Death in the Dark Continent - Mahdist Revolt

Another month and another project - the curse of the wargamer struck again.


Around the same time as I ordered my 10mm Boer War miniatures, I got hooked on The Mahdist Revolt, the very nice Perry plastic sets a major contributing factor to this. Initially I wanted to use The Men Who Would Be Kings rules, but after looking at the amount of Mahdists figure that would be fielded for a 24 point game I figured that a lot of time would be spent moving the almost 100 figures around.

Coincidentally North Star was having a Nickstarter for Death in the Dark Continent and having previous looked at the rules and liked what I read, I decided to join in and base the minis for this game. I am still waiting for my book though.

What I like about the Death in the Dark Continent rules is that each army is not as general as in The Men Who Would Be Kings (not that I don't like that rule sets). The fact that I can have more nuances in each army appeals to me. The different troop types and different quality of the troops creates almost endless options. The army lists are well constructed and gives a real specific feeling for each army. With 60mm x 30mm bases consisting 2-3 minis each unit will be easy to move about and will look superb.

After some planning the plastic sets (3 Mahdist and 1 British box) were ordered from Firestorm Games. I also placed an order directly with Perry for some more Mahdist riflemen and some Highlanders.

I would basically have 132 Mahdists and 48 British.

The plan is to create the following units for the Mahdists:

Beja (Elite Warriors): 3 units of 4 bases each (36 minis)
Jihadiyya (Soldiers): 3 units of 3 bases each (27 minis)
Ansar (Skirmishers, with spears): 14 bases (28 minis)
Ansar (Skirmishers, untrained with muskets): 5 bases (10 minis)

101 minis in total, which is a lot more than the standard 300 points pr game, but will give a lot of options

For the British, I have deviated a bit from the army list. The reason being that my Brits are part of the Relief Coloumn sent towards Khartoum in 1884, and which as far as I can see did not contain any Egyptian or Sudanese troops which is the mainstay of the army list. So this is what I plan to make:

British Regular Infantry (Elite Soldiers) 16 bases, 4 of which will be Highlanders (48 minis)

Again this is more than what is need for a 300 point list, but I wanted to add the Highlanders for flavour.

Since the mins arrived I have begun with the Mahdists. I have looked for inspiration about how to paint such a large force at the excellent One Man and his Brushes blog, which is a must for anyone interested in wargaming the Mahdist Revolt.

I started off with the Beja and then moved on the the Jihadiyya. Each troop type has taken about 10 days to paint. Right now I am working on the Ansar, all 19 bases at a time, before moving on to the British.

In the planning pipeline is to go into the real Darkest Africa and get a Force Publique and Azande army, which can be used to either combat each other or join up and go to war against the Mahdists. Readers of this blog will remember that I have already had a brief project with Darkest Africa, which I decided to sell immediately after finishing painting them. This time I feel that the Death in the Dark Continent rules will make sure that the lovely Foundry minis will actually get some game time.

More to follow on this project.

Regarding the 10mm Boer War project, it has been placed on hold. I have received the minis and started painting them, but I just did not get the same satisfactory feeling of painting 10mm as I do 28mm, so this is a project for the future.