Run for the Hills Redux

For the Saturday evening game at Fall In with Rob, I brought out my 10mm Anglo Zulu War stuff for a game using Dan Mersey's The Men Who Would Be Kings rules (TMWWBK). It would be a refight of the same scenario I games with Alex earlier this year. Essentially a British force gets points for crossing the length of the table and editing off the board. The Zulus are deployed on either flank and will try to stop them. The British have 3 infantry companies (A, B and C) and a unit of Natal Native Horse. The Zulus have 6 regiments, half are married veterans (better leadership) and half are unmarried (better at stabbing). 

The table layout with the British on the left. The gaming mat is from Cigar Box and the mountains are from Monster Fight Club. I purchased more of the mountains at the convention and you will see them in more battle reports (most likely TMWWBK and Krapistan).

My rather spiffy artistic rendering of the tabletop above, I've been making these for scenario printouts which contain units, game-specific special rules, etc. It helps me remember.

 

Some of the Zulu regiments (above and below) on display at full strength before the British Martini-Henry rifles punched holes in their masses. 

Of course when the Zulus did manage to make contact, they out their spears to good work. Early on, one of the infantry companies took massive casualties (above).

 

The NNH raced across the table and nearly made it across but we're caught by the Dust Raisers and wiped out (above).

The game played out very similar to the game with Alex, the British got bogged down in the first third of the table as the initial Zulu regiments forced them to stop moving and start shooting. Shaking off pinned markers, the Zulus ultimately overwhelmed the plucky Redcoats. No units made it across the table this time. 

We had a blast with TMWWBK, it was fun rolling buckets of dice and seeing mass casualties. It's a good ruleset if you want to push lead, roll dice and have a good time without thinking too hard (excellent for a Saturday night convention game). Rob and I both agreed it's a tough scenario for the British. Unless they blast away most of the Zulus, they won't be able to cross the table. 

I need to get more scenery (farmsteads, kraal, baggage) to play other scenarios. I also want to pick up some Boers and Pathans to allow me to game other conflicts like the First Anglo Boer War and 2nd Anglo Afghan War.