Battles for Empire Game: Roark's Drift

A few students joined me after school today to reenact the brave stand at Roark's Drift.  I had purchased the 15mm boxed set from Old Glory quite awhile back and have never actually played a game with it, so today was the day.  We tried to use Battles for Empire, and while it allowed us to play the game with a couple of adjustments, this is more of a skirmish game than that set of rules supports.  Be that as it may, two British players squared off against three Zulu commanders and we were off.

The Zulus began in a big clump at one end of the table.  There were 27 units of four stands each broken down into seven different commands.  The defenders had 20 stands of three men each to start with, but it became apparent that there were far too many men so I subtracted six of the stands, much to the dismay of the colonial commanders.  It made for a much better game, however.

The Zulu strategy was to attack head on with the "chest" of their formation and then surround the remainder of the compound with their "horns."  This worked rather well.  The Brits massed their few figures against the first attack and then were hard pressed to maneuver them to other parts of the perimeter as the battle progressed.  They moves more slowly than the Zulu to begin with, and then suffered an additional penalty when they tried to traverse the interior lines they constructed with biscuit boxes and mealie bags. 

Although the Zulu masses suffered massive casualties, their superior numbers proved decisive at a couple of point and the defenses were breached.  Once that happened, the battle was pretty much over.

Here are a few pictures:

The defenders

The Zulus approach from the distance

The strategy becomes apparent

The battle is joined