Zulu using TMWWBK

The British camp defence. The British rifles in line provided huge firepower.  The NNC, with their red rags around the heads for identification,  provided additional firepower....well a bit anyway and luckily were not challenged in combat.  

Having just looked at my 15mm Zulu War collection the previous day when the call went out to host a game I thought of using them - they have been in the boxes much too long!  Hmm, using which rules?  Having played “The Men Who Would Be Kings” recently I figured I could guide everyone through and as JimF also joined, he could help.  Actually the first time using tribal forces by any of us (and it showed!) .

 I took the roll of the Zulu in my recreation of the famous Battle of Isandhlwana so I wanted the British players awed by the numbers facing them. They were not; despite having painted and based the remaining 96 I had yet to do, during the previous day. This ultimately gave the Zulu 6 impi/units with 48 figures each.  Actually not as impressive as it might sound as TMWWBK has the British infantry unit at 12 figures and a tribal at 16.  My 48 still represents the 16 strong tribal unit but in bases rather than individual figures; but the look on the table does somewhat display the historical strength disparity in this battle.

The 'historical attack' of the Zulu upon the British at the mountain of Isandhlwana.

While having appealing mass, still represents the 16 suggested by the rules.

I was discouraged almost immediately by my poor activation rolls for the Left Horn which did not get the order to advance apparently. Wrong side of the hill from the rest?  But the other impis were soon advancing at the double toward the British lines.

Francis commanding half the British which included the Natal Light Horse and he had them scout the plateau then do a sneaky move to go between two Impi,  which had left a gap, to move into the rear hoping to distract them (me) from advancing further.  I ignored that move and managed to move into contact of the left flank British company destroying half of that formation but excellent dice rolling by Jim (six of the twelve dice were 6s!) had my boys bounce off.  That was the closest the Zulu would get to any victory.  The overwhelming firepower by the British would not allow the Zulu to make contact despite their excellent discipline.

The excellent 'leadership' bonus of the elite modifier and my decent die rolling, had the Zulu arrive this far...they will however be shot up soon.....

The Left Horn finally came into range but by then the other units were spent.  In the post battle analysis, my advance without waiting for the Left Horn units was criticized as not timing the attack to arrive together. Probably correct. Using “Go To Ground” activation might have saved those units of ‘the Loin’ shot up, for later.  Also we started to talk of tactics (!) like using one unit in line to soak up hits as others come behind still fresh.  I set up my units as per the historical model and the usual Zulu way, but food for thought.  

only 5 of 16 left but my die rolls their bravery and discipline keep them in the battle.

While using 15mm figures, we made no changes to the rules including that of distances so using inches.  The Zulus with the extra d6 of movement and my unusually good activation die rolls for most of the game had them moving rapidly…into the rifle fire…. and defeat. History not repeated.

Historic Battle of Tegula (Zulu Wars)

Editoral note: originally written in September 2015 (!) this post was overlooked but the project still holds interest for me. As I have had nothing to post for awhile I thought I should fill in the gap....

Have no idea why my interest in the Zulu Wars but probably because I watched Zulu and Zulu Dawn movies in my early days and kept those images in my head.

Thus any magazine article about the Zulu and warfare involving that South African tribe strokes my interest.  An old wargame magazine description by Ian Knight [ Miniature Wargames  No.25 ] of the engagement between the colonists of Durban, Natal and the Zulu in 1838 had me thinking. (oh, oh, here we go off onto another "project" !! )

The abbreviated history goes something like this:

A Voortrekker deputation to Port Natal to ask the English Settlement for assistance against the Zulus was met with success. In 1838 John Cane and Robert Biggar with 14 other English settlers, 30 Hottentots and over 3000 native levies went as an expeditionary force in support to the Voortrekkers Commandos of Uys and Potgieter. (who were attacked a day before and were soundly defeated) After crossing the Tugela River the Expenditionary force came across the Zulu military kraal (camp) Ndondakusuka at the foot of the mountain but the lack of full resistance soon indicated that this was a trap and as dawn slowly appeared some 10,000 Zulu warriors appeared on the scene and fierce fighting ensued. The line of retreat across the river was cut off and the expeditionary force was surrounded. Thus on the 17th April 1838 ended the battle of Tugela,  Few of the expeditionary force escaped from this battle.

To distinguish the supporting Port Natal native troops, they were given white cloth head bands.  These "Hottentots" and some 400 of the natives were trained and armed with muskets, while the rest were armed as native warriors, some of which were Zulu expatriates.  This made the selection of figures easy and I simply added a green-stuff headband to those Natal allies. It was said that the natives would wind yards of cloth around their heads so the resulting headwear resembled a turban! This certainly helped in my modelling efforts as it is quite easy to apply too much green stuff to the small 15mm chaps.



 As with all my wargaming with the Zulu I use a heavily infused DBA style rules  (...thus far....) , so each force is of 12 elements - the Zulu look more numerous as I use double sized stands for them.  As I have yet to play this scenario I may indeed have them twice as large to equalize the effect from the Natal musket armed troops.   Because of the disproportional effect of firepower in the battles of this era, the Natal 'army' has 5 of its 12 elements as "rifle" armed, with the warriors equal to those of the Zulu.
The deployment is conjecture of course but does follow the DBA mandates.  The kraal starts with one additional defending element.  I may make the mountain smaller and closer to the Zulu side with the Natal army closer to the centre of the table.  In light of the historical battle, perhaps tell the Port Natal player that the idea is to save the army and not fight the Zulu....but the Zulu won't know this of course!
Not really pleased with the look of the table/basing and may change all this in the future but this small project is an interesting one for me.

Shaka Zulu defeated!

Oh my, I can read The Times of London headline now....
A minor tribe of Southern Africa defeated
Reports have arrived that a small tribe led by Shaka have been defeated by the Ndwandwe near Gqokli Hill thereby altering the future history of this nation by not allowing it to have a glorious defeat some fifty years in the future as a result.

Andrew called me and said he was on vacation and wanted to have a game, "something in 15mm". 
Not having done anything with my Zulus for awhile, I pulled them out and using a modified DBA rules and used a scenario from the details by an old Wagames Illustrated article by Ian Knight on the historical battle of Gqokli Hill.  This battle brought the Zulu under Shaka to prominence with a defeat over the Ndwandwe in the year 1818.
 
The scenario had Andrew commanding the Ndwandwe to divert troops to burn the Zulu krall (homestead) and gain a moving herd of cattle. ( I also had the provision for a roll each turn to have part of that army, based on the actions of some of the thirsty troops of his army to move to back to the river but totally forgot that once the game had started! Would have changed things a bit I would suggest.... )  The rolls was random and thus the very large Ndwandwe army would be broken up as it crossed the river.

As it were, the Krall and cattle were not taken and the diversions but held up the advance but little. Nevertheless the Zulu seeing some advantage to the scattered enemy, came off the hill to the attack.  The large leading Ndwandwe regiment was eventually seen off but the much smaller numbers of the Zulu lead to them being flanked and eventually defeated.

This fun game highlighting that the Zulu, both in their early history and the later 1879 era, still hold great interest for me.

My 15mm Zulu hordes (playing Ndwandwe) in front of my homemade krall.  The huts are solid wood for use as doll heads painted as thatch. The 'wood' fence is unwound copper cable wire. All of which is placed on an old computer CD.

The Ndwandwe file across the river ford and attack the krall defended by a few Zulu.

Andrew pushing in his troops once again as Shaka himself aids in the defense.