Recently I dug out some very old photos – some of my very first records of wargaming and they included these Anglo-Zulu War game photos played with my good friend Wayne in the mid-1980’s (probably 1985 or possibly 1986). We used 1/72 ESCI figures primarily (as their 1879 British & Zulu Figures, along with the Crimean War Russian Infantry & Artillery, had just been released). We started out with the Anglo-Zulu war (including a multi-player campaign at one point) and then expanded to the Sudan and the North-West Frontier. However this is possibly one of our very first games, and is from the Anglo-Zulu war.
The Rules: Striker
It’s a strange thing to start a colonial wargaming post with a set of sci-fi wargaming rules, but there you are…
My friend Wayne was very industrious and over time converted numerous Airfix and ESCI figures for various Colonial and Native units and forces (but more on that later in a follow up post about his entire 1/72 scale plastic colonial era armies). The other unusual aspect was because we had been (and were still occasionally) playing a Traveller RPG campaign, and had the GDW Striker sci-fi wargaming rules as the campaign had included some large battles at one point; and Wayne (who was our Traveller GM and providing all the colonial figures) quite liked Striker, we started out playing our colonial wargames with a set of sci-fi rules! They kind of worked – but that we used them for colonial also really summed up 1980’s wargaming in general, in many ways, too I think (e.g. the level of detail and complexity, etc).
The Game Photographed
Anyway, the following photographs are of one of our early smaller Anglo-Zulu War colonial era games with Wayne’s figures. The British force pictured consists of the following:
- British Command (2 Mounted Officers) – from ESCI Zulu War British Infantry box converted from foot figure mounted on repurposed Airfix Cavalry Horses.
- Regiment of British ‘Recoat’ Infantry (1 Foot Officer & 23 Riflemen) – these are the classic Zulu War Range Figures from ESCI.
- RN Naval Landing Party (1 Foot Officer & 12 Sailors) – these were converted from Airfix World War I Germans. Wayne modelled these particular sailors (Naval Brigade) in white uniforms.
- Squadron British Cavalry (1 Mounted Officer & 4 Cavalrymen) – these are converted ESCI Zulu War British Infantry & Officers mounted on various appropriated Airfix Cavalry Horses.
- British Artillery Battery (1 Gun & Limber & 4 Crew) – The gun will be from the ESCI Crimean War Russians (or from the Airfix Waterloo British Royal Horse Artillery), Limber is from the Airfix Waterloo French Foot Artillery set, and crew converted from the ESCI Zulu War British Infantry again.
Zulus are obviously all from the ESCI Zulu War ‘Zulu Warriors’ set. They are in units of 24 (1 leader & 23 warriors) and looks like there are 6 units in the game photographed, plus a chief/leader on foot (so 145 ‘men’ versus the 48 British). And they are starting out well with coming at the British from the flank!
In hindsight a couple of the issues with using GDW’s Striker rules for these colonial games was the level of detail and the fact they were more aimed at modern to sci-fi combat. They worked but the level of detail and the morale rules, etc, tended to not favour the British forces as I recall, making it very difficult for them to avoid being overwhelmed by sheer numbers before Zulu morale failed enough to start breaking units – but they did work and we played many games using Striker!
