Rorke's Drift 11th Jan. 1879.

Last night we fought a "what if?" scenario,featuring the initial invasion of Zululand via the crossing at Rorke's Drift,and what another grand game it turned out to be!

Top photo is the scenario,bottom is the map taken from Ian Knight's Rorke's Drift book.
Dave,Brian and I were the Zulu commanders,whilst Paul and Graham were in charge of the British and allies.

This shows the table(minus the Zulu army!) with the NNC and allied horse crossing on both flanks,the British camp is in the process of being established in the centre-what a peaceful scene!

OMG!! where did they come from?? As Dave,commanding the right horn,and Brian,commanding the left horn,advance ,my centre regiments come onto the board-29 regiments so far,with a further 8 regiments in reserve,if we need them-things are looking black(no pun intended!) for the British.Both Graham and Paul needed to consolidate their positions-and quickly!!

My attack on the camp develops nicely,but a couple of well-aimed artillery shots,from Graham's batteries,stopped one of my front line regiments,that,combined with Paul's volley fire,almost stopped the whole attack!!!But what of the horn attacks?????

Top photo shows Dave's regiments moving towards the river bank,but he encountered a bit of resistance from Paul's NNC,which held him up a bit-bottom photo shows Brian's regiments forming up to charge Graham's British-he also set his NNC on the Zulu,which also held Brian up for a while too!!

The camp is well and truly under pressure now! and both flanks are also under so much pressure,that,if they were a bunch of grapes,they would have been wine by now!!!

Without drink even being involved,Paul for some inexplicable reason sent two companies of the 24th into an abandoned kraal,and was assailed by 4 of my regiments!!-what followed was the stuff of legends and "last stands",but eventually both companies were wiped out!!!!-in the background you can see Dave's regiments have crossed the river and are attacking the troops on the hill.

Brian has pushed Graham's troops back into the river,and,despite an heroic effort,the flank was lost-hurrah!!

Dave is "washing " his spears in British blood! and Paul's command has collapsed-another hurrah!!

One last shot-the flanks have gone and the camp is in Zulu hands-all is lost,and with cries of "back to the mission station boys!" the British have lost-back to the "drawing board" should really be the cry!!
Another exciting game,full of tension,colour and jolly banter-roll on next week,we haven't had a Horse and Musket game for a while,so you never know!!