Evo Zulu.. you input

[soulman]

musician and, what, a couple of runners...?

TRAITS

Musician : remove 1 surpression yo all within 10" reaction range, but only if not surpressed yourself or in hand to hand

The colours : maybe if the colours are taken, all units withing 10" are surpressed, with a knocked on rolling effect to all within each other unit...?

Runners : if AMMO rules are used this can stop the effect... as i said, counting the 1`s rolled when shooting etc..

Just early morning ideas straight out of my head........

 

[Rick]

I was thinking that the musician might do the same job as the radio op in modern squads, allow the officer to promote. Colour Sgt. was the rank, like Company Sergeant in US companies. I don't think individual companies had their own colours, I think that there was a colour party at battalion level. But good ideas. I was thinking that any out of command units in sight of the colours could act as if they weren't until a leader could be promoted.

 

[soulman]

Instead of promotion, reading the rulebook you have the trait " Independent " which helps to from a new unit out of command, maybe some thing like that, or cannot go out of command at all as long as the colours fly near byin reaction range...... then again reading the book, it does sound just like field promotion..!!!

But a risk of losing the colours should have a extra also....

or something like "Leader " from the MEA, a bonus third action to the unit the colours are with...?

one idea for the colours, and one for the drummer boys...?

Keep up the good work

Alan

 

[soulman]

Me again.. just reading the ww2 rules and we also have the following ideas to use

page 39 : Retreat rules, maybe having the colours with reaction range stops the 1" fallback per model lost...

other traits

Fearless

Dedicated ( us paras ) page 129

Dedicated sounds good infact,

Question is in the heat of battle what do having the colours next to you mean, and also having musicians playing, what does that do as well...

Both must boost morale, but losing the colours must be shocking... i`m thinking more of sharpe now thee tv show....

Time for a bath............

 

[Rick]

Ok. Standards/Colours and musicians had 2 separate functions, but you wanted both to be near the commanding officer. Musicians were there, not for morale-boosting music, but to relay orders further than a shout; if you consider, in a battle, everyone's shouting, so a bugle call would cut through that easily. The colours were there to provide a central rallying point, for the battalion or unit to re-form around. The morale effect comes from the fact that the kings/queens colours are given to the regiment actually or symbolically, by the reigning monarch and have the units battle honours on it, which they are only allowed to put on by permission of said reigning monarch! It becomes a visible sign of the honour and pride of the regiment!

As to what sort of musicians; in the napoleonic era, all line infantry units used the drum, light infantry used the bugle. By the colonial era, I think all Infantry units used the bugle, although they still had drums. I think. Any confirmation?

 

[emperorpenguin]

Need to see the film and find out about the rifles they used, are they " slow " and need a action to reload etc..

Martini-Henry rifles firing .450 bullets. They were not "slow" per se but they did suffer from overheating and powder fouling after repeated fire.

zulus without shields save of 6+ : fast and nimble
zulus with shields a save of 5+ : hard to see the target behind shield, even that the bullet go right though

Personally I'd not give Zulus a save because the heavy rounds just tore through those cowhide shields and often through more than one zulu. The impis tended to be fairly closely packed, enough that most fire would strike a target.

Also don't forget many zulus carried guns. Mostly obsolete flintlocks but some had access to more modern guns, either bought from european traders or taken from fallen europeans.


PS: Oh and DEFINITELY watch "Zulu". "Zulu Dawn" isn't quite so good but should still be seen. For books the "Washing of the Spears". The Osprey series will give you organisation info.

PPS: Bear in mind that at Rorke's Drift only 17 soldiers died! The movie makes it seem many times that number!

 

[Hiromoon]

Even if we were going with 'slow' for the Martini-Henry, I'd suggest giving British soldiers (and any trained colonial regulars) a special rule allowing them to ignore the Slow trait on the rifle.

 

[pelarel]

I seem to remember watching a doco on the zulus and on the night before battle a small (relatively speaking) number of zulus would get drugged up tp their eyeballs and really wound up by the witch doctors. on the day they'd be used as 'line breakers' because they were completely psychotic! Apparently used to great effect at Isandhlwana
an 'elite' unit perhaps? not sure if any traits from SST would help - I only have WaW on the shelf

 

[emperorpenguin]

I saw that same documentary and it was terrible. Really took the attitude "how could european soldiers be beaten unless the zulus had some secret weapon. Nonsense.
The British at Isandlwana were simply, over-confident, unprepared and had ammunition problems. No need for Zulu berserker stuff.

