"Zulu Victory"

I just finished reading this book, "Zulu Victory: The Epic of Isandlwana and the Cover-Up" by Ron Lock and Peter Quantrill, a couple of fine retired British army officers. I stongly recommend it to any serious student of the Zulu War. The authors have pieced together an extremely detailed account of the sequence of events on that auspicious day of January 22nd 1879 when the British invasion of Zululand was dealt a huge set-back at Isandlwana. Here is what I think. I think this book has enough in the way of new facts and details that it makes all previous books on Isandlwana obsolete. Correct me if I'm wrong.

The authors have done such a thorough job of interrelating all the events and developments of the battle that the book can actually be considered to be difficult to read. You really have to concentrate hard on all the disparate personalities, the forces, what they were all doing and how it all came together. I learned a lot of new things about Isandlwana. My assessment is that anyone else would too.

They do a good job of explaining how the Zulus decoyed Chelmsford and a large part of his force away from the camp at Isandlwana and then held his interest until the "right hook" manuever up and around to the North could be executed by the main Zulu impi. If you somehow believed that the Zulus got lucky and caught the camp in a vulnerable position, this book will dispell that notion. I have to admit that I was under that impression.

Another thing I liked about this book was that it gives you a good apprecation for the "fog-of-war" factor that Colonels Pulleine and Durnford were dealing with. In spite of the reports coming in, neither one of them could comprehend exactly how much danger they were in until it was too late. Oh well, nothing unusual about that. First contact with the enemy is very frequently a bitter learning experience. That certainly was the case at Isandlwana. Many mistakes were made that would not be repeated. More than any other mistake Chelmsford was guilty of fighting previous wars against African tribes. The Zulus were another matter entirely, and he just had to see it before he could believe it.

Here's something else; this is the first book I have seen that covers the aftermath of Isandlwana in detail. It shows how Chelmsford was able to get through all the scrutiny with his hide somewhat intact and how Colonel Durnford, commander of the Natal Native Contingent, was offered up as a convenient scapegoat. By convenient I mean that since he was killed in the battle, he couldn't refute the blame.

Canoe Chase: The Bitter End

We came around to the last set of rapids and I was still doing well. But then of course I failed my stability test and my canoe "turned turtle" and drifted for a couple turns. By the time I was able to get it going again the Indians were right behind me. We traded some musket fire but then they caught me. In this picture you can see my five-man canoe at the top with two large Indain canoes blocking my escape route. One Indian canoe is alongside mine and my trappers are "duking it out" with the Indians. As you can see, my five-man canoe only has four trappers in it. One of them has already been dispatched to the "Happy Hunting Grounds in the Sky."

At this point it looked pretty grim. The only thing left for me was to try to cut my way out against two canoes full of Indians. Unfortunately time had run out and we had to quit. I don't think I would have escaped anyway.

Canoe Chase: Into the Rapids

In this picture you can see my canoe negotiating the rapids, it's the one out in front. I was lucky to make it through this stretch of rapids without any sweat. Even though my canoe was in the middle of the pack of trapper canoes, I was doing very well at staying well out in front of the Indians. There were other trappers behind me who had already been caught. However, as you will soon see, my luck would eventually run out!

Canoe Chase: The Starting Line

In these shots you can see the start of the chase game. In the bottom photo the trappers and indians are lined up and ready to go. The trappers are out in front and they got a head start of two full movements, limited by a roll of 2 dice each time. The indians got to roll 3 dice each turn, so they had a pretty good chance of catching up. The fun comes when the canoes enter the rapids. Every canoe has to test for overturning, and if it fails it capsizes untile the crew can right it again. In the top photo you can see that one of the small trapper canoes has capsized. This happened very early in the game. I think one of the two trappers in that canoe was hit by a lucky musket shot. Every time a canoe has a KIA you have to test to see if the victim's falling out of the canoe causes it to overturn.

Check back later for more.

French & Indian War Canoe Chase

Here's an interesting thing that we did at Historicon. We luckily got into this canoe chase game with a French and Indian War setting. Each player gets at least one canoe. Some of the canoes are manned by European trappers and the others are manned by Indians. The trappers have to escape from the pursuing Indians while navigating the river which has many "rapids."

This game was run by Bob Baldwin who ran the game seven times within a span of three days! Now that's a dedicated game master! Tickets for the game were in great demand.

In these pictures you can see the great scenery. The Indian village looked like it was scatch built. One of the best scenery jobs I have seen.

I'll have more pictures and more action for you later.

I95Gamers

Eric over at I95Gamers runs a lot of Flames of War games in our area, to include tournaments. It was Eric's Aufklarungsschwadron that inspired me to build my own heavy recon squadron. I'm now considering building a DAK version of the Aufklarungsschwadron! It's a fast and ferocious opponent, though brittle!

