My plan is to play out the destruction of the Hicks disaster in the Sudan on September 30. The pictures below are roughly the initial set-up for the hapless Egyptians.

The savage attack by forty thousand screaming dervishes had smashed into the Egyptian column in the forest of Shaykan, Kordofan Province, in the western Sudan, that morning, 5 November 1883. Hicks’s force had been moving tactically in three ragged squares, one up and two back. The leading square had buckled instantly under the onslaught. The riflemen in the flanking squares were so exhausted and racked with thirst that they could hardly focus. They had wheeled and fired blindly into the mêlée, killing their own comrades as well as the enemy.

Asher, Michael. Khartoum: The Ultimate Imperial Adventure (Kindle Locations 125-129). Penguin Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.

Form square!

Egyptian Infantry (Waterloo Figs)

Krupp cannon and crew (Strelets)

Egyptian Lancers from Spencer Smith

Newline Egyptian Infantry

Waterloo figs painted as Sudanese

Hat Egyptian Camel Corps

Big old smoothbore cannon (unknown) and Strelets crew.

Strelets Bashi Bazouks

Waterloo Charles Gordon being used as Hicks. Officers are Hat

Ral Partha Cuirassiers (found on eBay)

Front view of square

Rear view of square

Enhanced picture of the Egyptian Camel Corps.

Hicks and his officers prepare to meet their doom