ZULU's!!!!!!!

This Saturday I had the chance to refight the Battle of Ishwalanda at a game hosted by Tony J.    Tony is pictured to the left explaining how his very elegant rules for the game work.

The day started out as a nice walk across the savanna for Bob and my British troops.

I was given Durnford's calvary command and guarded the right flank of the British line.  Being over-confident, I elected to try and replicated Durnfords fighting withdraw and dismounted on a ridge to await the enemy.

Then some new friends showed up to the party...

Zulus, lots of Zulus.  My poor troopers just didn't have enough bullets.  The colored markers represent ammo status - red is critical and black is out.

The combination of low ammo and poor marksmanship meant that the Zulus pretty much crashed into my line and like that about half my troopers evaporated.  The remains of my command managed to scamper back to the main line of resistance and reload.

The Zulus started taking casualties but started to overlap our lines.  Tony had some really cool surprises - including adding table space on the right flank to allow those speedy Zulus to bypass my troopers.  It was a fantastically. played surprise!  There was also a tray of hidden Zulus that joint the battle midway on our extreme left flank.  Really superb GM skills for Tony.

Our lines kept shrinking until we were finally overwhelmed.  The grey and brown rocks mark casualties as they occurred.  Tony called the game a minor British victory but I think all the credit needs to go to the Zulu players as they were both very good opponents and fun to play.

Thanks Tony for a grand day of gaming!