My Historicon Game Pix

 

My Battle of Abu Klea game at Historicon

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This year I ran four games at Historicon: Khartoum! played three times and then I had a tactical battle scenario: the Battle of Abu Klea. I had 42 gamers signed up and playing in my games over the course of the four day convention. I was also honored to be awarded a PELA award for my Khartoum! game on Thursday.

I have lots of pictures and it is difficult to cull through them and pick the best pictures, but here we go:

My games were played across three 6ft by 24ft tables, providing table depth and lots of maneuvering space.

Close up view of one of the Dervish Dhow boats. There were 12 Dervish and 1 Leader per boat.

The Dervish fleet moves upstream to Khartoum.

Egyptian artillery crew atop the main gate to the city.

British Camel Corps square in the Battle of Abu Klea.
Note the separate Egyptian square in the background.

The Dervish war bands rush to the city walls with climbing ladders.

The Dervish try to climb over the city walls with scaling ladders.

One of the younger players in one of my games. She asked good questions and held off the Dervish attack via the Nile.

A close up view of the Beja scaling the walls.

Our mascot, Easter Piglet, inspects the game table.

The Dervish attack begins.

Himself gives his opinion on a rules question.

Street fighting inside the walls of Khartoum.

An emir leads his troops into the city

One of the water oases that were on the table.

Egyptian soldiers fight for their lives on the parapets of the walls.

The Dervish converge on the Governor's Palace. Gordon, shown at the top of the staircase on the left, awaits his fate.

A small knot of Egyptian regulars make their last stand.

The world famous Goober the Bear (left) and the less famous Easter Piglet mug for the camera .

Goober and Easter inspect the city of Khartoum.

Bill Mollineaux and Goober (on the right) and Der Alte Fritz and Easter Piglet on the left.

I was very pleased with the way that the games played out and demonstrated the effectiveness of the rules that I used. For "tactical" battles outside the city walls or at Abu Klea we used my War Along the Nile rules, while ladder climbing and hand to hand melees were conducted using some special rules that my game group developed specifically for this aspect of the war game.

It was also fun meeting many of my blog followers and answering a lot of questions about the figures, the model construction and the overall development of the games for Historicon. I am already working up some ideas for next year's games at Historicon.

The End of Gordon at Historicon

 

Major General Charles Gordon meets his Maker, Hollywood style.

Click on pictures to enlarge

I am back home from a week in Lancaster, Pennsylvania where I visited Gettysburg, Fort Ligonier and Valley Forge prior to my four days at the annual Historicon convention. I hosted four games at the convention, winning a PELA award for my Siege of Khartoum game with 54mm figures. I ran Khartoum three times and then changed things up by running the Battle of Abu Klea one time. 

I am pleased that my new rules for tactical battles in the Sudan worked very well and the special rules that I used for the hand to hand fighting/ladder climbing also worked well. The game players picked up on the rules quickly and after several turns of play they were pretty much working through the games on their own.

At the conclusion of my last game on Saturday, I took a few moments to set up some vignettes to post on this blog.

The Dervish surge up the staircase of the Governor's Palace where Gordon
meets them with complete calm.

The Dervish race through the streets of Khartoum in search of Gordon.

The blood thirsty attackers find the Governor's Palace and see Gordon
standing on the top of the staircase.

The Dervish break into the yard of the Governor's Palace in Khartoum.

The Mahdi's army attack the walls of Khartoum.

The Dervish surge over the town's walls.

Hollywood movie poster for the 1966 film "Kartoum"

Sudan tourism. No thank you.

The last stand inside of Khartoum:

Meanwhile, there was an archeological expedition going on in a far corner of the table.

I found some archeological bits in the dealer area at Historicon and used them in my game. These will come in handy in a future skirmish game set in the 1930s.

I will be posting more pictures of my game later this week as well as a separate post that shows some of the other games that I saw at Historicon.

More 54mm Sudan Pix

 

Beja warriors attack an Egyptian square.  Could it be the army of Baker Pasha?

The picture above is one of my favorites and so I thought that I’d share it with my readers.

Here are some more pictures of my 54mm Sudan collection that I snapped last week prior to packing it all away for its trip to Historicon. Over the past month I added 100 more Beja from the painting bench to give me a total of 300 Beja and 300 Dervish/Ansar warriors. I also have painted 36 cavalry and 60 Dervish riflemen. Having a larger Beja force allows me to game the battles of Osman Digna in the RedSea littoral.

I’ve checked into my room at Lancaster and we plan a day long visit to nearby Gettysburg. I will set up my Khartoum game Wednesday afternoon.

Sudan Picture of the Day

 

What’s not to like about this picture? Very cool.

Battle of Abu Klea Movie Trailer on You Tube

 

I have just posted my latest movie trailer for one of my games at Historicon this year:

Battle of Abu Klea movie trailer

The Battle of Abu Klea game will take place on Friday evening at 7PM. Stop on by and say hello!

The game features 54mm figures fighting across three 6 x 24ft game tables. Here are some pictures from one of the play test games fought recently. My home table is 6ft by 15ft, so the pictures shown here are on a smaller scale than the Historicon game will be.

New Minden Russian Cuirassier Greens

 

I am excited to announce that the greens for the SYW Russian cuirassiers are finished and are on their way to Griffin Moulds to get the figures into production. My thanks go out to Steve Barber for sculpting the figures and keeping to the style of Richard Ansell's Minden sculpts.

The Russian cuirassiers include an officer, standard bearer, trumpeter and trooper. The three command figures will be sold in one pack and the troopers will be available in a pack of three figures.

My thinking is that Russian Cossacks will be next on the docket and these additions should complete the Minden SYW Russian figure range.

SYW Russian Cuirassier

Russian cuirassier musician

Russian cuirassier standard bearer

Russian cuirassier officer