Action at Kassassin 1882 - 54mm Battle Cry game.

Casting around for our next game, Anthony came upon a Battle Cry scenario for the Action at Kassassin 1882 on the Commands & Colours website, so we thought we'd give it a spin, here's how it went:

This link to the Commands &Colours website will give you the map and special rules used in the scenario.   The Egyptian Army under Urabi Pasha have spent the day attacking the British line attempting to break through to Ismalia and the Suez Canal but have been repulsed and thrown back to their trenches.  

The game opens late in the day as reinforcements arrive under Gen. Sir Garnet Wolsey, and they prepare to assault the Egyptian lines.

The railway runs alongside the Sweetwater Canal, together they snake their way through the centre of the battlefield.

Because the action is starting so late in the day a dice is rolled at the start of each round to ascertain the impact of fading light on visibility and effective range of the artillery.

The scenario calls for a railway gun so those ingenious chaps of Her Majesty's Royal Navy have mounted a suitably heavy cannon on a flat car and wheeled it into action.

The formidable Egyptian trenches are supported by a line of guns in the hills behind them.

The advance falters in the centre and the railway gun is brought up to soften the enemy trenches.

The fearless gunners bombard the Egyptian trenches but counter battery fire forces them to retire in haste.

In the fading light the Household Cavalry and Dragoons launched an immediate charge in a desperate attempt to cut through the infantry and reach the guns behind them.  Although rifle fire has taken a terrible toll of the gallant Dragoons nothing can stop them from crashing through and spiking the guns, but they are now a broken force and fall back in disarray.

The British advance on their right fares better, running skirmishes slowly drive the Egyptian infantry from the surrounding hills and force their guns to fall back on the centre.

Urabi Pasha looks on in relief as his Centre holds and the British line falls back, despite some success they were unable to turn his flanks but they still block his path to Ismailia, as darkness descends he knows he will have to fall back on his defences at Tell El Kebir.

The order of events surrounding the various actions at Kassassin are a little confusing so I've taken some small liberties with the narrative to make it fit the scenario of our game.  That said the "Moonlight Charge" of the Household Cavalry at Kassassin has entered the realms of British Army legend and was immortalised in a poem by Arthur Clark Kennedy.