 

[MarkNorfolk]

My Osprey book does mention zulu warriors undertakinf rituals to make them believe they were immune to British rifle rounds.

Re: breaking a charging mass of Zulus - how about a new trait

Supression Vunerable
When this unit is the target of ranged fire the attacker roles a number of additional d6 equal to the number of 'base' attack dice. These dice can only supress but count as having the 'Auto' Trait.

...this allows a large number of Zulus to be supressed without wiping them out to do so...

Cheers
Mark

 

[emperorpenguin]

My Osprey book does mention zulu warriors undertakinf rituals to make them believe they were immune to British rifle rounds.Cheers
Mark

Yes just the same as the Indians' Ghost Dance and Boxer Chinese "invulnerability". That wasn't why they won however.

 

[JayRaider]

I remember seeing a documentary which suggested that the ammunition boxes lids were fawlty and took ages to open.
A bad situation is your being swamped with Zulu.
Also, that the British were deployed to far apart in a skirmish line.

 

[soulman]

The "Save" i talked about was not for the shields stopping the bullet, but hard to hit the person behind the shield, if you aimed at the center of the shield and he was alittle to the left the bullet would go passed...

A save of a 5+ and that can be used for close combat attacks too, and of course a Kill of 6+ means a lovely head shot...!!!!

Could give the rifle a piecing/1 for the heavy round, that may help, it then be a save 6+ ?

 

[emperorpenguin]

The "Save" i talked about was not for the shields stopping the bullet, but hard to hit the person behind the shield, if you aimed at the center of the shield and he was alittle to the left the bullet would go passed...?

......and hit anyone of his 400 mates in the impi behind him......

And the shield does not cover the whole body!
You can still see the legs, weapon arm and head! This isn't the Matrix! Wrong movie! Giving them a save game wise would make it too hard for the British, imagine 1 in 3 hits doing nothing.
Close combat save is fine, but against shooting? Very bad idea for so many reasons.

 

[Lord David the Denied]

Give them a 6+ dodge save, like the SAS get in MC...

 

[pelarel]

My Osprey book does mention zulu warriors undertakinf rituals to make them believe they were immune to British rifle rounds.Cheers
Mark

Yes just the same as the Indians' Ghost Dance and Boxer Chinese "invulnerability". That wasn't why they won however.

hmmm, maybe we didn't see the same programme, the zulu ritual part was more of an aside, a general part on zulu tactics - the field archeologists did make the case that the skirmish line was far more dispersed than was usual, the camp was badly sited for defence (can't remember the exact details - it was a few years ago) the ammo supplies were too far from the skirmish line and , as previously mentioned on this thread, the rifles were prone to fouling and jamming after protracted use.

I believe that one of the factors given for the successful defence of Rourke's Drift was that they were also a supply depot and each man had several rifles to hand so as one became too hot/fouled it could be discarded and another used allowing the defenders to keep up a steady rate of fire.

 

[emperorpenguin]

It was the same documentary I'm sure, "The Real Zulu Dawn". Most of it was accurate as you said, the skirmish line spread too thin, bad defensive site etc. I just hated the way they left the "super Zulu warriors" to the finale in that tv way of saying "and here is the real reason..."

I'm not aware of there being several rifles per man. It was a food storage outpost. There was only a company's worth of ammunition so I doubt that there was a great store of rifles.
Apart from the overheating of the rifles there was a problem with recoil hurting shoulders so much that by the end they were holding the rifles outstretched or just propping them on mealie bags to fire!
The defences were the most important factor in the victory.

 

[MarkNorfolk]

Just a thought that came to me earlier today...

For what may be a balanced game the Zulu player is faced with the logistical nightmare of carting around a shed load of figures as well as the morale nightmare of most of those (what? Target 2+, save -, Kill 4+) figures coming off the table PDQ. Perhaps the Zulus need to take advantage of the Arachnid 'Endless Tide' ability?

Cheers
Mark

 

[emperorpenguin]

target 2+ seems a bit low. 4+ or 5+, what are most infantry in WaW?

Endless tide would be a good rule

 

[Alexb83]

Another issue to take into account is that the Martini Henri rifles had an issue with clearing spent rounds as the rifle warmed up and fouled with black powder.

You could go back to some sort of 'out of ammo' or 'weapon jammed' mechanic for successive volleys, to try and rein them in.