Sudan 1885 - TMWWBK AARs

[Captain Darling]

Monday night we revisited The Men Who Would be Kings Rules this time the setting was the Sudan 1885!

We chose Scenario H, A Sigh of Relief from the rules with the Mahdists on the attack.

The game played so quickly we actually played the it twice the players swapping sides!

The attacker tactics in both games were pretty simple CHARGE, in hindsight maybe no the best idea.

Game 1 and the Mahdists were unable to overrun their objective and were driven back by the firepower on the British reinforcements. They didn't really look in with a chance of winning at any point.

Game 2 and the Mahdists not only overrun their objective but they virtually wiped out the initial British forces. at this point a sole British unit (albeit led by the intrepid Captain Darling) looked in dire straights and there was talk of conceding! Cooler heads prevailed and the British soldiered on and again like in the first game the firepower of the relief force was telling.

Net result the British Empire 2 the Mahdists 0.

"Fuzzy Wuzzies Sir, 1000's of 'em!"


"Hold your fire chaps until you see the whites of their eyes!"


"Dirka! Dirka! Dirka!" translates roughly to "Kill them! Kill them all!"


After the game was a rules discussion, we were not happy with how Pinning and Rallying worked detracting from what is essentially a good set of rules for our Monday Night sessions. Also we would like to know how many times this scenario was play tested it did not seem balanced.

Full AARs, the OOBs, lots of pictures and a discussion on the Scenario and TMWWBK rules Pin and Rally rules is on the TSOG Blog...
https://toysoldiersforoldgits.blogspot.com/2021/02/sudan-1885ish-aars-men-who-wold-be.html

Cheers!

[has.been]

I like TMWWBK, but much prefer Rebels & Patriots for an Army game.
I feel it run much smoother than TMWWBK .  Have you had a look at R&P ?

[Plynkes]

Nice! Always love to see this kind of thing.

But whoever told the heliograph team to wear their dress uniforms and Home Service Helmets for the jaunt is going to have some explaining to do. Sand gets everywhere, and it stains! Those are going to be some dusty, dirty heliographers (I have a hat that I wore on a trip to Egypt in 97, it is still dirty from the desert).


I had a similar experience with the pinning rules when I tried this game out, and decided I didn't like them. But then I discovered I had been doing them slightly wrong, so I vowed to give it another chance. That was over two years ago, mind, and various events have conspired such that I still haven't done so.

[guitarheroandy]

I was a play tester for TMWWBK and, along with Dragon Rampant,  they are my current favourite rules to game with. However, we don't all have the same tastes - fortunately- it'd be a dull old world if we did, so I'm interested to hear what you don't like about the pinning rules as I think they work fine in the context of the type of rules set that it is.

The other thing I should say is that I personally prefer using the rules with slightly bigger forces. I stopped playing 24 points  per side pretty much as soon as playtesting stopped and we (Peterborough Wargames Club) started doing participation games at local shows. Having said that, I think I played all the scenarios (or most of them at any rate) at standard points values during playtests and never had a bad game...

[TWD]

I left a reply on the blog, but I'll repeat here. The figures look great but I think the game would benefit from a bit more terrain.
Charging across open fields at formed regulars is only ever going to end badly for tribal types.

Pinning can be brutal and the wise regulars will keep firing at pinned units to keep their heads down and drive them off, but while they're doing that the numbers of the natives can hopefully be bought to bear.

[Plynkes]

I had a unit get stuck in a cycle of being pinned and failing to rally, and they spent the majority of the game unable to do anything while they were slowly whittled away. It may be realistic (though not in this case, as the people shooting at them were terrible shots with really crappy guns), but it isn't fun.


But, as I said, I was doing the rules wrong. Units that fail to rally are supposed to retreat, and we didn't notice that. They should have retreated out of range pretty smartish with the continued failing of their rolls, and their opponents would have had to make the choice to chase after them to keep pouring on the fire if they wanted to continue that unfortunate cycle.  So it's only fair I withdraw my criticism until I have tried them out again with the rules being played properly.

[has.been]

tried them out again with the rules being played properly.

That reeks of professionalism. 'I don't like it when a British officer knows what
he is doing, it smacks of murder!'   

[Diablo Jon]

I've played a few games with my darkest Africa collection all solo. I really like the rules I think they give a good game. To the OP if you find gun armed regulars to powerful how about using the optional rule on page 38 for limited ammunition?