They Don't Like It

I roped Stephen into playing a game with me at the club.  Brendan joined in to.  Using the ever adaptable Song of Blades and Heroes, eh, Songs of Drums and Shakos, I came up with some very simple profiles for the few figures I have in my Sudan collection, including my just completed Beja warriors.

In order to encourage Stephen to get on with his Dad's Army figures, I made this game about Corporal Jones having to take his newly arrived boys out on a patrol.  Brendan added that one of them, Rifleman Pike, had lost his hat and that was what the patrol was about.  Made sense to me.

Corporal Jones, in his sun faded uniform,

addresses his boys in their bright new green threads

"Now lads, we have to find Pike's helmet

They form up ready to scour the sands of Sudan for poor Pike's helmet

The newly arrived indigenous inhabitants

 do not take kindly to these strangely garbed and coiffured intruders.

A shot rings out from a rusty musket creating much smoke, but little damage.

However some followers of the Mahdi rush the patrol.

Pike makes it to the rocks and finds his helmet.

but his comrades might be in a spot of bother.

The peaceful inhabitants rush to join in, 

concerned that they might be missing out on the fighting,

Corporal Jones' last words are "Don't panic!"

Enter Lieutenant Napier and the rest of the platoon,

coming to the rescue, if a tad late for some of Jones' boys.

Pike, without his corporal to tell him to put his helmet on his head, 

places it at his feet and wonders what all the fuss is about.

"I don't see anything."

He is quickly proved wrong.

Lieutenant Napier now has to contend with the Fuzzy-Wuzzy tribesmen!

He skillfully starts to retreat after ordering covering fire,

but then standing in the way of said covering fire.

Oh dear.

Pike has perished.

Who will tell his mum?

One shot wonder!

Unlike the Mahdists who rarely failed activation rolls 

my guys generally and repeatedly failed to budge.

Still, they looked good.

I did make a few changes on the fly.  Main one was using only half the Sudanese.  Corporal Jones had a sword, not a rifle and the bugle was given a rifle rather than nothing.  Shooting result that was greater than but not double produced a knock down or rather a duck for cover.  Knocked down figures lost their abilities.  Not sure I had the mechanics for the Lieutenant's group activations worked out properly, but regardless, we had fun.