Rorkes Drift, another BattleCry game

Anthony has taken delivery of the Rorke's Drift compound, commissioned from Mike Lewis of Imperial Miniatures, who designed it for use with the BattleCry or Portable Wargames rule systems.  As with our previous Risorgimento game there is a scenario sheet for playing Rorke's Drift using BattleCry on the Command and Colours website, so we decided to give it a spin, here's how it went:

An overview of the compound model, designed in modular form for ease of storage and transport, it can be reconfigured for other scenarios.

All of the figures are from Anthony's Zulu War collection and are made by Little Legion Toy Soldiers they really are a joy to game with.

The mechanics of the game require the British defenders to withstand three waves of Zulu attacks.  A wave is repulsed when four Zulu units have been destroyed, the Zulus then return to their starting positions to begin the next attack wave.  All Zulu units are reinstated at the start of each new wave to represent their overwhelming numbers.  

At the end of each attack wave the defenders are allowed to rearrange their formations within the compound but their casualties are not replaced, so the garrison is being steadily depleted.  Victory objective for the Zulus is to destroy all the British units.

The first Zulu assault inflicted casualties but couldn't breach the mealie bag walls before being beaten off

The second wave approached more cautiously and succeeded in breaking into the compound but concentrated fire from the redcoats drove them back and they were repulsed again. 

The defenders were now severely depleted as the third wave breached the wall in several places, then just when it looked like they would be overwhelmed they managed to regroup and hold the line.  (Just like in the movie!)

So a close run win to the Brit's.  The format of  the successive attack waves worked very well and would convert easily to non grid based games, particularly any siege games.