Anyway, pop over to Erics I95Gamers blog and have a read of his FoW madness. Wave "Hi" to him from us here at the Tabletop Gamers Blog!

Rorke's Drift Concluded

After a while, (quite a while actually, about 3 hours into the game,) the Zulus succeeded in setting the hospital on fire. They had set this as their highest priority over capturing the hopsital, or focusing on getting across the mealie bag wall. Well, they succeeded and all the Brits except two were able to get out before the roof collapsed. Now that the hospital was burning the Zulu side had to start focusing on getting across the mealie bags. In the lower photo above you can see that they focused about half their attackers on the line of bags connecting the hospital with the storehouse. This met with no success at all. It was especially difficult because I had stationed LT Chard at this spot. His presence improved British shooting to a significant degree.

In the top photograph you can see the other half of the Zulu attackers trying to swarm over the wall after flowing around to the other side of the hospital. For the very last turn of the game, the Zulus had managed to charge three units against only one British unit that was manning that corner. One after one we resolved the combats. The first two Zulu units were defeated but the defending Brit unit had been whittled down to only 3 figures. Then the third Zulu unit came on in. Zulu after Zulu fell while trying to get across the wall, but two more Brits went down as well. Finally, that was only one Brit and one Zulu left. This was very tense, because game master Roy Jones had said that since there was no time to play out all three Zulu "waves," it would be a Zulu "moral victory" if they managed to get anything across the wall. So it had come down to only one Brit left to "save the day." Well all I can say is that the dice rolling gods were with me because the last Zulu went down right on top of the mealie bag wall. That surviving trooper definately met the TSATF Victoria Cross criteria in my book! Nevertheless, if you look carefully in the top photo you will see that I had a Brit unit right behind the unit defending the wall. If the Zulus had managed to get across, they would have been fired on and charged by a fresh set of defenders; if there had been another turn.

At this point we had to call it "quits," not only had we run out of time, but we were all feeling a bit exhausted with the work, tension, and concentration of the stuggle. Maybe someday I'll try running the entire scenario. It won't be easy though, to begin with I have absolutely no scenery for this scenario and the way it is desiged you almost have to turn it into a campaign series to play out the entire thing. But, all that aside, we did have good time playing out the first "wave."

Yet More Rorke's Drift action

In these photos you can see the Zulus attacking the corral and store house areas. They did this only after the Brits had pulled troops out of this area to reinforce the hospital side of the compound.

Although it looked kind of "dicey" at first, the attack in the store house area was completely unsuccessful.

More Rorke's Drift Action

Here you can see the Zulu first wave concentrating on the hospital building and the line of mealie bags next to it. The Zulu players decided to focus on this objective. The hospital is a difficult buiding to defend because there are so few places to shoot out of. They eventually succeeded in setting the hospital on fire. I think that if I ever run this scenario myself I will allow the British troop to cut more fire loops in the outer walls of the building so they can bring more guns to bear.

Mega Rorkes Drift Scenario

When we were at Historicon we participated in a huge Rorke's Drift scenario run by Roy Jones, one of the authors of the new Zulu War 1879 scenario book. (see below) The way Roy wrote this scenario it could take 2 or 3 full sessions to play out. He designed it so that the Zulus can launch 3 separate "waves." Each time a wave is played out each side is free to re-orient their units and then it starts again. In the third wave it is assumed that night conditions prevail.

Roy has a really nice Rorke's Drift scenery set that he purchased from Redoubt Miniatures. (We have a link down below.) I took a photo showing the whole setup. The two buildings come with very nice thatched roofs that can be removed.

It took us about 4 hours to play out only the first wave. This really is a huge scenario! Every time a Zulu unit is reduced to three figures it is removed from play, BUT, all the Zulu units are recycled back onto the table. Only when a certain number of them are eliminated will the "wave" come to an end. But here is another catch, if the Zulus succeed in obtaining any victory points during the course of the "wave," the threshold for wave termination increases. For example, without any victory points, the first wave ends when 8 Zulu units are eliminated, but if they were to capture the hospital during the course of the wave that number would increase to 12 units. Get the idea? In other words, the Zulus keep coming and coming as long as they maintain momentum by obtaining certain goals. Very clever idea! Actually, if you look through the scenario book, you will see many clever ideas.

I'll have some action pictures on this game for you later.

New Zulu War Scenario Book

At long last Bwana is back on-line! It's a great thing when you buy a new computer, it solves so many problems that you used to have!

I'm happy to report that I have also just returned from Historicon in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. As usual it was a lot of fun. We played in some really good games and bought a lot of great stuff. Our best acquisition was the new Zulu War 1879 Scenario Book by Roy Jones and Mark Fastoso. I have been looking forward to this for two years. We even participated in a few playtestings that were held at the conventions over the past two years. If you want a copy there will be several dealers selling it at Fall In in Gettysburg. If you need to get one before then you can order it from Brigade Games. We have a link to that shop down below.

