I have been thinking on how to represent these actions of the Anglo-Zulu War. Part of me wants to do something at a lower level and feature just a company of British troops on the table at once. The other part of me wants to do something with a figure ratio that shows a larger part of the battle at once. I am thinking the second option will ultimately end up winning.
It is interesting to look at these battles and not get pulled into the near futility of the Zulus attempting to break British troops when they were entrenched. Such actions are less interesting to me as I cannot see how to model them any other way then a "Zap the Zulu" type game. What is more interesting is when the Zulus were implementing their tactics against the British when the British were on the move. Here it seems that the Zulus actually have a chance of achieving victory.
I am going to try to play around with this some before I order the figures. I think I will use my Napoleonic Brits as stand ins for the British and use my Dark Age Saxons as stand ins for the Zulus just to see how some things work out.
Lastly, I would like to extend a warm welcome to the newest followers on the blow: SA Roe and David. David runs the Lead Warrior Blog. Sa Roe runs the blog Fflumpfs in the Pantry if you have a blog, please let me know and I will update the post.
Thanks for the welcome
ReplyDeleteThank you for following.
DeleteThe Zulu Wars are a difficult one to do, Postie has got a massive 6mm army,but we've yet to play a game with them.
ReplyDeleteIt is a tough period to play where it would be fun for the Zulu player.
DeleteZulu war figures are fun to paint. Only for that I would buy them! :-D
ReplyDeleteGreetings
Peter
They are intriguing. I will at the very least buy an OG bag of 50.
DeleteIn the PSL Guide to Wargaming Ted Herbert suggest a British battalion of 32 figures. 8 companies with 4 sections in each (about 20-25:1 man-to-figure ratio).
ReplyDeleteThat always seemed a good size to me, makes for an impressive unit, but would allow companies to be detached, although at 4 figs, not so impressive. (You could do a Young/Lawford and make a battalion 4 cos. @ 8 figures).
At that figure ratio you would only need 800-1000 zulus to do Isandlwana!
The Sword and The Flame does a battalion of two companies of two platoons (sections?) of 20 figures. So 84 or so figures. Which could double for a company at 1:1 skirmish scale.
Thanks for the welcome! I do have a blog, http://flumpantry.blogspot.com/ but it is RPG oriented, and I don't post much, so not likely to be of much interest. Most of my 'hits' seem to come from internet webcrawling programs.
I updated the post with your blog info. Interesting stuff. The scale is just so off with the massive hordes of Zulus that this will be tough to figure out.
DeleteDid you get any further with your Anglo Zulu project?
ReplyDeleteEver so slowly. I have three bases of infantry done and two leaders. I have a few more to do and many more to buy. They paint pretty quickly but my attention flits around too much.
Delete