More surprise in Sudan scenarios? (Thanks Der Alte Fritz Journal)

[nheastvan]

In one of his most recent posts, Der Alte Fritz quotes from a period source that shows the concern Major-General William Forbes Gatacre had for surprise attacks and sudden rushes by the Mahdist forces.

"1. As the strength of a European force lies in the occupation of and in movement over open ground, which gives it advantage of fire, so the strength of a dervish force lies in fighting in depressions of the ground, or in a jungle country out of which they can pour suddenly and quickly their thousands of spear-armed warriors, who, unless checked by a murderous fire, constitute a grave danger, even to a perfectly disciplined force."

"6. That brigades must be so trained that each battalion and individual soldier must know how to get into the best formation with the least possible delay for meeting the attack of the spearmen, who, it must be remembered, can move at least three times as quickly as a British soldier can double."

http://altefritz.blogspot.ca/2016/08/rules-for-engagement-1898-omdurman.html

It seems to me that if Gatacre's expectations for the coming campaign are accurately based on the previous campaign, then scenarios where all the Dervish forces are clearly deployed on the table top and move like normal infantry might not be the way to go for some battles.

I'm thinking that something like dead ground markers might be the way to go for a collumn ambush scenario.  The terrain is set up and the british column is set up and then estimate where all the dead ground is and put markers there.  Until they are scouted out and removed, the Dervish player can deploy from those locations.  Perhaps even having one or two "depressions of the ground" counters where they can deploy out of dead ground even without obscuring terrain.

It might also work better to have the dervish player commit to where they have sent out their ambushers so when a counter is scouted or dervishes launch from a certain point, you turn it over and it indicates what is actually there.

Could make for a tense game.

[Deedles]

I have mine driven by an Ambush Deck ... You just do not know where they may turn up

[cgh]

We use either blinds or mapped positions.  Last time the Anglo Egyptians got slaughtered as the Ma9popped up from behind a hill....

[matakishi]

You might want to look at Patrols in the Sudan by Peter Pig. These rules allow the native player to place terrain during the game and launch attacks from it. It works very well and forces the British player to use his scouts properly.

[fastolfrus]

I would second the call for Patrols in the Sudan.
It can be quite a novelty to find terrain suddenly appear in what looked like a flat open plain, and natives appearing from any terrain on table.

[FifteensAway]

Not personally my preferred set of rules (still hunting) but The Sword and The Flame pretty much "invented" the dead ground rule for colonial games.  Has exactly what you describe with tokens.

[nheastvan]

I pulled out my copy of TSATF and it took me a while to find all the info on how concealment is covered.  For those wondering, the identification rocks are described on page 13, how they are used in deployment is on 18 and how they are used in movement is on page 24 (all from the 20th Anniversary Edition).  I must admit that this must be where I got the idea I put in the original post.  I've definitely played TSATF enough but apparently not enough to remember where to give credit to when it was due. 

A search for Patrols in the Sudan brought up loads of cool blog posts and whatnot, but sadly it's not available in PDF (which has become my go to way of buying rules since an ocean is usually between me and the publisher).  The event table does sound neat though.  I like the idea of the British player having the wrong idea about what terrain is out there and it changing during the game.

I'm almost done painting my Mahdists but haven't started the British yet, so I probably have a couple months before I need to make sure I've got the rules squared away.  Oh wait, I probably need to refresh my terrain and add a few period specific pieces.

Thanks everyone!