Above the small British Cavalry Unit has charged a Zulu one (5 mounted vs. 24 foot) – brave but likely didn’t end well for the British Cavalry. Below we see the Naval Landing Party has almost completely about faced as the Zulus sweep round their flank and behind them – overrunning the artillery train (and very shortly the artillery crew). The cavalry charge above likely having provided the sailors the extra turn to do so (at the cost of the cavalry)…
Probably getting towards the end of the game below; The 13 man Naval Landing Party (which might be less as some may be wounded or dead from previous combat) get hit by a body of 2 Zulu units (48 figs) and behind them another Zulu unit (24 figs) has run down the British Artillery Crew who failed to flee (looks like 2 escaped in foreground and 2 are dead along with possibly one of the British mounted officers). These Zulus are now about to smash into the rear of the sailors if the latter survive their frontal onslaught. The artillery limber has fled; and in the background the remaining 2 Zulu units (48 men) are about to hit the flank of the British ‘Recoat’ Regiment (24 men & 1 mounted officer). I suspect this game did not end well for the British in the next couple of turns…
So that’s in – sorry a bit of a cliff-hanger but you’ll have to extrapolate out the final outcome! In a following post I’ll post some more about Wayne’s entire Colonial Wargaming collection and his various conversions (including several pictures). You’ll also note the bright enamel paint colours (almost toy soldier style), and that is for a reason – I’ll explain that too. Our Anglo-Zulu wargaming led on to the Sudan and the North-West Frontier (although my recollection is the majority of our games were the Zulu War).
The Rules Take 2: Soldiers of the Queen
In 1987 Table Top Games in the UK released “Soldiers of the Queen” (SotQ) covering the exact colonial period we playing and somehow by luck I can across them quite quickly (probably due to subscribing to both Practical Wargamer and Miniature Wargames magazines from the UK about that time and seeing it mentioned somewhere). SotQ sounded much more like what we needed and I quickly obtained a copy (I still have my original copy and have managed to keep it in very good condition). We initially set about playing a hybrid variant of the rules where we still used Striker for a couple of things and then used SotQ for the balance if I recall right, but not for too long.
Note the above ruleset is not to be confused with “Soldier of the Queen” written by Harold D. Martin and published in 1986 by Frontier Miniatures (USA). Or the Strategy & Tactics 1984 issue featuring the board game “Soldiers of the Queen” covering Isandhlwana 1879 and Omdurman 1898.
Ultimately we did move on to just use SotQ as written and played many games using these rules. The games (in my opinion) were a lot more balanced than with Striker and the British forces had much better chances of winning – although again if I recall it was still challenging to avoid defeat as the British player.
Post 1980’s Footnote: The Rules Take 3
Wayne and I (and some other friends) played colonial wargames with his 1/72 scale armies from 1985 until sometime around very early 1990’s or so. A couple of years after we stopped we both moved towns (to different ones) and never played this again. I then moved on to other wargaming interests (Ancients with DBA & DBM, WW2 & Modern Micro-Armour with Spearhead & Modern Spearhead, Renaissance with DBR, etc) – although I had always been keen on colonial gaming because Zulu is one of my all time favourite movies, and I had read lots of books related to colonial wars and /or wargaming (incl. Mr Featherstone’s various works)!
So it wasn’t until another good friend (Kieran) introduced me to The Sword and the Flame (TSATF) in the early 2000’s that I returned to colonial wargaming. The Sword and the Flame 20th Anniversary Edition was released in 1999 and this was the edition that got me enthusiastically back into colonial wargaming (I think nominally this is the 3rd edition for TSATF). And I’ve been actively playing 28mm scale colonial wargames since the mid-2000’s (incl. a semi-solo Sudan campaign that’s still technically underway – you can read the account so far starting here) thanks to Kieran and TSATF (the latter which, incidentally, was originally published by Larry V. Brom in the USA in 1979).
TSATF cover pictured above (Revision 1 from 1986 – which is essentially the 2nd edition of TSATF) is the one that was contemporary with Wayne and I first playing colonials in the 1980’s, and also with the Soldiers of the Queen rules in the UK. I do wonder what may have happened if we had had more visibility of US Wargaming and rules in New Zealand in the 1980’s as this US ruleset was comparable to (if not arguably better than) Soldiers of the Queen. One good thing is that both TSATF and SotQ are very comparable and use similar unit scales, modelling, etc – so many things such as army lists, scenarios, and some rules ideas can easily be used with each other. But my pick is TSATF is still had to beat for a fun and exciting game that both feels like a classic colonial battle but also has the dynamics of a good colonial history action movie!
Read more of my colonial gaming in the 21st century in my TSATF Colonial Game Posts.