Science Versus Pluck (designer's overview)

The Umpire's Handbook holds all rules and Mahdist doctrine and encourages improvising. The Officer's Pocketbook tells players when to roll and what they need, how far their men move, but only general hints about enemy speed and not what hits represent.

It did not contain all the rules, but simply the parts they needed to know to operate their forces.

The umpire may add terrain and enemies as they are spotted or scroll the table as the force advances. Mahdists use hidden movement and home-turf knowledge to great effect.

Usually it will have few, or no enemy troops visible.

The umpire gives moving units a spotting chance before they run into hidden Mahdists; small patrols not under a player's command may simply vanish.

the umpire will give them a chance to spot the peril before they run into a ravine full of angry locals.

The result decides whether they move faster or slower, wheel aside, duck into cover or run away, and feeds into their second move; heavy fire can make a charge falter into an advance.

At this point the Mahdists take a Reaction test. This is more than a morale check, but rather a system to see if they move faster or slower, wheel to one side, duck into cover or give up and run away

The rally phase ends each turn.

The last part of each turn is a rally phase, where officers try to bring disordered and demoralized stands back into good order.

Mahdist fire mostly causes disorder rather than kills.

are more likely to cause some degree of disorder than actually kill units

Turns can last a single minute in tense moments or several hours (e.g. waiting for scouts); typically 5-15 minutes for marching. Movement is then derived from yards-per-minute rates times the turn length.

decides how long the turn will be in minutes. This can be as short as a single minute for those excitable moments, or up to several hours

The umpire asks players' intentions starting with the most advanced units, sets turn length, then Mahdists move half, Imperials move, Mahdists fire, Imperials fire, Mahdists take Reaction tests and make their second move, Imperials shoot again, melee is fought, and finally a rally phase.

Before the Imperials move, however, the Mahdists do. They move half now and half later.

The rule gives Imperials a chance to act when it is not their turn, e.g. against a Mahdist breakthrough; failure makes things worse. Good troops often succeed, bad ones collapse.

The Imperials have an 'Emergency Response' rule, which allows them a chance to act when it's not really their turn; if they fail, things get worse for them.

The reroll is decided as dice are rolled, not after all are rolled, and exposes the officer to 1-6 attackers.

Individual officers (the players) can reroll one bad melee roll per turn- decided "on the fly" rather than after all dice are rolled

Fire uses handfuls of d6; melee is opposed d6 with modifiers.

roll a six-sider against each other, with modifiers.

Players only control mechanisms their historical counterparts would; factors like target cover and open order are resolved by the umpire's saving roll.

There's a saving throw, dice rolled by the umpire, to cover things like cover, open order, and other things that the Imperial players can't control

Mahdist fire is weak and mainly causes disorder; Imperial fire, especially formed British infantry and machine guns, is very destructive.

This is based on a very traditional 'big handfuls of D6s' approach, with a chance of each stand scoring more than one hit for close range shooting.

Winning by 2 pushes the enemy back; winning by 3 destroys it.

Each side matches stands one for one and roll a six-sider against each other, with modifiers. If one wins by 2 points, the enemy is pushed back, by 3 and he is destroyed.

Winning Mahdist stands surge on toward pack camels or headquarters, so supporting ranks and solid squares are valuable.

VictoriousMahdiststands tend to rush forward to butcher the pack camels or the headquarters staff, so it's a good idea to have a supporting rank.

Players receive identities and objectives (sometimes written and complex), plan together, and the overall commander makes key decisions which subordinates are expected to follow.

If, however - as in Science Versus Pluck - all the players are officers on Side A, it becomes much more interesting.

Also included: breakdown of Mahdist armies 1881-1899 and a painting guide.

I added a lot of campaign information and easy rules for gunboats, trains and balloons

Players receive a figure representing themselves plus the force under their command. The revised edition includes a character creation system. Officer figures can be hit by stray bullets and risk being caught in melee.

The players gather to receive a personal figure representing themselves, and the forces under their command.

Ground scale is 50 yards to the inch; cavalry trotting move 200 yards per minute, infantry in line 50 yards per minute.

cavalry patrols trotting at 200 yards per minute, at a ground scale of 50 yards to the inch, will move a long way in ten minutes