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.

A Wargaming Disaster

        I have been thinking of how to best use the army lists from Horde of the Empire and When Empires Clash!. While the lists might work well with the rules they are meant for, they may not necessarily work with Memoir of Battle. In the last game I had a unit of Natal Native Contingent. In the game I treated it as an irregular infantry unit, but it was basically a regular infantry unit. I could have made the whole army "irregular infantry"; it would have the same number of soldiers in a unit and the same fighting abilities and would have had more units.  There has to be a way to make it where it would not have the staying power in battle. One idea is to have one less figure in the unit, where it would only take 3 hits instead of 4 to eliminate. I have also decided to make the board larger. I find that the armies close too fast, and maneuvering is limited.

      I wanted to try some of the ideas so I once again broke out my Zulus and Brits. There were no terrain features. I chose to have both armies have 24 APs (I didn't charge for the generals). I used Bob Corderys' WHEN EMPIRES CLASH! army chart. The Zulus had 12 units plus their general. The British had 5 regular infantry units, 1 irregular infantry unit (three men in the unit), 1 artillery unit, one regular cavalry unit, and one irregular cavalry unit(2 horsemen), and their general. The irregular units had one less figure than the regulars.

The armies face off.

After the first move. The British try to give themselves room to retreat.

The british open fire, but it does little to slow the Zulu advance.

The Zulu "loins" hits the British center, pushing back the irregular infantry and one infantry unit. As can be seen, the retreat puts the units back on their baseline.

A disaster for the British! Three British units are forced off the board, including the British general, who was with the artillery! If the British loses two more units, they lose the battle. 

Another shot of the above. The Zulus "horns" start to work around the British flanks.

The British tries to consolidate their line and cuts off one Zulu unit. The lancers attack the isolated Zulu unit.

The surrounded Zulus hold on, but the British manage to push back some of the Zulus.

At this point the Zulu "horns" get behind the British lines.

The Zulus crush the last of the British infantry. All that's left of the British army is the lancers.

Another shot of the Zulu victory.

The lancers manage to fight their way through the Zulus and make their escape. The British haven't suffered such a disaster since Isandlwana!

I was quite surprise that the traditional Zulu battle formation worked so well in this game.  I wasn't paying attention during the British move and didn't see the threat.

For this game I used my original board. I think having a larger board would have benefited the British, at least in the short term. They would have had more room for retreating. I have some BATTLE CRY variants, including one for the Zulu War. Perhaps those rules will help in the organization of the size of the units.

Another Zulu Wargame

   I wanted to try a couple of ideas for using my colonial troops. I came across Bob Corderys' WHEN EMPIRES CLASH! rules (I ordered the book online) and wanted to try his point system for troops. I rolled a 20D to decide on how many points the armies would have (what would I have done if I rolled a 1? Not the smartest system!) I rolled a 16. The Zulus would have 8 units, the British 4 infantry units, 1 Natal Native Contingent, and the Frontier horse. I used Bob Corderys' MEMOIR OF BATTLE rules.

The Zulus enter from the left, the British from the right.

The Zulus swarm over the large hill in the background.

The Zulus push back the NNC, the Frontier Horse, and two infantry units.

The British rally and push the Zulus back.

The NNC overruns one Zulu unit.

The Frontier Horse pushes back the Zulus left flank, but is now surrounded on three sides.

The Zulus now slam into the British line, causing heavy losses. One British unit is overrun.

Another shot of the slaughter in the British center.

The British, despite their losses, rally and eliminates three Zulu units. I was using Bob Cordery's rule where once an army loses 50% of their units, it can no longer advance. The Zulus have lost 4 out of 8 units.

For the British it looks like a victory.

However, at this point I realized that some of the Zulus were in contact with British forces. The British have already lost one unit. If the Zulus could eliminate two more units, the battle would end in a draw.

The Zulus strike! They manage to destroy one British infantry unit, however, their hopes of eliminating the Frontier Horse fails; the Frontier Horse retreats. At this point the British infantry can just hold back out of range of the Zulu spears and pick off the Zulus. Wisely, the Zulus retreat.

I find using the army point system makes it easier for me to make balanced armies when using native troops. I believe Bob Corderys system is better than the Hordes of the Empire system, as most of the HotE units are rated at 2; Bob Cordreys breaks the different units down into 4 different rating. In this game if I had used HotE, both armies would have 8 units. As it was in this game, it was a near run thing.

Zulu Wargame

       In the past I have mentioned using Horde of the Things army list to fight battles. With my current interest in the 19th century British army, I started looking for army lists for the period. It has been pointed out that many of the enemies of the British army during this period were armed with spears and other hand weapons, in which some battles can result in the slaughter of the natives before the natives have a chance to engage the British army. However on Fanaticus.org has variations of the HotT rules, called Hordes of the Empire, which gives rules for the 19th century colonial wars. I wanted to see if their army lists would give a fairly equal armies. For this game I used Zulus (as I have a large collection of Peter Laing Zulus) versus the British army.  The Zulu have 12 war bands. The British have 6 infantry units, 1 machine gun manned by sailors, a troop of frontier horse and the 17th Lancers. I did use Bob Corderys' Memoir of Battle rules to fight the battle.

The British army on the left, Zulus on the right.

The Zulu left horn holds back as the "loins" close in the center. The British advance to give themselves room to retreat. The British general brings the Highlanders behind the line for reserve. The British open fire, with no success.

The Zulus overrun the machine gun. Another Zulu unit has pushed back one infantry unit.

Another view of the above picture.

The Frontier horse holds back the left  horn of the impi. The Highlanders are in the right spot to hold back the Zulus in the center. The Zulus lose 13 figures this turn.

The Zulu left horn forces the Frontier horse back. In the center the Highlanders are routed off the board. One Zulu unit gets behind the British line. The British general had joined one infantry unit to recapture the machine gun.  The Zulus kill four of the five in that unit, including the general! The 17th Lancers tried to hold the right horn back, but is pushed back. 

Suffering heavy losses, the British start consolidating towards the center, except the Frontier horse, which pushes back two Zulu units.

The Frontier horse continues to distract the Zulu left.

The 17th Lancers overrun one Zulu unit.

The Zulus eliminate the 17th Lancers and the two rightmost infantry units. The Frontier horse  is finally pushed back when it is attacked by three units. At this point the British won the roll for initiative, which allowed them to retreat.

This was just a sample game to see if these armies would work out. The game worked out better than I thought it would.  At first I thought it would just be a slaughter of the Zulus. As can be seen, quite the opposite occurred. The armies are based on Army points: these armies were 24 APs  for the Zulus and 20 for the British.  It would be easy enough to base the armies on lower APs, or even roll for APs.  This army list could make my gaming easier.

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