilp" due to his love of takeaway cuisine, is serving in the army of the Khedive of Egypt.  He has arrived in Suakin to take command and decides to take a column into the hills east of Suakin.  His intention is to take supplies through to an isolated Egyptian garrison at the Fort of Bir Tamat, on the cavaran route to Berber and the 5th cataract of the Nile.

The bandit chieftain and slaver Amir In Yashed has decided to attack the hated Egyptians

I wanted to try out the Men who Would be Kings Rules against a more conventional set, the Sword and the Flame.   I`ve never really liked the fact that the Sword and the Flame use 1 d20 per figure firing...  It seems like a crazy business to me, but in the interests of pitting the new rules against the Industry standard for Colonials I thought that it would be an interesting idea. 

Time to get my terrain down and begin rolling dice.  Quilp Pasha had a unit of Egyptian Fellah regular Infantry, and a poor quality Egyptian field gun and crew.  Giving the Mahdists a big unit of Irregular infantry and a unit of Irregular Cavalry/camelry made the points pretty much even.   

The Egyptians had camped, and deployed in front of their camp, which I counted as rough terrain.  The Mahdists entered on the opposite table edge and stormed across, the Camelry on their left taking a wide loop to outflank the Egyptians.  Once the Dervish foot closed to within firing range I rolled for Quilp Pasha's character.  turns out he is chronically short sighted and his unit can only fire at close range.  "I say are those our chaps? ... no What, what... hold your Fire fellows..."   He spent his time trying and failing to get the Egyptians to form close order for a volley. 

When the moment to fire finally did come the Egyptian Fellahs let loose a devastating blast, assisted by the gun and crew.  It almost literally blew the Mahdist foot away.  There was no way they could survive a pinning test after that.  Tribal infantry would have gone to ground, but this lot just milled about, pinned.  Under the Sword and the Flame a similar result occurred.  There was no restriction on longer range shooting and the Egyptians fire what felt like volleys to stem the advance.  The casualties were nothing like as devastating, but a failed test saw the dervish slink away, forced to retreat.

The Camelry meanwhile under Amir in Yashed (who turned out to be an effective leader) struck the flank.  Here we go I thought...  Ah but under the rules if one figure is in melee the whole unit counts.  No sweeping in from the flank to carry away a line in Men Who Would Be Kings.  The Egyptians could put up a stout defence in theory...  Under the Sword and the Flame the Egyptians broke and ran, but gloriously Quilp Pasha was able to aim his revolver and shoot the Amir out of the saddle!  

Under Men who would be Kings the Egyptians rolled dismally and were swept away anyway, the Camelry following up and giving them a second thrashing.  Quilp Pasha rolled snake eyes, double one is an Officer Casualty, so down he went, stabbed to death by the Amir.   

A great little game.  I have to remember that this is a skirmish.  The Infantry squares of a battle are less important here.  The Sword and the Flame are great battle rules, with some lovely touches.  I`m going to stick with the Men Who Would be Kings for a while however.  The small number of figures I use short changed the Sword and the Flame.  Given a bigger collection however...

In his lecture to the Royal Geographical Society in 1908 Sir Garnet Quilp described his miraculous survival and the terrible wounds inflicted by the Amir in graphic, if not salacious detail.  His imprisonment pending a ransom being paid and his subsequent escape whilst dressed as a pantomime horse only added to his reputation with Horseguards.