2mm Colonial: More preparations for Ginnis

Now some more preparatory thoughts concerning re-fighting the Battle of Ginnis, with simplified Orders of Battle culled from the Savage and Soldier article quoted in a previous post.

General Grenfell, on his approach to Kosha and its besieged fort divided the Anglo-Egyptian forces into two mixed Brigades, with a further Cavalry/Mounted Brigade in attendance.

The First Brigade, under General Butler, consists of the 1st Berkshire, the Royal West Kents and the 2nd Battalion Durham Light Infantry; these were backed up by a Camel Battery and 11th company Royal Engineers, the artillery having a small guard of sixty men from the 3rd Egyptian Regiment.

For Wargaming purposes, this boils down to the three Infantry Battalion stands we see below, as well as two guns (I'm imagining the camels of the battery to be somewhere else - these are rather tricky to model in 2mm - though I'm still working on it....)

Very sharp eyes will note that the stand on the right is still in Khaki - I felt that the 2DLI, in their 'light' role might have retained this - the others of course in the red tunic as ordered historically:

The Second Brigade under Colonel Huyshe consists of the Yorkshires, six companies of the Cameron Highlanders, a mixed unit from the IX Sudanese and the 1st Egyptians, three companies of the Egyptian Camel Corps, with a small detachment of their British counterpart, a Mule battery of 2/1 South Irish Division Royal Artillery, and two further Gardener Guns.

In the front, then, we have the two British battalions or their equivalents, followed by the Sudanese and Egyptians, then the Gardeners and the artillery:

The Mounted Brigade under Colonel Blake consists of the 20th Hussars, and a mixture of Egyptian Camel Corps and Cavalry, as well as a small group described as British Mounted Infantry of the Royal Highlanders; again, this will probably be simplified to the two stands below, 20th Hussars on the right, Camel Corps to the left:

As so often in the Colonial period, it is rather hard to pin down the exact nature of the Mahdist force - the Savage and Soldier article has some interesting information regarding the likely commanders and also posits the number of guns in their artillery, but it seems to boil down to between four and six thousand men 'under 40 flags' - I'll just be using them mob handed, you can be assured, unless I can track down some more detail.

Finally, we see Ginnis village itself, with the Mahdist camp beyond:

The tents are the BG158 group of Arab Tents from Irregular's 2mm Scenery range, and the village buildings are just made up of the usual flotsam and jetsam mounted on card bases - I've more of these for the village of Kosha itself, but am undecided as to whether or not to make a model of the fort there, that was held by the balance of the Cameron Highlanders and the IX Sudanese.

This is principally because I can find no images or descriptions of it, and moreover it played a limited role in the actual battle itself, merely being the jumping-off point, as it were.

So, things are firming up now on this little sideshow, with hopefully the battle itself to come in the near future.....