By heck it is round to Friday again.

Braving winds and heavy rain I fought my way to the shed to locate something forgotten…. it wasn’t hard they were sitting in full view on the mini shelves I made out of scrap wood from the builders yard in Lerwick.

I remember really enjoying painting these chaps. They are for Science versus Pluck, not the main forces as they are in 10mm. These chaps are there for if things get tricky and a player is forced to resort to hand to hand.

The idea is that the player faces a random number of attackers who are trying their best to fill said player full of holes. The various sergeants and other ranks are there to help out depending on what their personalities their character has. A beloved officer will have a rescue force, a hated Officer will find very quickly if he is spear proof as the other ranks look the other way.

The rules themselves are somewhat Kriekspeil in their design. The players are all against an umpire or two who operate the terrain and the enemies. It is definitely not a case of I go, you go. Turns vary in length from hours to minutes and indeed in my campaign I am organising (well I started yonks ago) the allied forces begin the campaign in Blighty…they will need to organise forces to relieve Khartoum but from the Red Sea port of Suakim. One day I might actually get to run it. I have played a couple of games and the rules worked well.

So onto the forgotten forces…

British officers and other ranks:

Hussars and an intrepid reporter for the Illustrated Gazette

Some of the gentlemen whose aim is to fill the above full of holes…

There are also a pile of camel mounted ansar seen in the first photograph (not to mention a pile of undercoated infantry).

Because I am a wargamer, whilst looking at these photos I realise that there are some gaps.. naval brigade, a Gardner gun if for no other reason that it can jam after firing seventy rounds… Mounted officers, civilians etc….

All of the above models are Peter Pig 15mm miniatures. I toyed with the idea of going for Perry 28mm’s but decided to keep the scale smaller.

We as we are mentioning the Sudan war of 1885…

“The sand of the desert is sodden red,
Red with the wreck of a square that broke;
The Gatling’s jammed and the colonel dead,
And the regiment blind with dust and smoke.
The river of death has brimmed his banks,
And England’s far, and Honour a name,
But the voice of the schoolboy rallies the ranks,
“Play up! play up! and play the game!”

To be fair the square didn’t break, it opened up and let the enemy in, and it was a Gardner that jammed, not a Gatling…but now I am being a pedant….