Rorke's Drift 2024

                                                      Battle of Rorke's Drift 2024

         The battle of Rorke's drift has been a passion of mine for a number of years after seeing the film "Zulu" as a kid. Although I missed half the film the first time as my mum wanted to watch the bloody musical "Seven brides for seven brothers" which was on the other channel. However I have forgiven my mum a long time ago, as now I have probably watched it more times than any other film over the years. Every year I put on the game for my friends at my house (Actually this would be the third time I had played it this year.)

With moving to a different area of Spain in a few months (Anyone want to buy a house with its own self purpose wargaming room, I'm your man) this game would be a final farewell battle to some of my Spanish wargaming friends from Alicante, that have made me so welcome fifteen years ago. 

Over the years I have played the game in 15mm but I've always wanted to do it in 28mm and when Warlord has a special offer on their Rorke's Drift set (Pre-Brexit) I took the plunge. So four years and over 520 painted Zulu and British figures on, I think I have reached the level that I had in 15mm. 

Although the buildings are quite nice in the Warlord set, I feel they are a little small when placing figures in them. Therefore over the last year or so I have been using a "dungeon and dragons" style floor plan to show the layout and fight the combat inside. A picture of the floor plans from the last game can be seen below.                                  

I wanted to add walls to the floor plan to make it look more like a building. So a week ago after finding some foam board in the local Chinese store, I decided I would set myself a task of building the walls before the game. This became quite a mammoth project because I decided to replace the flooring, window and door frames and getting it all painted in time. Not forgetting that I had to build  the storehouse as well!

The walls didn't take a lot of time, but adding the frames, floors and painting them all was the main task.

The two buildings were finished and basic painted the night before. More detail and finishing off will be added before the next game.

So to the game itself, we had 3 Zulu players, Salva, Miguel and Toni. The British was  split into three commands, Jose Angel was Lt Chard, Pedro was Lt Bromhead and Juan Marcos was Commissary Dalton.

Each British Player had a command divided equally with Hospital Patients, fit for duty soldiers and named soldiers that had performed bravely in the actual battle and had either earned a Victoria cross or some other distinction. All the Victoria cross winners were able to suffer 2 wounds before being killed and also classed as tough fighter so had a +1 in close combat.

A few of the VC winners in the game.

Also depicted are some of the notable soldiers that may not have been awarded a Victoria Cross but played important roles in the battle (even if they were omitted from the film). They had their own special rules

The Zulus were in their 4 regiments surrounding the mission with one regiment on each side. The regiments were in divided into groups of 12 figures that were assigned a section of the defences that they would attack that were each outlined by a line of sawdust on the table. Once one wave of Zulus had been killed and removed they were placed back in their starting positions, to be recycled for their next attack.  

"Zulus to the South west Sir, thousands of em"

Overhead view, thanks to Jose Angel's drone.

 To activate the Zulu regiments to charge they had to complete 4 stages,  rest, stand, sing and the last, charge (Usuthu).  To progress through the stages the Zulu players had to throw a dice to get a high number depending on the time of day. This mechanic of randomness was to ensure that the Zulu players could not attack all four sides at once, also it gave the British players an idea of which side the attack may be coming from next so they could have a chance to reinforce the threatened side.   

Zulu Activation cards

Also the Zulu players could place their commander, Prince Dabulamanzi kaMpande, with one of his regiments to give them a little encouragement (+1 on the activation roll) to charge the garrison.

Prince Dabulamanzi kaMpande

Unfortunately for the British, instead of just a small attack so the Zulu Indunas could count their guns, the Zulus were singing on the North and South side of the garrison with the two larger regiments.  Then with high dice rolls from Salva and Miguel, they both charged at the same time.

The first Zulu charge comes from both long sides

The British have three chances of firing at the charging Zulus before they reach the defences. The chances of hitting improve as the Zulus pass each range marker.

The British fire their last volley before the Zulus hit the defences and engage into hand to hand combat.

 The mechanic for hand to hand combat I have "borrowed" from the game risk. Basically the British have a greater chance of success if they are behind the barricades etc. The Zulus have an advantage if they manage to breach the barricades and fight the British in the open. Any successful win or shot by the British  automatically kill a Zulu. However if the Zulus are successful then they just wound the British soldier, which means the British soldier has a penalty in any proceeding combat. If the wounded soldier gets a further wound then they are killed and removed from the table. 

One of the weak points of the defences is the corner by the hospital although the British were able to fight the Zulus back, this time.