There is a lot of good stuff in this book, a total of 11 scenarios that cover all the well-known engagements of the Zulu War. I'm looking forward to having quite a lot of fun with it.

I'll have more later on the games we got in on at Historicon.

Beware the Roaring Silence

Bwana Bill and I have been awfully quiet lately, so I felt a note of explanation to our loyal readers was in order.

So, first off, allow me to appologize for not posting a short note earlier!

Bwana Bill's computer took a hard power hit in the recent thunderstorms that blew through our area, plus he was unable to work at his jobs normal location due to flooding and some serious damage to the building he normally works in. That ate into his time quite a bit!

Me? I've just been busier than a one-armed paper hanger. That's not to say Bill hasn't been busy too! We are both building and painting like crazy!

Bill is working on his Panzer Grenadiers (Deutche Afrika Korps) and DAK Panzer Platoons while I'm painting away on a new Light Armoured Company as well as a Motor Company. In addition, I'm painting some more of my Compagnia Bersaglieri and finishing up my Ariete Division tanks to support them!

So, what's all that about you ask?

We are planning on running a game at Fall-In this year based on the battles on and around the airfield at Sidi Rezegh!

I've written a few special rules, so this won't be 'straight up' Flames of War; however it should be very interesting.

So, bear with us as we paint and prepare. Once we have the terrain built, the tanks, guns, infantry and all painted 'good enough' to game with, we'll be taking some photos of our 'test' games. We want to achieve a bit of balance so that no one has a complete wipeout.

That's our story, and we're sticking to it!

Meanwhile, have a look at the map below; imagine the confusion as multiple divisions attacked, poorly coordinated, while the New Zealanders dug in and attempted to defend their gains.

The Sword and the Flame in Africa

Bwana Bill has managed to get me hooked on this great game. I bought some figures last year at Fall-In, but hadn't been able to get to them yet.

This last week, I grabbed eight lads out and whipped out a quick paintjob on them. They are painted as Highlanders. I'll tell you, the sound of pipes just gets my blood boiling! 'Ave at 'em lads!

The Highlanders will be attacking (or defending?) tonight in another Fort Halai scenario. It seems the Zulus got the better of it last time, so we are adjusting the unit structure a bit.

The 17th Lancers will be on hand tonight, as well as the Scots, and they're "dead 'ard" lads. Perhaps with that combination, we will turn the savage tide and save the fort!

The figures were identified by Bwana Bill as Black Tree Design figures. They are wonderful little figures posed in a nice variety of poses.

If you are interested in wargaming the Victorian Era, I can also most highly recommend Brigade Games, one of my favorite suppliers. Lon is a stand up guy with great employees and wonderful service.

The Highlanders in Africa - group photos

The eight-man unit of Highlanders.



And one more unit shot, for the regimental historian. 

The Highlanders in Africa

On the march and fixing bayonet!



The Color Sergeant



Kneeling reload.



Firing on a knee and reloading on the move. 

More Action from Fort Halai

Fort Halai (continued)

More action from the Fort Halai scenario

Fort Halai Scenario

I have been feeling a little frustrated lately with the lack of good Zulu War scenarios at my disposal. So until Mark Fastoso and Roy Jones start selling their new scenario book, I have been improvising. I took Mark's scenario book on the Italians in Abyssinia (Ethiopia) and adapted one of the scenarios for Brits and Zulus. This one was called the Fort Halai scenario. It worked out fairly well, I was rather pleased with it. A group of Brits are besieged at one end of the table and a relief force is trying to cross the length of the table to reach them. In the group of photos below the Zulus are seen launching their first attack on the redoubt which was fairly easy to capture. Then we see the first attacks on the relief force. In the last picture we see King Cetshwayo (in the leopard skin cloak) and the uThulwana regiment holed up in the rocks waiting for their chance to launch an attack.

Fighting Techniques of the Medieval World

We were asked to review this book so let me tell you a bit about it. It is a pretty thorough survey of warfare in the Middle Ages. Each chapter focuses on different eras of the Middle Ages. It talks about the major developements in weapons and tactics for each era and also discusses the major wars, campaigns, and battles. There is one featured battle for each major era that gets special treatment with a full two-page color 3D map. So far, I have only made it through Hastings and Arsuf, but it struck me that these maps would make good reference sources for any tabletop wargaming gamemaster who wants to plan out a scenario. I'll have more comments later. You have to understand that I am sometimes working on two or three books at a time. This is one of those times.

Roman Warships in Cardstock

Speaking of Roman warships, I recently discovered that Eric Hotz, the creator of the Whitewash City cardstock models, (and Larry Leadhead) has recently released a new line of 1/300 scale cardstock Roman warships. There are also some Carthaginian ships for them to fight. He is also working on a ruleset to go with them. Check them out, they look pretty good!

romanseas.com