This was a project borne out of nostalgia for the photographs from the old Wargames World and Wargames Illustrated as well stories from various expatriate wargamers who moved to Australia and re-told great stories about fighting the Mahdi with Peter Gilder at the Wargames Holiday Centre.
After gathering information, sheets, original source tables and other files, the rules have been put together as close to the Gilder style of game as possible.
The Umpire plays the part of the Mahdists and their entry, troop type, disposition and general attitude is determined by the situation and random dice. The events cards play the part of creating an additional element of the unknown into every game so that the same scenario can only rarely ever play the same way twice. Mahdists are on larger style crafted bases for ease of movement and each base represents 100 men (scale of 1:10) even though there could be as few as 5 figures on a base if desired.
The Imperials are all played by the gamers. "Us" against the Umpire is great fun!
This is also the perfect game for Solo play.
Organisation is based on five companies to a regiment each company consisting of 12 figures. Once again, you can use 12 or as few figures as you wish as figures are never removed from bases but marked off on an easy to use Roster sheet.
Cavalry work in squadrons and Troops and artillery batteries in sections up.
The game comes with a 44 page gloss laminated booklet and a deck of random event cards. Six blank cards are included so players can tailor events and circumstances to suit your their collections and gaming dispositions.