Battle of Tikit Oasis: A TMWWBK Battle Report

A Battle Report of a solo game of The Men Who Would be Kings. This is a fictional encounter between the Foreign Legion and Berbers somewhere in Algeria c 1900-1905 using the 'Take the High Road' scenario. The Legion has sent out a company of men to deal with a small oasis which they suspect is being used as a base by Berber raiders. Whether that is true or not will only be discovered after the shooting stops. 

I took a few pictures while playing the game and thought I would share them below.

Warning: SPOILER ALERT 😁

The Berber positions are all being treated as soft cover (you'll have to watch the video to find out why) but nonetheless they look well dug in and prepared for the attack.

Closeup of the Oasis

Captain Renoir is a hardy veteran and leads his men from the front

Pushing up to the wall of the buildings in the oasis

If you haven't seen the video yet...look away now. 

The French Foreign Legion storm the walls of the oasis buildings and force their way inside. 

To the Last Bullet: A French Colonial MWWBK Battle Report

Last weekend I had a bit of time to get in a quick game of The Men Who Would Be Kings using my 15mm French Foreign Legion stuff. I've been working on this since Christmas with the end target being the Broadside wargames show which took place a few weeks ago. But with my Beau Hunks demo game done and out of the way I thought it was time I had a play with my toys! Aside from a little bit of playtesting before the show, I haven't had a chance to use these figures myself so this weekend I decided to rectify that with a solo game.  

This is a long video by my standards and is most definitely not a quick-strike ARR. Because this isn't a historical battle (one of the criteria of the LWTV quick-strike format) I decided to just film the game and see how short I could make a long video! Just under an hour is the answer.

Although I didn't stop to take pictures during the game, I was able to extract some stills from the video so here are a few shots of the game in progress. 

Top 3 Rulebooks of all time (and why they made the cut)

Today's video is another inspired by my recent 'Call to Arms' for ideas and questions. The question submitted by pbeccas asked, "What are your top three favourite rule books of all time". I decided to expand this to also ask, why my top three were picked but also decided to ask a couple of my mates from Posties Rejects to give their suggestions as well. The result is an eclectic mix of rulebooks covering a wide range of periods. 

For more detail about Richard & Ray's choices check out their blog posts reviewing some of the rules mentioned in the video:

Richard's review of They Died for Glory

Richard's review of Koenig Krieg

Ray's review of Donnybrook

Ray's review of Beneath the Lily Banners

AHPC Final Update FFL in Algeria 1900 1903

Last week I posted the traditional wrap-up photo of my efforts in this year's Painting Challenge on the Challenge Blog (see the post here)

I've now put together a very short video version of this post, showing all the miniatures I painted for my Foreign Legion project during the Challenge. 

Quick Strike AAR's - What shall I do next?

Earlier this year Little Wars TV challenged wargaming vloggers to make video AAR's that were shorter and more concise than the usual format seen on YouTube. The brief was deceptively simple but also devilishly difficult; to have a full battle report with a running time of 10 minutes or less but with some historical context, a scenario summary, and a recap of the game at the end. Given that normal video battle reports often run for over an hour, the concept of editing that down to just 10 minutes gives you some idea of the challenge.

20000 Bullets: The Battle of Rorke's Drift

January 1879 and in Natal a little over 150 men defend a tiny collection of buildings against what seems to be overwhelming odds. I played this game earlier this year and the resulting battle report was split into three parts with a total running time of over 90 minutes. But I decided I would give my Rorke's Drift game the 'Quick Strike' treatment and get it down to just ten minutes.

Just think of this video as a 'Directors Cut'!

If you want to watch the longer version of this game check out Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 on my channel. 

Rorke's Drift Part 3

The third and final part of my Rorke's Drift video battle report is available to view on my Youtube Channel. A couple of weeks ago the first video reviewed the history of the battle, my terrain choices and some special rules I implemented for this game. I'm using The Men Who Would Be Kings with some adaptations to make it suitable for this battle and my 6mm figure collection. Last week the battle commenced and the Zulu's were eventually able to gain a foothold inside the Hospital, although they had failed to breach the barricades. Then there was a brief lull in the fighting that gave the defenders time to reorganise. More Zulu's were working their way around the perimeter and fresh attacks are now imminent. 

