4,000 against 139, not good odds by anybody's standards, but the reality was the Zulus just had too many warriors at Rorke's Drift. If only one regiment had been present, the attacks could have been co-ordinated by the senior Induna, launching attacks at several points simultaneously instead of getting bogged down for the most part in piecemeal attacks around the front of the post.

For the Zulu warriors, the barricades negated their main offensive tactic, which was to come to grips with their enemies and inflict a decisive mortal defeat. Dabulamanzi soon lost organised control of the Impi, once the initial bull's horns tactic dissolved into a seething mass of warriors, with thousands gathered in the garden and large kraal areas unable to take part in the action, the frustration of which must have been unbearable.

Attacks went in led by regt. and junior officers and the bravest warriors who each time encouraged and rallied those around them to climb over their dead comrades and attack again, trying to scale the 6 ft. rocky ledge and barricade that faced them bristling with bayonets. Rorke's Drift showed quite simply that a good defensive position is vital to defeat the Zulus, the Boers had long since known it and had used a defensive laager to full advantage 41 years earlier, inflicting their own decisive defeat on a Impi, inflicting 3,000 casualties on a 12,000 strong force.

Full credit must be given to the officers for the building of the barricades, Dalton being principally responsible for proposing their use, Chard having the forethought to further contsruct the biscuit box and redoubt, realising that he would have to pull back from his initial perimeter. All of this from an army whose officers for the most part held all native forces with contempt of their fighting abilities, an attitude that at least for the Zulu War changed after Isandlwana.

Wargaming Rorke's Drift

Rorkes Drift does not lend itself well to scaled down version of wargaming, Zulus yes, but scaling down the British then leaves you with a worse problem than Chard had, having too much barricade to defend with too few men. The best scale to use is 1-1! yes 1-1. Get painting or should I say saving.

No, hold on to your Hollyhocks (seasonal inclusion), at best for 15mm you only require 300-350 figs and for 25mm 250-300 possible less depending of how visual you want the game to look. (Zulu figs).

Ted Brown back in Feb 91 produced a set of rules in Wargames Illustrated issue 41 for 1-1 game. Rules which I've have used in 25mm and can heartily recommend, they capture the flavour of the action and more importantly are only two pages in total, back copies are available from W.I. but I shall endeavour to get pemmission to publish them in the next issue of this mag.

As mentioned in the Battle Profile, the Zulu inDuna's and lower officers found it virtually impossible to make any concerted attack on the post. All attacks going in piecemeal led by an officer and what men he could rally around him, so at best only a few hundred warriors could be engaged along the perimeter at any one time.

The rules are based on Dabulamanzi and the Regt commanders and wing commanders being able to rally to attack, by use of dice X amount of companies; every other turn a total of between 0-15, each company having 30 figs; this gives you a total of 450 figs for all 15 companies - single based. However, you can scale down that figure to the amount mentioned earlier. The only time you really require single based figs is when the Zulu player's figures manages to climb up and over the barricades, (this happens all to infrequently when I am the Zulu player) so 50 or so single based figs are all you need, the remainder can be based to represent half a company (use bluetack) 3 rows of 5. But you need only give a representation of the 15 by using just 10 figs giving a total of 20 figs to represent a company; still using the proper base size for the full 30 figs.

For the other companies you can use a single shield standing upright on a small base, painted in the regt's colours, this gives the British player something to think about, these can be replaced with casualties from the front.

Terrain and Figs

In 15mm Essex Miniatures do a excellent range with Hovels Ltd doing a complete Rorke's Drift layout buildings, barricades in 15mm. In 25mm Wargames Foundry have a superb range, they also sell mealie bags lengths (see pics). Hinchcliffe do a 25mm range and Vandrad do a small 20mm selection. Buildings in 25mm Mac Warren do the store house, I'm not sure about the hospital building. They also can provide the barricades (do not quote me on that). Village Green produce some nice mealie bag lengths in 20-25mm. My buildings are both scratch built.

More Rorke's Drift

Introduction
Eyewitness Accounts
Battle Profile
Rorke's Drift Map, Large (slow: 98K)
Rorke's Drift Map, Jumbo (very slow: 240K)
Colour Diorama Photo, Large (slow: 153K)

This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web.
Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com