Zulu Kraal

Done a bit of scenery for an upcoming game , a few zulu huts,  with resin huts being beween £8 and £20 each and none of them being totally acurate I thought I couldnt go far wrong having a go myself and here are my  scratch built  huts less than £15 the lot . Im impressed any way

a very board looking 24th foot looks for treasure

28mm empress miniature for scale 

Zulu -

After my recent trip to Zululand , I dug out my Anglo Zulu war armies and I am looking at doing a participation game on behalf of Sheffield Wargames Society at ashow in the future , I have 2 scenarios in mind so thought I would look at rules , I do like my own set and they played well on their first convention at Sheffiled Triples afew years ago but thought I would try the osprey set " the men who would be kings " (tmwwbk) .So dug out a few figures and played a small game to get use tothe rules and really enjoyed them , there are a few zulu amendments on the facebook page and you do get afst and furious game with a feel for the period , played them solo using the Mr Babbage rules included in the book  .Will try them out again with a living partner and with a more complex scenario but so far Im liking what I see.

The first turn 

A unit moves up to support their comrades

another sets up a firing line in front of the camp

the zulus advance

3 more zulu units advance on to the table 

some long range shooting hits the Zulus pinning them 

some great dice sending all the zulus charging towards the thin red lines

some very lethal close combat in turn 3 

the british start to fall back into the camp the unit on the left managed to destroy a zulu unit 

end of turn 4 only 2 small groups of Brits are left , a dark day for the empire .

Spectre Operations -1st game

We played our first game tonight ,using the basic rules we played the Gather Intel scenario with 6 SAS v 12 Militia , it started off well for the special forces boys put quickly went down hill with awful dice rolls from me amd fantastic shooting from Johns militia , a fast bloody game which we enjoyed and will play again with the advanced rules .

Spectre Operations v2 -preparation for 1st game

The second Edition of Spectre Operations arrived last week which spurred me into getting stuff ready for a few scenarios and possibly a campaign , the 2nd edition is much better laid out than the 1st and appears to be a great game ,we will find out at the club on wednesday . To help with scenarios and such I have done a bit of background fluff based on 3 of my favourite Africa in Flames type movies ,the wild geese ,Guns at Batasi and Dark of the Sun all great films with great characters .

The Fluff

The African country of Zembala is a ally of Great Britain since being a British Protectorate up until the mid 60;s when independence tore the country apart , a mercenary group rescued President Limbani and contary to news reports at the time he wasnt killed but was put back into power by the British , popular leader but internal unrest still exsists with a anti government militia led by General Ndofa ,these are sometimes backed by a group of religious Insurgents led by an ex military leader captain Abraham . The British have a training ground at Batasi and special forces regulary go on ops with a team of Zembalan regular troops and rumour has it most of the Simbas as the Zembalen team  are known ,victorys are actually the work  of the SAS.

Figures are all Spectre ,vehicles are die casts and the pick ups are antenocities resin 

The Zembalen Simbas often work with British Forces

The SAS mainly train and carry out ops in the Bush 

Although they have undertaken ops in towns and villages 

Snipers no one is sure if they are Brits or Zembalans 

The Militia make attacks all across the country

The insurgents ,religous fanatics often work with the militia 

Seven Days to the River Rhine

Great Escape Games new rules for 1980's cold war games arrived ,aimed at lots of armour for quick play and after a quick look through they seem ok .Card covers and 44 pages in colour they come with a deck of tactical advantage cards.
The rules require D10; and D6's measurements in  inches and its ayou go I go type . Everything seems to laid out in a nice order and clear to read , a nice gimicky thing is on some pages there are bar codes which when scanned with your i phone show rule example videos . One vehicle represents one real vehicle , infantry sections are abit abstract and don't need to show specific weapons and can be represented by what ever bases you have around , ATGW are required to be based seperatelyand classed as support stands , a 1000 point army consists of around 3 MBT,s 6 infantry sections with APC's and a attack helicopter to give you an idea of what toys you will need..Command tokens are spent to give units orders , a down side is no tokens are given with the rules ,you have to make your own or buy the MDF ones from great escape but anything will do really . There is a scenario section with 4 scenarios you are left to decide army size etc. The orbit section covers France ,USA,GB, West Germany, Canada,Denmark, Netherlandsand Belgium for NATO players with the Soviet Union covering warpac. At first glance they lok nice and appear to be straight forward enough , we will play them soon as we have plenty of Cold War Kit in 20mm .Downside as stated no counters , no seperate quikplay sheets although it would be easy to photocopy and the cards are pretty basic when compared to other games glossy card decks .

Nice cover art

some background info

lots of colour pics

the bar code brings up play examples on your phone 

army lists with a points system 

the advantage cards can be played at any point in the game to give you an advantage ?