Here are a few teaser pictures from the second half of the battle. The video is about 30 minutes long and I hope you enjoy watching it as much as I did playing it! 

Fresh Zulu regiments move into position as dusk appraches. 

The British have consolidated their position, but they are still few in number.

The uNdloko assault the front of the site.

Repeated attacks continue from all sides as the flames from the hospital cast an eerie glow across the site. 

More Zulus work their way around for an assault on the Krall. 

With the British spread thin on four sides, they quickly reposition to defend against another attack. 

The final Zulu assault on the beleaguered British. Will this be enough to overrun the mission station after a long hard fight? Or will the defenders win the day and earn their VC's?

I hope you enjoy this concluding video, I certainly enjoyed making it. 

Rorke's Drift Part 2

Last week I posted the first of a three-part series on my recreation of the battle at Rorke's Drift in 1879 using my 6m Anglo-Zulu War collection and The Men Who Would Be Kings. I discussed the history, the terrain options I went with and the house rules I adopted to make this ruleset work with my figures for this particular engagement. This week the battle gets underway and I finally see if the changes I introduced work as intended, or whether they unbalance the rules. Will the British hold the mission station again, or will the Zulu's overrun the tiny collection of buildings at Rorke's Drift in a spectacular overturning of history?

The video is a little over 30 minutes long, and the concluding part of the game will be posted next Friday. In the meantime here are a few 'teaser' pictures to whet your appetite. 

The first Zulu's to arrive approach the Hospital

The battle for the Hospital turns into bitter hand to hand fighting.

The Zulu's begin to lap around the site looking for a weak point.

British casualties are light, but with every man down their ability to defend the barricades is diminished. 

More Zulu Regiments move around towards the front of the Mission Station.

Battle Report Rorke's Drift in 6mm - Part 1

Several years ago I started building a collection of 6mm figures for the Anglo-Zulu war of 1879. I've playtested a variety of game systems with my figures and even had a go at writing something myself (unsuccessfully I should add) but in the end, I settled on The Men Who Would Be Kings by Daniel Mersey and published by Osprey. Now, this ruleset is not designed for 6mm games but I realised that with a few small changes and some house rules, I could get a workable game system for use with my 6mm collection. Last year I did a couple of solo games to test this out and earlier this year I posted my first couple of Battle Reports on my YouTube Channel. All of this has been building up to a battle that I have wanted to wargame for years; Rorke's Drift. 

Today's video is the first of three covering my preparation for the game and the battle itself. This week I discuss the history of the battle, highlighting some key details that stood out for me when I prepared for this game. Then I discuss my interpretation of the terrain, based on several maps, some contemporary some more modern. Then at the end of this video, I run through the house rules that I introduced that enabled me to adapt TMWWBK's for my 6mm figures and terrain. 

Next Friday part two of this battle report will cover the opening phases of the game and we get to see if the British can repeat history or if the Zulu's can overrun the small garrison defending the mission station at Rork's Drift. 

30-Minute Batreps - Ntombe Drift

After the success (apparent popularity) of my Anglo-Zulu war battle report video last weekend, I decided I would do some more videos in a similar style. My aim (and this only an aspiration) is to do at least one battle report video per month, depending on which games I have played and if they make an interesting film. As with my other Quarantined Wargamer videos, the style will incorporate the brevity I have tried to make the 'selling point' of my channel (not that I monetise any of my output, but you know what I mean). So these video battle reports will be 30 minutes or less rather than the much longer battle videos that we normally see on youtube. I'm not denigrating these longer videos at all, but I definitely think there is a need for shorter 'bit-sized' wargaming content on youtube and that is what I am aiming for. 

