Anglo-Egyptian Sudan (1)

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Gordon?  Who cares.  There are cool uniforms and annoying 'natives' who don't understand it's their job to die under a hail of gunfire.  And 1880's, if you please.  The British wear RED here!  Except the Marines and the Navy and some of the troops from India.  And those natives.  And gunboats!  Lots of fun.

But it must wait for a bit, except for dabbling, dabbling.

February 27, 2022
 
Well, this was a period on the "chopping block".  So much so that a couple of years ago I started selling - for a song - some of the unpainted figures I'd collected, mostly some of the British.  And the, within the last couple of months, I decided to buy in a bunch of the Old Glory 15s Sudan figure packs for both sides.  I sill have a lot of what is listed below, too.  To give an idea of how much I added: 40 foot units (21/19), 4 camel units (3/1), and 11 cavalry units (3/8).  The numbers in parenthesis are for Mahdi versus British alignment.  Probably the best addition is having enough Egyptian and Sudanese now to pit the Egyptian/Sudan forces against the British - thus getting a slightly different conflict out of at least part of the same figures.  And this will be more on the fun side of things than strictly historical - that Lark Side written up recently on the main page.  Also added more artillery, higher command, and casualty figures - a wee bit more pack animals, mules and camels.  

I might want to add some more appropriate rolling stock to my collection because the Old West stuff is very American in origin.  Maybe.

December 13, 2012

I've decided tonight is the night to list the forces for this setup, at least the British and allied side of things.  So, here goes (and mind, this is after "downsizing" this collection).  While some are ready for paint, none are as yet painted.  And who knows where this is in the long line of figures to paint.

CinC - scouts/spies
1st British Camel Regiment
2nd British Camel Regiment

2inC - scouts/spies
Egyptian Camel Regiment
Sudanese Camel Regiment

First Division
First "brigade"
Royal Regiment (blue facing, shield on helmet)
Blue Faced Regiment
Life Guards Cavalry

Second "brigade"
1st Egyptian Regiment
2nd Egyptian Regiment
1st Egyptian Cavalry

Third "brigade"
Gun and crew, Wagon
Machine gun and pack horses
1/2 Honor Guard
1/2 Post Office Regiment (Regt. Command)

Second Division
First "brigade"
White Faced Regiment
Green Faced Regiment
17th Lancers

Second "brigade"
3rd Egyptian Regiment
4th Egyptian Regiment
2nd Egyptian Cavalry

Third "brigade"
Gun and crew, Wagon
Machine gun and pack horses
1/2 Honor Guard
1/2 Post Office Regiment

Third Division
First "brigade"
Highland Regiment - kilts, yellow facings
Highland Regiment - trews, yellow facings
21st Lancers

Second "brigade"
1st Sudanese Regiment
2nd Sudanese Regiment
Gendarmerie Cavalry

Third "brigade"
Gun and crew, Limber
Machine gun and pack horses
Band!
1/2 Naval Regiment - caps (Regt. Command)

Fourth Division
First "brigade"
Naval Regiment - straw hats
Marine Regiment
Mounted Infantry Regiment

Second "brigade"
Sikh Regiment
Baluchi Regiment
Bengal Lancers

Third "brigade"
Gun and crew, Limber
Machine gun and pack horses
Heliograph Teams!
1/2 Naval Regiment - caps

And casualty figures allotted, approximately, at a rate of three for each regiment (of infantry, at least, but plenty to go around).

And before anyone takes me to task, I know the cavalry aren't precise to the theater and, yes, I know they weren't "machine guns" proper but just for simplicity's sake since I have a bit of a hodge podge in that department.

Command is one mounted figure with one foot figure on the stand (flags for highest level).   Levels would be the "inC", Division, Brigade, and Regiment (foot, not cavalry), 37 total since I have one unassigned extra floating in the mix.  Most infantry regiments are 24 figures, the honor guard and the band/heliograph are 18 each.  The cavalry are all 18 figures with matching dismounts, the camelry are 12 figures with matching dismounts.  Scouts/spies is just one stand for each of 3 figures.

Once all of that gets painted, and their opponents, too, of course, I should be able to have quite a game - or maybe even a campaign.  Not quite as ambitious as the late Peter Gilder's Sudan set up but rather larger than many folks put together for the period.

And I'll be painting red coats over blue slacks with those red stripes, thank you very much.  I love the Zulu war uniforms but not the whole slaughter the spear armed masses side of that conflict.  Yes, yes, I know it goes on in the Sudan as well but not to the same extent.  A pretty sizable amount of the Ansar had firearms.   I'm also plumbing for an entirely fictional campaign.  The whole rescue Gordon thing not so much my cup of tea.  In my Sudan he's toes up already but the British haven't thrown in the towel just yet.

Oh, and I have a rather nice collection of paddle boats to ply the Nile along with plenty of feluccas to sail along that third branch, The Green Nile.

On the native side, to give a sense of the size of the force I have available (though it is for this and the French Foreign Legion but can work both ways), each of the Sheiks have 144 infantry, 60 cavalry, and 24 camelry plus scouts and other bits and pieces and there are six sheik forces, also two Emir forces, one for each conflict and, when I really want to provide real trouble, an overall Sultan command.   (The Emir and Sultan forces are just command groups not the size of the sheik forces)  And all of those forces rate one casualty for every single stand - and I plan to use those casualties to effectively double the forces: whenever a stand is eliminated a casualty is placed and when the whole unit is gone it regenerates onto the table.  That means the "native" player has strong incentive to be aggressive, even reckless, early in a game.

(to clarify, for the native sheik forces, there are: ansar, hadendowah, eastern arabs, western arabs, bedouin, and tauregs.  that means four of the six can be used easily with either opponent, the British or the French)




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