David Bickley's Wargames Blog

The occasional ramblings of an average gamer, journeyman painter, indifferent modeller, games designer, sometime writer for Wargames Illustrated and host of games in GHQ.



Thursday 3 September 2015

Chief Bykelezi's Uprising

Jon and I recently played out an Anglo Zulu War game here in GHQ. We used my own "Washing The Spears" rules and the figures from my collection of Empress Miniatures figures. The game was a tense and bloody affair going to 15 Turns before a resolution. Some pictures from the action will illustrate how the game unfolded I hope. Zulu positions are marked by Blinds at the start of the game, though they can deploy within one normal move of the Blind. The Blinds were downloaded from the Two Fat Lardies website! The British column of five elements has to cross the tablet to Chief Bykelezi's Kraal ~












Before they can reach the Kraal and win the game they must force a crossing of the Great River, which has only one fordable point on the table ~



















The Zulus are revealed when they are in direct line of sight of any element of the British column or their base of native scouts ~




















The leading Regiment of the column deploys to face the charging Impi while the remainder of the column moves forward it its support ~



















The first of the Impis crashes home into the British line. Meanwhile the second Regiment deploys into line to meet the onrushing second Impi ~
The third of the Regiments, the South Staffords, charge the flank of the Zulus already engaged while the onrushing third Impi tries to support the secon Zulu attack ~
The first Zulu impi is driven off with heavy losses to the British; the second Impi is seriously weakened; the third is engaged by the Lancers ~





The initial Zulu attacks have been beaten off, but the third Impi will soon destroy the Lancers thanks to exception dice in the combat and a fourth Impi has crossed the Great River to join the attack ~









 

The game became so tense at this point that I forgot to take any more photos! Doh!! The fourth Zulu Impi destroyed the Lancers and overran the 9lb Battery but was decimated by the fire of the remaining British infantry. With the final destruction of the Zulu riflemen on the banks of the Great River, the way to Chief Bykelezi's Krall lay open. After 15 hard fought turns and over 50% casualties the British, under General Whyte, had carried the day!
I have to say that Blogger, Photobucket and AOL have still not resolved their problems with Windows 10! Why computer nerds need to 'fix' things that are n't broken I fail to understand! I have had to load my pictures to the site on my iPad, which was a struggle in itself with Blogger and Photobucket, then go onto my laptop and edit the pictures and insert the text. About two hours to do something which took minutes before! What a useless community computer nerds are! A bit like telephone sanitisers...







8 comments:

  1. Those mass of Zulus look rather scary, difficult to keep the old upper lip stiff there I wager.

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  2. Nice report David and beautiful pictures until...not easy to take photos sometimes, I know!

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    1. Thanks for that Phil. Too tense at the end when I thought I might sneak a victory at last!

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  3. Great looking game.
    As usual a warning to all don't let the Zulu's get to close :-)
    Cheers
    Stu

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    1. Thanks for those kind words. Don't think my opponents would disagree with your last words!

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  4. Yet another fine looking game David!

    Christopher

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