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Author Topic: Xhosa, Ninth Cape War, Special Rules?  (Read 16321 times)

Offline Plynkes

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Re: Xhosa, Ninth Cape War, Special Rules?
« Reply #15 on: February 05, 2015, 06:19:27 PM »
Possibly the (very) odd captured Henry Martini? I may include one pack from NS just to add some slight variation.

Yeah, that would be one way to justify them. But I don't think there were any mass slaughters so as to make them as commonplace as they may have been among the Zulu. Your fellow gamers would have to be very picky to give you grief over this. I would politely ask them to leave, or at the very least not let them have any cake.  :)



Ah, that's interesting, by this do you mean carrying them in hand or in a case like the Empress Native Horse? Or is this a question that is wildly up for debate?

I've not seen any images of Xhosa using spear quivers. I think that's more of a Basotho thing. I was thinking more of a bunch carried in the hands. The Xhosa were always more fond of skirmishing than getting stuck in Zulu-style, and pre-gunpowder warfare was generally conducted with a bunch of throwing spears carried in the left hand and thrown with the right (with one saved as a melee weapon for when the rest run out). There is an image from one of the earlier wars of a couple of spears (or possibly simply long sticks) being held in the left hand and employed as kind of bipod or musket rest. That's another possible idea you could toy with.


I'll probably order some shields from NS then. Thnat way they can be used as markers if needed or added to the warriors (again, if needed).

Note that the typical Xhosa shield has a single row of hide strips, rather than double row common with other Nguni peoples who adopted the Natal-type shield.

With Cat-Like Tread
Upon our prey we steal...

Offline Sirius

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Re: Xhosa, Eighth Cape War, Special Rules?
« Reply #16 on: February 06, 2015, 06:37:04 AM »
Pics of Xhosa:

The second pic is a famous (in local art history circles ;) ) Baines painting entitled "The Loyal Fingo" (i.e. Mfengu) - a very good study of a Mfengu irregular fighting for the British. Dont know the third one, but would think that it also depicts a pro-British Mfengu recruit.

Quote
Rules wise I would take a look at French Indian wars rules such as this very ground or even Muskets and Tomahawks. Used both and they work for Maori wars very well also used former for warfare in Brazil, again work well for ambush type game sand irregular warfare

Agree on using Muskets and Tomahawks - fun and fast ruleset, good management of spotting/hidden units, and plenty of scope for quirky Officer Traits and narrative game elements... Muskets and Assegaais (or more accurately Muskets & Izintshuntshe :) ) works for me... And the unit types/traits in M&T can easily be adapted to reflect the differences in troop quality on all sides of the Cape Wars - burgher commandos, provincials, civilians, irregulars, etc...

Thanks for all the figure recommendations - how do the 1st Corp figures match up with the Foundry and North Star (and Empress) ? I was under the impression they are fairly small?

Offline Atheling

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Re: Xhosa, Eighth Cape War, Special Rules?
« Reply #17 on: February 06, 2015, 08:20:31 AM »
The second pic is a famous (in local art history circles ;) ) Baines painting entitled "The Loyal Fingo" (i.e. Mfengu) - a very good study of a Mfengu irregular fighting for the British. Dont know the third one, but would think that it also depicts a pro-British Mfengu recruit.

Thanks for pointing that out  8).

Agree on using Muskets and Tomahawks - fun and fast ruleset, good management of spotting/hidden units, and plenty of scope for quirky Officer Traits and narrative game elements... Muskets and Assegaais (or more accurately Muskets & Izintshuntshe :) ) works for me... And the unit types/traits in M&T can easily be adapted to reflect the differences in troop quality on all sides of the Cape Wars - burgher commandos, provincials, civilians, irregulars, etc...

I'll give it some more consideration..... I don't actually own a copy but that can easily be remedied!

