During the latter part of Queen Victoria’s reign, three separate wars were fought by her forces in the deserts of Egypt and the Sudan. These took place in 1882, 1884-85, and 1896-98. Ostensibly they were fought to protect British interests in those areas and to provide a more just, ordered and prosperous existence for the indigenous populations. However, in reality this “intervention” was seen in a less than grateful light by the home populations of Egypt and the Sudan.

Probably the most well known battle was that for Khartoum and the death of General Charles Gordon, immortalised in the film Khartoum by Charlton Heston. Playing opposite Heston was Laurence Olivier as The Madhi, the spiritual leader of the Sudanese. The conflicts also made famous the names of Victorian Military Leaders, Wolseley and Kitchener.

Our Sudanese games brings together the British and Egyptian Allies, controlled by the participants, and pit them against the vast hordes of the Madhi’s Beja tribesmen (or Fuzzy Wuzzies), his Baggara cavalry, and the Beja Camel troops. On desert battlegrounds or along the Nile, the players must seek to achieve their allocated tasks with the minimum of lives lost and the greatest amount of prestige gained. Once again, effective planning and working closely as a team to support each other are vital to the success or failure of the missions.

The umpire controlled Madhist forces will adhere to tasks allocated before the game, or randomly appear from behind the next hill or out of the next gully to ambush the players. Only skill, teamwork and luck will prevent disaster.