Usually for how much time the Zulu attacks lasted, I would have a chart that would give a random amount of time between 5 and 30 minutes. Then any soldiers that were assigned to build barricades or the redoubt would be calculated to see if they have completed part of their task. The clock starts at 4.30pm and the British have to survive until 7.30 a.m. 

However for this game I decided to try a different method for counting time to get a satisfactory result when the time runs out to play the game. Therefore playing in the morning before stopping for lunch (a lovely BBQ cooked by my Lynn my wife)  would be the same time as when it was daylight on the day of the battle (4.30-7.00pm). When we returned after being sufficiently fed and watered we would play until 5.30pm, this would be the night and early morning part of the battle. If any British were left alive by the end of play at half five, then they had won the battle, due to Chelmsford's Column coming to relieve the beleagured garrison.

The well built Kraal was defended by Bromhead's troops, although they were a little vunerable, due to the Zulus being able to attack them on three sides. However their advantage was that they were able to give enfilade volley support on to the Zulu flanks attacking the storehouse and barricades..

The British players need to finish the barricade, before the next wave of Zulus hit. Due to using a different system for time keeping. I decided that on every British turn for each British soldier assigned to make the barricade or redoubt, the player needed to roll 1D6 and then add up the score, I would take that away from the total needed to make a section of barricade. It seemed simple on paper, but all my maths ability seemed to leave me that day. So I decided to wing it and just tell the players when they had nearly built a section and then what they needed in their next turn to complete it, sorry lads.

My brain on Saturday Morning

 Lt Chard's (Jose Angel) men holding the line between the hospital and storehouse, were keeping up a stout defence. 

 

After the first attack, like in the film, the 10 Zulu snipers on Shiyane hill were able to fire on the garrison. Although not accurate they still caused a few casualties on the soldiers working on the barricades.

British casualties began to mount on the North wall after repeated Zulu attacks from the unmarried iNdluyengwe regiment  trying to prove their bravery with individual Zulus that had broken through causing mayhem until they were finally killed. This caused serious gaps in the defences 

The British players had made a serious error in deployment (although I may have forgot to remind them). They had only put the walking wounded hospital patients with the immobile and bedridden patients and had not bolstered it with fit able soldiers. (even Hook was outside). when the error was discovered, it was too late as the soldiers in the immediate area were fighting for their lives or were retreating to the newly completed barricade.  



To stop the Zulus attempting to set fire to the thatch roofs, a section of soldiers were deployed on them, who were able to defend their position very well, until the hospital was fully taken over by the Zulus who then were able to concentrate on taking the roof finally overpowering them. 

With most of the British behind the new line of defences, Chard and some of his wounded men were still in the open. Although a couple of the wounded soldiers were killed Chard was able to use his revolver to kill the last remaining Zulus  from the South side attack and get the other wounded soldier and  Pvt Williams  back to the barricade

Lt Chard and Pvt Williams earning their Victoria crosses

Chard and Williams and the other wounded soldier slowly make it to the biscuit box barricade as the Zulus surge over the undefended abandoned barricades.

With only half of the redoubt built, now the east side of the defences were under pressure from the Zulus with a new breach to worry about in the Kraal.

Zulus enter the Kraal

With no chance of joining his comrades the last redcoat is killed on the hospital roof. With all the Patients are already dead inside the Zulus decide not to set fire to the hospital because with the sun setting, the light of the fire would aid the defenders shooting ability (or they forgot to bring the matches). 

, 

The British players look on as the Zulu players begin to apply pressure to the inner defences

The Zulus break into the Kraal on all sides  and begin slaughtering the British in there. Lt Bromhead brings troops out of the storehouse and wants them to charge into the Kraal but Chard and Dalton advice against it as they will be needed for the final defence. 

The Zulus from the west side charge across the abandoned outer defences and although losing a few to the British rifles they start reaching the Biscuit box barricade.

Lt Bromhead has 3 men still trying to complete the redoubt, he needs to get 9 or more with 3D6 and gets only 8. So the redoubt remains uncompleted.  With the fighting getting desperate the men pick up their rifles as they are needed now to man the defences.

 With the Kraal now in Zulu hands the British try to defend the inner wall

      

But with only wounded soldiers to stop them the Zulus breakthrough the Biscuit box barricade.

Now with the Zulus from the south side finally charging, all the Zulu regiments are involved in the last attack but there is less than half an hour left to play. The British players are counting down the minutes.

Lt Bromhead joins the others in the redoubt. 

