Zulus Thousands of 'em!

The British column.

Colin a fairly new member of the club hosted a Zulu game on Sunday. Having seen Zulu and Zulu Dawn I knew exactly what to do if only from a "Hollywood" point of View. Very little from this reading books hu-har! As Tim anted to play the Zulus I took the British. The rules we were playing were "Battles for Empire" and Neither Tim nor myself had ever encountered them before so we were all unsure of what to make of them I will give my feelings about them at the end in the conclusion.

So the situation was that the British had to take the supply column from one edge of the table to the other. The Zulu's all started hidden but I would need to find them but having a unit of cavalry I was confident that I could.

Found some Zulus

Having looked at the routes to cross the board It became quickly clear that I would have to cross a hill eventually so I bit the bullet and decided to cross the first hill as opposed to leaving it later in the game.

I will admit that I did not realise that the wagons would move so slow on hills but once started what choice did I have but to carry on.

Slowly forming a square.

I soon realised that on a good dice roll the Zulus could move 12cm and my cavalry could move 15cm. I did not see this as a big cavalry movement advantage so I decided to charge Remembering the Line in the Film Zulu which eludes to Zulus not liking cavalry. As it happens it turns out the Zulus do like cavalry , for lunch.

So with my cavalry destroyed and the Zulus "Able to run, run 30 miles a day and then fight a battle at the end of it!" And with now no cavalry I decided to ride out the storm. By forming square.

Here they come.

And More.

Thousands of them.

First contact! Yes a close encounter!



Getting surrounded



Surrounded
 

There were a couple of Hairy moments where close combat was initiated and I was also encouraged (by Colin) to break my square to bring more units to firing locations. I even went low on Ammunition fighting one face off. But in the end the square held and Tim conceded.

 

Conclusion: WE also tried the game with me as the Zulus and Tim as the British and he did not form square but stuck to line of infantry. The result that time was remarkably similar. Again the Cavalry routed off of the table and the British Line could fire at sufficient strength to keep the Zulus from a fully coordinated close range assault. Therefore I would imagine that the Zulus would need one and a half to twice the number of troops that we played with to be able to win.(so about 6 to 8 times the number of British)  But an enjoyable game and a nice break from the Sudan.

 

So Big thanks to Colin for hosting the game. My thoughts on the rules are that they gave good enjoyable game. They were simple and effective easy to grasp and play. Being purely colonial I do not see them having any advantage over Black Powder so I personally will try to stick to BP.

 

Thanks for reading. More again on Wednesday.

 

And would those of you Playing the Napoleonic Naval Blog game get your turns in to me BY Saturday 9am GMT.

 

All the best folks see you all soon.

Cheers Clint.