WW I A Senussi Campaign AAR - Oh Camel Ye Faithful!

[Captain Darling]

George our TSOG ‘out there’ game topic expert has served up a beauty, Senussi vs British Imperial troops clashing during WW I in North Africa! We played a scenario set in December 1915 at Wadi Senab which sees British Imperial troops led by General Wallace ambushed by a mixed bag of Senussi tribal warriors and trained fighters while in a strung out column!

Dave played the British Imperial Force and George the Senussi on the Monday before Christmas. It was a wild affair with the advantage  swinging wildly as both sides fought tooth and nail to secure a victory! Who won, well as usual George wouldn’t let me reveal that (don’t tell him I said the Natives did quite well!).

Great miniatures and terrain added to the excitement of the scenario and made for an entertaining night!

The battlefield, the Imperial column is moving along the ‘road’ the black Arabic discs mark potential Senussi Units.


Fighting breaks out all along the road the British Gunners and Yeoman can be seen fighting groups of Senussi.


Fighting for one dune was particularly fierce as first the Senussi occupied it and then the British horsemen did!


The full AAR in George’s best Style is on the TSOG bLog here...
https://toysoldiersforoldgits.blogspot.com/2021/12/camel-ye-faithful-adventures-with.html

[fred]

Good game, and an unusual period - but as you say one that should gain more interest!

How where the rules? From a quick look on wargames vault, 1915 would seem to be very much at the top end of the period they cover. We are favouring If the Lord Spares us for WWI at the minute (we’ve only used then for western front, both early and late war) - and there seems to be some similarities in the rules - not sure if you have played ITLSU and have any comparison thoughts?

[Captain Darling]

Hey Fred thanks for the comment! Re the rules they worked very well, we are testing these across all the periods they covers and they look (for us) to be a good way of having one set of rules that cover a wide range of eras and most importantly will allow us to play complete games that have period feel in our Monday evening sessions. So far we have successfully tried them for ACW, Russo-Jap War 1905 and WW I. We have made one significant change though, unit bases require multiple hits to be removed, this allows units to remain in play longer yet be ‘beat up’. Also George has created rules for vehicles for us. For WW I we have tried them on the western front in 1914, in the Balkans in 1916 and now in North Africa all good so far! We have not tried ITLSU but do have it in our rule set ‘collection’! We have used TFL rules and currently CoC is our WW II go to set so don’t discount them these though are offering us a great sand box for May various games. Cheers!

[fred]

Finding a set of rules that cover a number of periods is always good - makes it so much easier to focus on playing the game, rather than remembering the rules.  And one that gives period feel and allows a game to be completed too!

CoC and ITLSU don’t share too much. ITLSU probably has more in common with IABSM, as it is card driven and uses blinds, but doesn’t have the reliance on Big Men.

[Plynkes]

Nice! Always fancied doing a game or two about this business, but the whole thing kind of broke down due to a lack of suitable figures for the Senussi. What did you guys use? (Can't really tell from the pics).

[Ostafrica]

The Senussi has been fighting just about everyone in North Africa for a number of years. Prior to the western desert campaign they can be represented by general Bedouin or Tuareg figures. For the western desert campaign they received significant assistance from the Turks. They had three main types of troops : reasonably well trained and equiped mutafizia ( who are armed and uniformed like Turks in khaki but without the kabalak. They wore the white ghutra instead). The second group were tribal units called Ghar’lib ( usually  a long white thawb or thobe with either an Arabic headscarf or a red slightly pointed cap a bit like a lemon squeezer without the brim). General arabs will do. The third group were the tribal Bedouin who were really fringe elements and dressed any way they liked.

Our Mutafizia (not shown in the Senab engagement) are Arabs in ottoman service from gripping beast. Eureka  miniatures supplied senegalese tirailleurs who with a bit of fiddling doubled as some of the tribal ghar’lib. The tribal Bedouin were made up of eureka Zanzibar Arab slavers (well armed and other).

If you want to get really fancy you can give all the Arab slavers a white thawb made out of tissue paper. I gave it a go and vowed never to do anything like it again. Mahdists would also do the job.

[ecwcaptain]

Nice; glad to see the interest in the Senussi in the Western Desert. Guess everyone might want a scenario book for this WWI sideshow, eh? ;-)

[Grumpy Gnome]

Fascinating subject, lots of interesting information in this thread and that game looks like it was fun!

[Sparrow]

Brilliant stuff! My grandfather was out there with the Berkshire Yeomanry so it’s therefore been on my wargames bucket list for a long time, I love the way you’ve approached it. Very inspiring!

You’ve probably already said so but I missed it… what figures did you use the Senussi? EDIT - ah, now found it above! Thank you!

[carlos marighela]

Nice! Always fancied doing a game or two about this business, but the whole thing kind of broke down due to a lack of suitable figures for the Senussi. What did you guys use? (Can't really tell from the pics).

I recognise some of the Eureka Zanzibaris on that table. Castaway Arts have some useable figures and I reckon with a bit of kit bashing some the Perry plastic Ansar, Afghans and WA Afghans could be used. I looked at this as a project many moons ago using the Command Decision/ Over The Top rules set, which has scenarios and OBs for the three largest engagements. Nowadays there’s very little missing in terms of troops and vehicles. Eureka even do mounted Imperial Camel Corps, albeit they only participated at the end of the fighting.

Nice work on the table and the figures btw.

[Ostafrica]

Nice; glad to see the interest in the Senussi in the Western Desert. Guess everyone might want a scenario book for this WWI sideshow, eh? ;-)

We’ve put together generic scenarios for the 5 major affairs plus the raid on Siwa, and the bizarre encounter where the rolls royces and light cars try to scale an escarpment under the fire of the Senussi guns. We thought about the famous duke and his rollers rescuing the sailors from the desert encampment. That one suits itself to a large boys own skirmish while you charge around in high powered armoured vehicles. It’s pretty much a slaughter but terrific fun. Stay tuned to the blog and we will roll out the whole suite.

[Baron von Wreckedoften]

Excellent development of a niche period.  However, very disappointed that there were no "appliance of science" jokes.....

[Plynkes]

Excellent development of a niche period.  However, very disappointed that there were no "appliance of science" jokes.....

Got a feeling the good captain is an Aussie, Baron. Don't know if those Italian washing machines, or indeed those particular ads made it that far. 


You can bet if I'd done such a report I would have leant heavily on that angle, if that's any consolation.

[Baron von Wreckedoften]

 Thanks - didn't realise that. 

Oh Camel Ye Faithful is a pretty good substitute.

[JBaumal]

Great AAR, sounds like y’all had a lot of fun! Nice table and minis as well.
Cheers,
JB