Frostgrave -1st campaign game

A few pics of our game of Frostgrave at Sheffield Wargames Society ,we palyed the mausoleum scenario from the main rule book a fast and furious game ,great fun and easily picked up ,looking forward to the next installment

The Cultural Experince Zululand Tour - a review

The tour I have described over the last few posts was for me abucket list item ,not only visiting the AZW battlefelds but also meeting Ian Knight not the cheapest holiday and there are cheaper tours to Zululand but they do not cover as much .

Pre Holiday - Great service from TCE and we received a fantastic holiday itinerary booklet which contains a very in depth guide to the Zulu war by Ian Knight containg some nice maps .

Flights - the flights from and to the UK as well as the internal flight to Durban were all BA and included meals and drinks , a very long flight I don't fly very well but others were snoring away for most of the 12 hours .

The Guide -What can I say Ian Knight is a fantastic guy ,not only full of expert knowledge but has areal passion for his subject ,his talks were informative and funny at the right points and he was excellent company during our down time , Paul the tour manager teeamed up with us at Durban and again was abrilliant guy , ex SA army and an architect by trade who only does the tours because of his love of the subject and his friendship with Ian ,again a great man to talk with full of amazing stories and again a brilliant sense of humour .Our driver April was a very intelligent guy speaking 11 languages and was full of fun and soon like one of the gang .

Hotels - all amazing ,the staff ,food and accomodation all top rate ,first we stopped at Princes Grant a very upmarket golfing hotel set on the Indian Ocean , next Shakaland the cultural village built for the TV series Shaka Zulu set in the area were Shaka ruled ,then Itahla game reserve it was amazing waking up with the wildlife outside your doors to greet you and finally Isandlwana lodge where you were made to feel like part of the family and again 5 star service .Remeber though that this is Africa nd we did have afew power cuts ,internet is almost non existent and there are bugs,retiles  and animals which are frequent visitors to the rooms . Rooms ,all meals ( which were superb) and drinks with meals are included .

The Tours - Amazing , we saw all the big battle sites and places of interest plus almost every day we took short detours to take in remote graves or vantage points used by the armies and Ians stories just brought it all together superbly .All museum and entrance fees are included .We also saw alot of modern Zulu life which has not changed much in the last 100 years and we had am amazing evening safari included as well .
At Rorkes Drift I sat and listened to another companies tour guide give a full description of the war from start to finish ,it took him 22 minutes ,answered no questions and included some real school boy errors so beware other trips?

Africa is wonderful ,the scenery the people ,the animals ,each night we sat and watched electrical storms light up the night sky ,really beautiful ,BUT the trip does have adown side ,its very energetic dont attempt it if you cant walk far or over very rugged ground , you need to take good wide brimmed hats ,lots of factor 50 sun screen and bug repellent ,long trousers and long socks with good walking boots .

I can only say do this trip if you have a serious interest in the AZW ,save up for it you wont regret it at all .
the link to the 2020 tour
 https://www.theculturalexperience.com/tours/the-zulu-war-battlefield-tour/?sid=1cd9f5313ac9718d7070a8c50da62d16

Zululand Tour -day 13 Helpmekaar & Boer War

Our final day and a long journey to the airport , we said our sad farewells ro Roz and the staff at Isandlwana and set off ,as it was along journey Ian and Paul broke it up with afew unadvertised stops ,firstly a quick drop in at Rorkes Drift so a few of the group could get a couple of pics they missed ,then we drove to Helpmekaar , the staging post for Chelmsfords men before they moved to Rorkes Drift and where most of the survivors fom Isandlwana made for .Helpmekaar is Afrikans for "help each other " which refers to the transport "road" the trekkers built to ais each other up and down the hill to Helpmekaar ,today its a small village which is mainly abandoned stores and a large police station ,the military grave yard is behind this but you have to undertake a very rough walk to get to it crossing the police firing range , the graveyard is mainly troops who died of disease during the war .Next we travelled through Boer war country glimpsing Laings Nek before stopping at Majuba hill for a picnic lunch and a brief talk by Ian on the Boer war ,again this site was/is used by white supremacist types for meetings and had some very Nazi like sysmbols on the entrance gate . Finally the airport and home .An amazing experience .

Our Final Night at Isandlwana lodge

some of the amazing staff preparing our farewell meal 

and us doing our bit by eating it 

Our Groupstanding L-R Andy -Richmond-me -ElaineLarry -Jack_Andrew-Tim Kneeling Ian Knight -April-Paul Murais

The graves at Helpmekaar

The derelict buildings make the palce quite spooky

The transport road built by trekkers where Helpmekaar got its name 

The terrrain leading to Helpmekaar