Thanks for all the figure recommendations - how do the 1st Corp figures match up with the Foundry and North Star (and Empress) ? I was under the impression they are fairly small? Of course, it would mean moving the thread to the Colonial Section if I decide on those rules  :)

They are. But, if I'm doing the 9th Cape War I can use the Foundry and north Star stuff (as in above post). They are more contemporary for the war it seems.

Darrell.

Offline Plynkes

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Re: Xhosa, Ninth Cape War, Special Rules?
« Reply #18 on: February 06, 2015, 09:05:16 AM »
I think the folks recommending rules have missed the point slightly, misunderstood the question, and also failed to notice what board this is.

I'm fairly sure Atheling has already picked T&T as his preferred ruleset, or he wouldn't have posted his thread here. I think he was interested in ideas for special rules for that set to reflect the conflict, not asking what rules set to use.

Having said that, Song of Drums and Tomahawks does sound interesting. I have the Fantasy and Napoleonic versions. I had toyed with the idea of using the latter for small colonial skirmishes one day but never did it. Tomahawks sounds like a more suitable version of 'songs' to play with, especially if your games are set in the rifled musket era.



Rather than imposing a general skittishness on the British troops, you might want to use some event cards that each player can play a limited number of during the game. These can add a bit of fun to T&T games. One could involve a bout of nervousness. That way the Xhosa can impose panic on specific units for a limited time without hamstringing the general effectiveness of the British troops.

One incident involved a British patrol being ambushed in dense terrain, and the men panicked when their officer was shot in the face at point-blank range, and the officer sent to replace him suffered a similar fate. The native levies bolted, taking some redcoats with them, and order was only restored when a sergeant took over and swore at the men until they recovered their calm.  :)

(You could probably make a few separate event cards out of all of that.)


Offline Sirius

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Re: Xhosa, Ninth Cape War, Special Rules?
« Reply #19 on: February 06, 2015, 09:16:33 AM »
I think the folks recommending rules have missed the point slightly, misunderstood the question, and also failed to notice what board this is.

I'm fairly sure Atheling has already picked T&T as his preferred ruleset, or he wouldn't have posted his thread here. I think he was interested in ideas for special rules for that set to reflect the conflict, not asking what rules set to use.


Sure.   o_o

Offline Lowtardog

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Re: Xhosa, Ninth Cape War, Special Rules?
« Reply #20 on: February 06, 2015, 10:35:05 AM »
Yup Guilty, hadn't noticed the board ;D mia culpa :)

The 1st corps figures are small, Polynikes gave a comparison with some for me a while back on just same question.

I did chop off heads and add Warlord heads (not for this period mind you) and it makes them closer and oddly enough they suffer form large hand syndrome, but the bigger heads seem to fit in better ;D

Offline Atheling

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Re: Xhosa, Ninth Cape War, Special Rules?
« Reply #21 on: February 06, 2015, 10:40:12 AM »
I think the folks recommending rules have missed the point slightly, misunderstood the question, and also failed to notice what board this is.

I'm fairly sure Atheling has already picked T&T as his preferred ruleset, or he wouldn't have posted his thread here. I think he was interested in ideas for special rules for that set to reflect the conflict, not asking what rules set to use.

This is very true  :) .

Having said that, Song of Drums and Tomahawks does sound interesting. I have the Fantasy and Napoleonic versions. I had toyed with the idea of using the latter for small colonial skirmishes one day but never did it. Tomahawks sounds like a more suitable version of 'songs' to play with, especially if your games are set in the rifled musket era.

I'll check out the rules anyway, I'm sure someone will have a copy I can have a look at.

Rather than imposing a general skittishness on the British troops, you might want to use some event cards that each player can play a limited number of during the game. These can add a bit of fun to T&T games. One could involve a bout of nervousness. That way the Xhosa can impose panic on specific units for a limited time without hamstringing the general effectiveness of the British troops.

