Zulu Wargame

   After getting my new British Camel Corps figures I started thinking of doing some Colonial gaming.  Ross MacFarlane at Battle Game of the Month came up with his own Battle Cry rules for the Colonial period. I have wanted to try them out so I played a quick game on my Heroscape board. 

  The game was to be a column of British soldiers guarding a group of porters moving supplies. There is known to be a large force of Zulus in the area. Instead of using the Battle Cry cards, I was going to use my average dice. As I set up the game, I started thinking there might be a problem with my scenario, as will be seen in the photos.

The British force. A squadron of regular cavalry, a squadron of irregular cavalry, two companies of regulars and two companies of highlanders. The commander of the column is with one of the regular companies. The porters can be seen behind the soldiers. To win, the porters must cross the board.  Here is where I think the scenario fell apart. The Zulus had to get to the porters before crossing the board. Half of the Zulus had no real chance to get at the porters.

The board as set up. After looking at the rules, I realized I shorted the Zulus 1 man per unit (melee armed units have 5 figures, not 4).

I added the extra figures to the Zulus.

The Zulu right advances to try to cut off the column.

The Regular cavalry charge the Zulu left.

They force back one Zulu unit and in their followup attack kill three more Zulus.

The Zulus on their turn wipes out the regular cavalry.

The British throw forward one company to try to hold the Zulu right off.

At this point the Zulus try to get their entire right wing in motion.

The British form a line on the hill.

The British fire drives back the Zulus. At the extreme left can be seen the irregular horse engaging one Zulu unit which is trying to get behind the line.

The irregular cavalry has killed 4 Zulus and driven the last back.

The Zulus charge the British line with three units.

The British suffer heavy losses. The company that the commander is with is wiped out, and the highlanders lose 3 men. Meanwhile the lone zulu on the right kills one irregular cavalryman and drives the other two back.

The British commander falls back on the other regular company and one highland unit retreats to the hill.

Heavy fire from the British line kills 5 Zulus and drives them back.

The irregular cavalry drives back the lone Zulu.

The Zulus kill two more highlanders.

The Zulus wipe out one highlander companies. The Zulus push forward another unit to make for the porters.

Between the infantry and irregular horse, the Zulu unit is destroyed. Meanwhile, fire from the highlander eliminates the Zulus on their right. At this point in the game the Zulus stood no chance of getting to the porters, and so conceded the game. The last couple of Zulu rolls they only rolled two's. I should have allowed the Zulus to double their rolls, which  would have given them a better chance against the long range fire of the British.

Future Projects

     Battle Game of the Month & Man of Tin blogs have given me new inspiration  for gaming. Man of Tin has me thinking of playing more skirmish games. After all, skirmishes happen more often  than set piece battles. As for Battle Game of the Month, Ross Macfarlane plays  games based on various border incidents between the United States and Canada in the 19th century.  I am now looking at early American wars for ideas for gaming. Using the timespan of between the start of the Plymouth colony to the Mexican-American War, there is no end of possibilities.

      At the time I got back into wargaming, I had a great interest in the War of 1812. One reason was the use of militias and the small size of armies involved. I dug out some Minifigs War of 1812 militia that I had. Looking at these figures, I decided to order more of them. They will be painted so they can be used as Canadian or American militia.

Two of the Minifigs Militia painted based on a photograph from Old Sturbridge Village, a living history museum in Massachusetts. They have a "Training day" where the village drills their militia.

Two more militiamen in more traditional uniform. These militia figures have great potential for some fun painting.  I ordered 48 march attack militia poses. I should have ordered more of these figures.

This figure I made combining two different Minifigs ECW figures. I want to use them for a King Philips War game. Although the militia used muskets, not blunderbusses, there is an old woodcut that I like that shows the colonial troops with blunderbusses.

The Man of Tin blog had a great posting about the Maori Wars, where there were illustrations using Peter Laing figures from a Military Modeling article.  This sailor figure was among those shown . I had made a mold of this figure a while back. Seeing this article inspired me to cast a few; above is the result. A big shoutout to Ian Dury. He was kind enough to forward me a copy of the Military Modeling  Maori War Wargame rules and history of the Maori Wars. 

Homecasting Takes Blood, Sweat, and Tears

      One of the truly inspiring blogs I go to is Battle Game of the Month by Ross MacFarlane.  Among my favorite molds are the Zinnbrigade line, which are Imperial German figures. Mr. Macfarlane converts these figures to different armies and periods.  Someday I hope to be able to achieve the same results as his.

       I did get some 40mm heads with an odd lot of toy soldiers at one time and made a mold of the heads. I converted some Zinnbrigade figures into British Guards, using the heads. After seeing the latest conversions at Battle Game of the Month, I decided to make a mold of the marching Guardsman I had made.

    The mold was completed, however when making the mold the rifle in the master broke. I tried to position it so when the second half was poured, the rifle would be in the right place. Unfortunately, it moved and the rifle is all wrong. I decided to just remove the rifle at the shoulder and drill a hole to which I would put a piece of wire to represent the barrel. As I was casting, in between pouring I was cutting up old figures to melt down. While doing so I managed to cut a large chuck of skin out of one of my fingers; hence the blood, sweat and tears!

The finished figure out of the mold. The mistake with the rifle is clear in this picture.

One of the figures with his new rifle at the start of the painting process.

The bandage on the middle finger is for where I cut the chuck out. The bandage on the index figure is where I stabbed myself with an Xacto blade while trying to bore a starter hole for drilling out the rifle barrel.