Remember Gordon! -- Campaign Game -- An Unsatisfying Finale

It will be remembered that my Anglo-Egyptian forces were making their slow way under the careful cover of their gunboats to the City of Omdurman.  They looked a bit like this:

At this point, we've already bounced several bands of Mahdists who, unwisely, attacked piecemeal through the gap in the hills to the North of our position as well as from behind.  I came quickly to realize that the basic premise of the game is that the A-E forces are going to wipe out just about everything the Mahdists can throw at them, but if so much as one Mahdist slips through the A-E defensive fire, it stands a very good chance of killing one or two units that the A-E army cannot lose.

One thing the Mahdists have a very difficult time doing, however, is taking out the A-E gunboats unless they're willing to line the West bank of the Nile island above with fortresses.

I continued my advance and soon had brought my Egyptian units to within sight of Omdurman -- the city visible at the top left of the photograph below.  While MB's Mahdists were able to kill all but a very few of these units in the end (they're the white regiments depicted in the below), by this point the Mahdists had suffered so many casualties that we both agreed the outcome was a foregone conclusion.

I wanted very much to like this game and it assuredly had its moments -- and I will give it another try -- but, in our first go, the tension that should have been so much a part of the actual fighting between the two sides got lost in an extremely convoluted firing sequence.  It runs like this:

1.  Mahdists Advance
2.  A-E Defensive Direct Fire (including Maxim guns)
3.  A-E Maxim gun second fire
4.  A-E howitzer fire (from gunboats)
5.  Mahdist fire
6.  Melee

And the combat itself -- counting, doubling, halving, &c., and then totaling combat factors before cross referencing the result on a chart -- seemed pleasant at first but really became a grind with so many units involved.  Related to this, the A-E army can quite easily get its fire power over the highest level allowed for on the chart making the addition of further forces all but wasteful, even if they're in the area.

It now seems clear to me that the only hope of the Mahdists is to gather their forces and hit the A-E army in waves tightly choreographed to wash up one after the other.  I hope it proves to be fun.  Thus far I'm not sure.

The final game state is below.