One incident involved a British patrol being ambushed in dense terrain, and the men panicked when their officer was shot in the face at point-blank range, and the officer sent to replace him suffered a similar fate. The native levies bolted, taking some redcoats with them, and order was only restored when a sergeant took over and swore at the men until they recovered their calm.  :)

Some good ideas here, thenks again Plynkes  8). I think a concealment card or rule is going to be the order of the day.

[You could probably make a few separate event cards out of all of that.[/quote]

When I've worked out Picassa  lol Photoshop won't run on my new laptop!!! That was money well spent!!  :-[ :'(

Darrell.

Offline Jeff965

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Re: Xhosa, Ninth Cape War, Special Rules?
« Reply #22 on: February 06, 2015, 02:38:51 PM »
Hi Darrell,
With regards Skittish morale, we had a similar problem with EIC troops in the first Sikh War, especially at battles like Moodki. You need a mechanism that does not allow you to know what the troops reaction is going to be to any given morale test. I am not familiar with the morale rules in T&T but most morale rules work with the troop classification, ie elite, regular and poor etc etc.
Now what we did was simply roll a d6 before any morale test allocating the classification of the troops numbers on the d6 so for example 1 and 2 equals poor, 3 and 4 equals regular and  on and on. The result of the d6 roll gave us the morale those troops would use for that particular morale test.
It's very simple to do a lot simpler than trying to explain it lol. Anyway it adds a certain amount of fog of war because the player really doesn't know how his troops will react, they could stand and fight like elites or run away like militia.
Hope this is of some help.

Jeff

Offline Atheling

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Re: Xhosa, Ninth Cape War, Special Rules?
« Reply #23 on: February 06, 2015, 04:45:35 PM »
Hi Darrell,
With regards Skittish morale, we had a similar problem with EIC troops in the first Sikh War, especially at battles like Moodki. You need a mechanism that does not allow you to know what the troops reaction is going to be to any given morale test. I am not familiar with the morale rules in T&T but most morale rules work with the troop classification, ie elite, regular and poor etc etc.
Now what we did was simply roll a d6 before any morale test allocating the classification of the troops numbers on the d6 so for example 1 and 2 equals poor, 3 and 4 equals regular and  on and on. The result of the d6 roll gave us the morale those troops would use for that particular morale test.
It's very simple to do a lot simpler than trying to explain it lol. Anyway it adds a certain amount of fog of war because the player really doesn't know how his troops will react, they could stand and fight like elites or run away like militia.
Hope this is of some help.

Jeff

Sounds good, nice and simple..... and fun!

Darrell.

Offline Driscoles

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Re: Xhosa, Ninth Cape War, Special Rules?
« Reply #24 on: February 06, 2015, 05:04:02 PM »
Hi Darrel,

will think of Xhosa special rules.

- as for the vervous Brits rule I suggest that the Xhosa always have the edge in the activation phase when both units have the same Quality rating

- or let the Xhosa player decide who can activate first when both units have the same quality rating. Believe me, that can be very exciting.

And thanks for this inspiring nervous Brits trait. Good one.

And thanks Plynkes reminding the people that this is the Triumph+Tragedy Forum. Thanks mate  :)

And Darrel. PM sent.

regards
Björn
, ,

Offline Atheling

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Re: Xhosa, Ninth Cape War, Special Rules?
« Reply #25 on: February 06, 2015, 05:31:18 PM »
Hi Darrel,

will think of Xhosa special rules.

- as for the vervous Brits rule I suggest that the Xhosa always have the edge in the activation phase when both units have the same Quality rating

- or let the Xhosa player decide who can activate first when both units have the same quality rating. Believe me, that can be very exciting.

And thanks for this inspiring nervous Brits trait. Good one.

And thanks Plynkes reminding the people that this is the Triumph+Tragedy Forum. Thanks mate  :)

And Darrel. PM sent.

regards
Björn


Thanks  8)

PM received and e-mail sent.

hope to hear from you soon.

Darrell

 

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