I'll definitely be doing more videos on my use of TMWWBK with my 6mm Ango-Zulu War collection. I've been tweaking the rules to fit my scale of choice, and at some point, I will write a longer article discussing the changes I have opted for. In the meantime I hope you enjoy the video and please let me know if you have any questions, suggestions or just general feedback. 

UPDATE: Here are a few teaser pictures from the video...just in case you needed encouragement 😊

Anglo-Zulu playthrough with TMWWBK

This week The Quarantined Wargamer is doing something different on the channel, so instead of the usual short video of me rambling on I decided to have a go at a game. I've been trying out various rules systems for my 6mm Anglo-Zulu war collection for a while now (including a shoddy attempt to write my own) but I have more or less settled on The Men Who Would Be Kings. It's a simple system that is easy to play and, with a little adaption, works well with my figures. I've done a few small scale test games but this is the first full-sized game I have played and I think it went pretty well.  

At 39 minutes it's a lot longer than my usual videos, but as the first attempt at this format I'm pretty happy with it...well, aside from my repeated use of the nonsensical term "Mounted Cavalry" when talking about Mounted Infantry!! 🤦 If the video proves popular I will do more like this in the coming months. 

The Battle of Ntombe Drift

Following on from my post last week about adapting TMWWBK I have now had a chance to run a couple of play test games. What I decided to do was play a couple of variations of the Battle of Ntombe. This relatively small engagement was none the less significant because once again units of the British army were soundly beaten by "spear wielding savages" (as they were described in the press). The historical battle involved just one company of Infantry against approximately 500-800 Zulu's and was another classic example of poor leadership, poor field craft and a complete underestimation of the enemy. 

Setup/History
With the commencement of the Anglo-Zulu war in January 1879 the village of Lüneberg, situated in the disputed territories of Northern Zululand, felt very exposed to attack. Four companies of the 80th Regiment of foot were sent to reinforce the local garrison but by the end of February they needed resupply. 18 wagon of supplies were sent to the town and were escorted from the boarder by one company. However heavy rains had swollen the rivers and softened the ground resulting in serious delays. Eventually some wagons were able to cross the Ntombe Drift but six remained on the 'enemy' side of the river. Major Tucker dispatched Captain David Moriarty with about 100 men (just shy of a full company) to laagar the wagons on the far bank and wait for the waters to recede.

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The wagons were arranged in an inverted V shape but were not moved when the river subsided meaning there was a significant gape between the wagons and the river. In addition Captain Moriarty did not send out sufficient pickets so on the night of the 11th March the Zulu's were able to get very close before being spotted. The resulting 'battle' was more of a massacre than a battle with Moriarty being one of the first to fall. A group of forty survivors were able to escape under the command of Sergeant Anthony Clarke Booth (he won a VC for his bravery).

My initial game recreated the historical setting so I attempted to replicate the surprise nature of the night attack by putting the Zulu's within charge range of the camp at the start of the game. I have also made them Veteran units to compensate for the fact the British are behind cover. However I elected to put all of the British inside the laagar whereas in reality the command was divided with some men on the other side of the river under the command of 2ic Lieutenant Henry Harward. In the real battle they provided some covering fire from this position, before Lt Howard abandoned his men and rode away "to get help". Howard would later face a Court Martial for this action but amazingly he was acquitted and returned to duty! Sir Garnet Wolseley took a very dim view of Harward's apparent cowardice and refused to confirm the findings of the court. Instead he put out a statement that made it quite clear what he thought of Lt Howard:

"The more helpless a position in which an officer finds his men, the more it is his bounden duty to stay and share their fortune, whether for good or ill."

The Duke of Cambridge endorsed this comment and ordered it to be read out to every regiment in the army. Lt Howard may have escaped punishment for his actions but his career was over and he resigned his commission in May 1880.


Order of Battle
British
c/o Captain David Moriarty
1 company British Regular Infantry (80th Foot)

Zulu's
c/o Prince Mbilini waMswati
2 Regiments of Tribal Infantry - Veteran/Married


Action

Two Zulu regiments have used the cover of darkness to get within charge range of the British laargar. The British are able to man the defences but won't get to fire on the Zulu's before the attack lands its first blow. 

