Good to be back after the festive bacchanal; Steve S, Andy P, Mark and Dave K played Zombiecide (and may have survived), while Rob and friend were playtesting a set of SF skirmish rules he’d found online.
I had set up a Zulu War confrontation for the benefit of Steve H and Nigel, who is making a return to the hobby after a decades’ long layoff. The British column of three infantry and one mounted infantry units were tasked with a punitive raid of a Zulu kraal whose inhabitants had developed an unpleasant habit of ‘borrowing’ other people’s cattle from the British side of the border. The Zulus were unsurprisingly not willing to cooperate; Steve was playing the Zulus using the Mr. Babbage rules from The Men Who Would Be Kings (the rules of choice for this game) which meant their movement and actions were controlled by a roll of dice.
This got very messy, very quickly. The Zulus deployed immediately on three sides of the British force, wiping out three of the four units within three moves. Zulu losses were also high when the British got a chance to shoot, but by game’s end the British were reduced to four figures from the 24th Regiment (how appropriate!) while the table was ‘littered’ with Zulu casualties. Nigel was grinning all through the game, so despite his losses, I believe he enjoyed the game.
Next week I’ll run a Lion Rampant based Dark Ages game, and I understand that there are board games planned as well.
See yer soon,
Neil