The Zulus begin to attack in strength over the storehouse roof pushing the British (including Colour Sergeant) back.

          Lt Chard is surrounded by Zulus and unable to retreat to the Redoubt but manages to kill two of his attackers with his revolver.

Despite their best efforts the Zulu players could not get enough of the Zulus over the barricades and the Relief column was sighted coming over the drift by the Indunas on the hilltop in the early morning light.

Just as everything seemed lost to the British players the Zulus suddenly break off their attack and skulk away into the early morning shadows. 

Juan Marcos, celebrating the win by getting into character with my new helmet, although his character Commissary Dalton was killed on the ramparts.

So Lt Chard and Lt Bromhead survived the battle, also Sergeant Bourne  (still on the storehouse roof), Pvt Williams and Yankee Dan the ferryman. Unfortunately Dick the Dog was killed defending his master in the hospital. 

Another fantastic game and day enjoyed by all, also my friends left me speechless when they presented me totally unexpected with a card and present (A new book about the Zulu wars). I will miss them all but will be sure to visit when there is a tournament in Alicante.  

Bolt action V2 Indices

 

                                                      Bolt action Version 2 Indices 

 En inglés existe la frase "better late than never" (más vale tarde que nunca) y tras el anuncio de la salida de la versión 3 de Bolt Action, este es definitivamente el caso! 

  Uno de los problemas del libro de reglas de Bolt Action es que no tiene índice, y con las reglas repartidas en diferentes secciones, sin duda lo necesita.

En 2016, Bolt Action V2 salió, el blog Sitio Demogamers amablemente publico un índice Inglés en Internet (ver https://www.bruggies.com.au/Wargaming/BoltActionIndexV2.pdf). Investigué cuales era los terminos de dicho índice en castellano, como parte de un pequeño ejercicio de aprendizage de español y familirzarme con las palabras que son totalmente diferente, por ejemplo "Sniper" - francotirador.

Parte de este progreso consistía en haber elaborado un índice para el Libro de Reglas. Lo siento de nuevo por el retraso, pero con las nuevas reglas que no salen hasta septiembre, creo que todos tendremos algunos juegos por delante donde un índice puede tener alguna utilidad. 

También he añadido las últimas (y últimas) referencias a páginas de FAQ para las erratas del reglamento.

Puede descargar el índice en el siguiente enlace

https://drive.google.com/file/d/12NivjjnRkd-TyuL_Z0RID3kiq4QdPt55/view?usp=sharing

Bolt Action Terrain Layout Generator

 

Bolt Action Terrain Layout Generator

Introduction

Unlike some other wargames, Bolt action doesn’t have any rules for setting up terrain for a game. This can

lead to either players putting symmetrical scenery on both sides of the table. So neither player is deemed to

have an unfair advantage or the other extreme where one side has too much cover and terrain and winning

the game just comes down to which player rolls high to pick the best side. Personally I sometimes find

that I have the same ideas when placing the terrain so I feel that most of my tables appears the same. In war,

leaders didn’t usually get a chance to pick their terrain, they had their orders to defend or take an objective

and so use the local terrain as best they could to complete the mission. Therefore I have written a terrain

layout generator that can be tweaked to be as balanced or unbalanced as you wish. 

Due to the Second World War being fought all over the world (the clue is in the name). The terrain can be

different depending on the region from Deserts of North Africa, Jungles of Burma to the Snow covered

mountains of Norway. For this article I will be preparing to play in a typical western European region

although the same principle can be used to prepare a table for any region. 

The Set up Stage

Split the table into 24 12” squares, this can be easily done by placing markers such as washers, bases or

even figures, place them 12” apart to make the inner corners of the squares.

Red dots are where the markers are placed

The Road layout

With our chosen region being Western Europe there is a good chance of there being a road on the table. If

you are preparing a region that has a lesser chance of a road for example, a jungle or desert table,

roll 1D6,

1-3 no road

4-6 a road.

Otherwise roll 1D6 and place the road from the result on your table. The roads are designed so that they

can't be driven straight across in one turn. Roll 1D6 and place the roads down first according to the resulting

map below, make sure they go through the correct squares on the table. On the rare occasion you want or the

scenario requires a river (see section at the end of the article) place the river before laying the road. 