The Zulu's charge in and meet the British across the barricade. 

The Zulu units have a massive advantage of numbers. Each unit rolls 16 dice (they have no casualties at this time) verses a total of 12 dice (six on each side) for the British. However every British hit will count as a casualties but the Zulus only cause 1 casualty for every two hits, rounded down. This makes attacking defences very hard. 

The British score two hits on each Zulu regiment and the Zulu's also score two hits on each half of the British infantry...a Draw means the Zulu's must retreat half a move facing the enemy. 

Now the British get to fire and they cause several casualties against each Zulu unit and both fail a leadership test and are pinned! This is bad!!! Next turn the only thing the Zulu's can do it try to rally to remove the pinned markers and can't move away or attack. 

The British take full advantage of the lull and pour fire into both Zulu units, causing several casualties and adding a second pinned marker to one of the veteran units. Next turn they try to rally but fail miserably and withdraw a full move. Eventually they leave the table entirely. 

The remaining Zulu regiment is able to remove its pinned marker and tries to attack the British position again, but again its a draw and the Zulu's are forced to retreat. The British have taken a lot of casualties but the Zulu's are no longer in a position to be able to fight across the barricade. The British have won! 

Well I didn't expect that! Mind you it has to be said I gave the British full advantage of the barricade which made all the difference in the melee. Historically the Zulu's breached the barrier before many of the British infantry were able to react.

In the second game I tried to recreate historical setting but on a slightly larger scale. I increased the British to two companies inside the laagar and four regiments of Zulu's attacking them.

The setup for the second game assumed a daytime attack with the Zulu's starting further away but out of LoS. Two units of British are inside the laagar with a quarter section across the river under Lt Howard. 

The Zulu's attack in force but by the time they arrive at the barricades they have already taken some casualties. None the less they still have a huge advantage of numbers. 

The Zulu's force back the British but are immediately subjected to a volley of gunfire which stops them in their tracks. Three Zulu units are now pinned in plain view of the British rifles. 

Successful leadership rolls mean the Zulu's can move again but in the meantime they have been under constant close range fire and have taken a lot of casualties. However they are now fighting the British in the open and every hit in melee counts as a kill (instead of having to get two hits per kill at the barricades). 

Its still not enough and the next volley of British fire destroys the Zulu unit. Meanwhile all the other Zulu units have also either been reduced by gunfire or failed rally tests and left the battlefield. Another British Victory. 

Analysis
Well considering I was playing the rules for the first time, and playing them solo, both games went really well. I learned a lot, the most important lesson being that TMWWBK can work at 6mm. Moving the units and managing the casualty counters can be a bit fiddly but I'm sure I can find a solution to that. I'm happy with the slight modifications I made to the rules but I need to play some bigger games to be sure I have everything right. There will definitely be more AZW games using these rules so keep a lookout for future battle reports. 

TMWWBK for 6mm Zulu War

So after a long hiatus following the last Winter Painting Challenge I have finally found some time to go back to my Zulu War project to think again about the rules I want to use. This time I have been giving some thought to adapting The Men Who Would Be Kings rules, written by Daniel Mersey and published by Osprey. This exercise has been very interesting, shows promise and has even resulted in firm plans for a full scale solo play test sometime next week.

This back to front approach - buying and painting the models before I have even settled on a rule system - is typical of me. Actually that's a little unfair as I did spend quite a lot of time thinking about rules and exploring several options prior to buying the figures, but I never really came to a satisfactory decision. In the end I just painted and based the figures in a configuration that I thought would be visually pleasing and practical, with my fingers crossed that I could make them fit a rule system further down the line. Again, typically of me, I got sidetracked with another project after the Challenge ended and its taken nine months for me to return to my search for a compatible rules system for the Anglo-Zulu War.

