ZULU WAR GAME

One Hundred and thirty three years ago today, 22nd January 1879 the battles of Isandlwana and Rorke's Drift took place. It is also my good friend Dave Marks birthday and to celebrate both, yesterday we were invited to his place to play a large Zulu wargame.

As you will see from the pictures, Dave has a fantastic venue for us all to indulge in our hobby and on this occasion we were using three tables 6' x 12', 6' x 20' and 10' x 24'. To give you an idea of the size of the game, the British Column stretched the entire length of the 20' table and with my 400 Zulu's and Dave's 600 plus, we had over 1000 Zulu's in 28mm.  There were seven of us playing whilst Dave umpired the game.

The rules we were using were Black Powder, adapted/enhanced with a card system that Sam Marks had designed, which helped to give the right flavour for the period.

THE GAME.
It is the day after the defeat of Isandlwana and defence of Rorke's Drift and Lord Chelmsford has ordered the remnants of his centre column to turn around and advance back into Zululand. Leaving a small garrison at Rorke's Drift, the British objective is to converge on Ulundi, the Zulu capital and punish King Cetshwayo.

The Zulu's are to delay the British column on table 2 for as long as possible ( start of each turn roll dice to see who wins a bonus card, stacked in favour of the Zulu player), the longer it takes the British to exit table 2, the more bonus cards the Zulu's are likely to have for the main battle at table 3.
When the British column has eventually moved off the holding area at Rorke's Drift on table 1, the Zulu's may allocate a part of their army to attempt to capture Rorke's Drift. This along with defending the Kings stronghold on table 3 are the Zulu objectives.

 Table 1

Table 2

Table 3

British Holding Area.

British Column leaving table 1 and moving onto table 2.

Cavalry patrol sent ahead of Column. Rorke's Drift in background.

Front of column have to deploy due to Zulu ambush and harassment.

British eventually clear Donga.

Severe delays at the bridge with baggage and limbers causing a bottleneck ( or was it the single track road?)

Column reaching full length of 20' table

Column about to exit table 2 and move onto main table 3.

Back at table 1, the column has now left Rorke's Drift and the Zulu's move in for the attack. The British had left a garrison of 2 units of Boer and 1 unit of Natal Mounted Police. Two Impi plus Zulu skirmishers swept down on the buildings and it was only a matter of time before the garrison fell to the Zulu horde. ( They should have used the Welsh)

Table 3. The Horns of the Buffalo await the arrival of the British.

Head of British Column arrive at table 3. Ulundi is in the distance.

Let the main battle begin.

The game started at 10am in the morning and finished at 8.30pm. It was a Zulu victory on both the main table and Rorke's Drift but it was a close run thing.
My thanks to Dave and Sam for hosting a superb day.
To see lots more pictures of this game taken by Joe Deaver, checkout the following link.
http://s286.photobucket.com/albums/ll112/joedever/Zulu%20Wars%202/?albumview=slideshow

COLONIAL CAMP SET

The figures in the pictures below are from Perry Miniatures ACW Union camp set. I purchased these a while ago as part of a deal RENEDRA were doing with their plastic tent sent, which was excellent value at £10.

I wanted to convert these figures so that I could use them for my Colonial collections. The two figures that I have painted are ideal for Zulu War British with their trousers tucked into their boots. The other figures will hopefully pass for NWF or Sudan British.

I converted these by removing the hats and one complete head from the figures and using an old Foundry head for one figure and for the rest I used Empress Miniatures pith helmets which they sell in equipment packs.

The tents which are plastic, come from Renedra apart from two, these are resin and come from Grand Manner. I have put them on individual bases using old DVD's with a little tile grout, PVA glue and sand.

This Sunday will be the anniversary of the battles of Isandlwana and Rorke's Drift 22nd January 1879, so I will hopefully submit an additional Zulu War post on Sunday.      

ZULU WAR BRITISH 2nd batch

I painted another dozen figures this weekend, so I thought I would tag them onto the end of my last post, as they are more Zulu War British.

These are Empress Miniature figures or old style Wargames Foundry or Foundry with Empress head swaps.

As before, these have not been varnished or the bases finished but I will wait until I have a big enough  batch of figures before I do this.

ZULU WAR BRITISH INFANTRY

These are the excellent Empress Miniatures British from their Zulu War range. They are work in progress as I have yet to finish the bases and varnish them yet.
The detail on these figures are fantastic and a real joy to paint, which is just as well as I have a lot more in the paint queue.

The picture below are mostly Wargames Foundry figures with head conversions using Empress Miniatures spare heads. These figures have been varnished and their bases completed.

Natal Native Contingent.

First of all, thanks for all the interest in my last post and this blog in general. You have made me a happy blogger.

Today we have a couple of pictures of NNC. These are again mainly old style Foundry figures with European NCO's from the Perry Mafeking range and the Mounted and dismounted officer figures are Boers from the excellent Empress Miniatures.

Here are some more Perry figures from there Mafeking range and the mounted figure is Nogs the reporter from Chelmsford's command pack, Empress Miniatures. These will be used as European Officers and NCO's for future NNC units.

Zulu's

Happy New Year to you all.

Here as promised are some new pictures for the start of the New Year.

There are over 400 Zulu's in 7 Regiments. They are mostly the old style Wargames Foundry figures, with 30 plastic Wargames Factory and  about 30 Black Tree figures. The Black Tree figures are probably a little big in comparison with the other figures but I have stuck them in the rear ranks so they don't really notice. There is also a mounted command stand from Empress Miniatures and these figures are really superb.

I have finished the terrain for Rorke's Drift ( Redoubt Enterprise) with a little conversion work added, and also wanted to paint a good amount of Zulu's before I started on the British.

I have painted a few British, mostly old style Foundry with a few head swaps from Empress. I have purchased the complete range of Empress Miniatures excellent Zulu War British and Volunteers and have started painting these ( saving the best until last).

I plan on doing a photo shoot of the Battle of Rorke's Drift  (See the link on my photo shoot of the Battle of Bunker Hill) when I have enough figures to do the defenders on a 1 to 1 ratio. I then hope to do the same thing with the Battle of Isandlwana, obviously not on a 1 to 1 ratio. These will be in future entries on the blog.

I will be bringing my Zulu's along to my good friend Dave Marks place on the 21st January. To give you an idea of the size of his wargame room(s),  we will be playing on tables covering a total length of 55 feet and my 400 Zulu's will just be a very small part of the huge amount of Zulu's that Dave will be fielding. I will bring my camera along to this and will share with you the game in a future entry on the blog. You will be able to see Dave's gaming room in April's Wargames Illustrated where he did a big ACW game using the Black Powder rules, this event was attended by the editor of WI along with the author of Black Powder.

  The last picture shows the iNdlondo regiment on the left (red and white shields) and uMbonambi regiment on the right.

I have finished a couple of units of NNC along with their Europeon officers and nco's and will post these in my next blog along with some details on my basing.