Generating the terrain

For each side of the table you need a deck of 12 normal playing cards, 3 terrain cards(red number cards),

3 building (red picture cards)and 6 open ground (black spades or clubs ) cards. This combination is for a

normal generic table. if you want a more dense terrain then add more terrain cards equally to each side or

more buildings and ruins if you want a built up city board etc. Shuffle the deck and place the cards face

down left to right in the two rows of squares in the first player's half. Then turn each card over:

Black card:  It is open ground and no terrain is placed

Red number card: Terrain card roll 1D6

1-3 Field, roll 1D6 again, 1-3 field rough  4-5 field with crops/fence  6 field/crops with wall.

4-5 Wood roll 1D6 again, 1 orchard with fence 2 orchard with wall 3-6 dense wood. 

6 Hill , roll 1D6 again, 1-4 open gentle Hill  5-6 rough ground, steep hill. 

Red picture card; Building card roll 1D6

1-2 Ruin.

3-5 House, roll 1D6 again,  1-4 :Single house, 5-6  2 Storey house.

6    Large building.

Building’s garden/yards

When placing a building or ruin roll to see if the building has a garden. Roll 1D6 if they have a boundary

outside even it is a ruin

1-2 no garden, 3-4 fenced garden  5-6 walled garden.

Now roll 1D6 to see which side of the house the garden is on

1-2 front of the house 3 right hand side 4 left hand side 5-6 rear of the house. 

Size of the terrain

Terrain should be at least roughly 9-10” square

Alignment of the terrain

If the terrain piece is in the same square as a road then it is placed adjacent to the road on the side that

has the most space in the square. If it is a building ,the face with the front door will always be the side of

the building facing the road.

Orientation of the terrain

When placing the actual terrain in their appropriate sectors that has no roads throw 1D6 

Choose one side of the piece of terrain e.g front of a house, next throw 1D6 

1 two o’clock 2 four o’clock 3 six o’clock(south) 4 eight o’clock 5 ten o’clock 6 12 o'clock (north)

Place the terrain with the side you have chosen in the square facing the direction that was the result

on the die. Some terrain may not fit all in their allocated square e.g a large building with a fenced garden.

Do not worry as long as there is room in the adjacent square.  Another simple solution is to just roll a Bolt

Action Order dice and face the chosen side in the direction of the arrow on the dice.

Fences and walls

Now roll for each road in a square for a linear obstacle (fence etc) to be placed along each side of the road.

If the side of the road already has a piece of terrain on it do not roll for the obstacle

Roll 1D6

1-3 No linear obstacle

4-5 Fence (soft cover)

6    Wall (hard cover)

   

When all the cards have been turned over and the terrain placed, reshuffle the deck and place each card

from left to right on the other side of the table. Repeat the turning over and placing the terrain as above.

A table ready for Bolt Action generated from the procedure explained above.

Rivers and waterways

I have not included rivers in the generator rules, however if the scenario or mission requires a river

Roll 1D6 for each the result decides which side the river enters and exits the table, Place the river on the

table before placing roads and terrain etc. 

Rivers can be crossed by bridges by all types of units  

Rivers can be shallow or deep, roll 1D6 1-4 shallow river, 5-6 deep river. 

A shallow river can be crossed by infantry and cavalry units anywhere on the board as if it was rough

terrain. Vehicles can only cross if there is a bridge or ford(counts as rough for wheel and infantry, counts

as open for tracked vehicles.

A deep river can only be crossed by all types of units by a bridge. 

For playability there should be at least three bridges(fords) across the river even if the board has no roads.

If the board has roads, anywhere that the road crosses a river if it is a shallow river throw 1D6 1-3 it is a

ford 4-6 it is a bridge. If it is a deep river then place a bridge. If there is still less than 3 crossings then

roll 1D6 and count the result in squares from left to right, place the extra crossing on the river in that

square. Repeat until there are at least three crossing points, If the square already has a bridge in it roll again.

A river crossing board

Conclusion

As I have already explained before, this is just a generic example for you to add your own ideas. For

instance if you are generating a Normandy region you may want to add bocage to the fields and the linear

obstacles on the side of the roads. therefore the Fences and walls parameters would be something like:

Roll 1D6

1-2 Fence (soft cover)

3-5 Bocage (Hard cover, blocks line of sight unless unit is touching)

6    Wall (hard cover) 

If you only have a certain amount of terrain then just give them a specific playing card as reference

e.g Queen of diamonds = church, five of hearts = walled field etc. Just make sure the two decks of cards

for each side of the table have the same amount of hard and soft cover areas in them. 

Once all the terrain has been set, each player rolls a dice to who has the choice of which side they want

to deploy on.