Before I go on to discuss my experiments with TMWWBK its worth mentioning my previous 'research' as I was able to read quite a few alternative rule-sets that are freely available on the internet. I'd definitely recommend hunting down a copy of All the Kings Men for larger figures, or Taking the Bull by the Horns which is designed specifically for 6mm. There are also some very interesting and useful rules and notes on colonial wargaming by the likes of Donald Featherstone and Jack Scrubby that can also be found online and are well worth reading. The other rule set I gave serious consideration to was the one that Postie uses as the basis of his Zulu War games, The 1879 Zulu War by Richard Tory. Its a great rule set and is packed full of excellent and detailed research. Its an old set and I don't know how readily available it is but its worth tracking down.

TtS! Zulu play test last year

The closest I came to deciding on a set of rules was when I play-tested some ideas for adapting To The Strongest (I wrote about this here). I never did get around to writing up and developing my ideas, but its still simmering on the boil in the back of my head somewhere! This week however I have been looking in another direction and a rule set that I bought, read and thoroughly enjoyed last year but never got around to seriously exploring as an option. The Men Who Would Be Kings is more commonly seen being played with individually based 15 or 28mm figures however I'm not the first person to give serious thought to adapting it to 6mm wargaming.

The first consideration for me was what to do about unit sizes. My Zulu's for instance are based on large square bases of 48 figures representing about 500 warriors, way above the normal 16 figure tribal units in the rules. Meanwhile my British units are 16 figures, again larger than the 12 stipulated in the rules and representing a company of about 120 men. Personally I think my ratios between British and Zulu units look right, aesthetically and historically. However this throws up a new problem as I'm in no hurry to break the hidden maths behind the rules by changing the number of 'hits' a unit can take. So my 'solution' to this quandary is simply this, despite using a 16 figure unit to represent Regular Infantry I'll still work on the principle that they can take 12 casualties before being removed.

This throws up another problem - this time with regard to firing - as normally you throw one dice per figure and now my unit sizes are out of sync with the rules. My 'brainwave' (if you can call it that) is to use dice markers showing how many men are remaining rather than using then to record casualties. So my Regular Infantry unit for instance will start off with 12 pips representing 12 figures and as casualties are taken the number is reduced. When the pips get to zero the unit is removed from play. Likewise my large Zulu units of 48 figures will still take 16 hits to remove from play, starting the game with dice counters showing 16 pips and counting down as they take casualties.

The final decision to be made was much simpler; what to do about ranges and movement rates. I want to play these games on my small table at home so its a fairly straightforward move to change inches to cm. So a Tribal Infantry unit normally moves 8" and will now move 8cm, and a Field Gun would normally have a range of 36" its now 36cm. This means I can get set up quite a large battlefield with plenty of figures in a relatively small space.

One additional consideration that I have just thought about (and will look at when I do the play test next week) relates to firing ranges. The rules say that the range is measured as the closest distance between two units (and fire arcs are 360° from all but close order units and artillery), which is fine when counting range in inches. However if I deploy one of my regular units in line the line will stretch 8cm long. In addition the way the rules define the fire arc of a unit means that the furthest unit could be as much as 6cm from the enemy. This diagram illustrates the problem:

One large Zulu Unit approaching the end of a British company deployed in open order (line). The rules treat the British as a single unit with a 360° fire arc and ranges are measured by the nearest point. 

My 'solution' - which is need to test in a game - is to treat this unit as if it were divided in two and check the ranges for each half using the normal rules. This could potentially see part of the unit at effective rage and the other half at long range but I think its a compromise that suits this scale. Having said that I need to play test this idea to see if it really makes a huge difference to the game. I don;t want to over-complicate things and deviate from the rules as they are now unless absolutely necessary.

Having now made a few decisions about adapting the rules it was time for me to put my changes to the test. Next week I'll try to do a simple play test game* to see if the changes I propose are actually practical. Hopefully by the end of next week I will post details of the scenario I decided to play, how the game worked and what changes I need to consider going forward.  (*I'm also going to try out the Mr Babbage solo play system suggested in the rulebook. If all goes well I'll be playing quite a few solo AZW games over the next few weeks)