This was going to investigate all the colonial period rules sets I have for suitability with Darkest Africa. I got through all but four rules sets. The first fifteen I found were really unsuitable for skirmish warfare basically requiring formed units with very specific formations.

I also cancelled out Piquet and PoW as being really unsuitable for skirmish gaming, although they have redeeming qualities they just didn't work here. Ben and I then played Old Glory's Son's of the Desert with some modifications, adding bows. But there were too many deaths way too quickly. There were two movement turns before the expedition was ambushed, two-thirds died while inflicting three casualties in two firing phases.

We then tried the same scenario using TSATF using corrections from the Courier. This was almost similar except it took three turns for the same results, still not satisfactory. I had to make allowances for bows. I have not yet tried Blake Walker's revisions, I see where they might be what I am looking for. Although, I am not sure if Stanley used squares. Anyway I will try them for next issue.

I found that Rusty's Rules for Woodland Warfare, French and Indian War seemed to work well, although they don't allow for sneaky natives and even the Indians have to fight in formation. These used to be available from RSM, but since they were sold several years ago I have not seen these rules since.

The rules I have not yet play tested but which seem to have the qualities I am seeking, more individual movement, lower ease of hits with outright deaths, less strict formation movement, and individual abilities. Almost roleplaying rules. Right off I can see that Science Vs Pluck, Soldier's Companion, Chris Peers rules in the later issues of WI, and The Rules With No Name will be the best choices. I will continue to play test these rules for suitability.

So far The Rules With No Name seem to be ahead of the others in the reading and planning stages, with supplemental additions by various people in various magazines and web sites. Particularly useful are shotgun and Plains Indians additional rules. If you have a favorite set of house rules that will work well with Darkest Africa, please send them in so we can all use them.

Excerpts

What follows are some of the reasons for dismissing so many rules sets and some great information for working up campaign rules and for organizing and painting up your figures. I have been rereading Stanley's Through the Dark Continent and provide quotes from volume one on the organization of his 1874 expedition to Lake Victoria. I will provide more information useful for campaigning in Darkest Africa and may be for you to write your own rules. The pages numbers and quotes are based on the Dover 1988 reprint in two volumes.

pages 24-25

Stanley writes about the items he will take with him on the expedition:

"Strong, half-naked porters come in with great bales of unbleached cottons, striped and coloured fabrics, hankerchiefs and red caps, bags of blue, green, red, white and amber-coloured beads, small and large, round and oval, and coils upon coils of thick brass wire. These have to be inspected, assorted, arranged, and numbered separately, have to be packed in portable bales, sacks, or packages, or boxed according to their character and value...numbering of bale and box."

So when you are preparing you expedition make sure that some numbers are visible on you boxes and bales.

page 35

"Arabs of the latest migration are already rapidly losing their rich colour and fine complexions, while the descendants of the Arabs of the first migration are now deteriorated so much that on the coast they can scarcely be distinguished from the Aborigines.

"Some of them have hundreds of slaves, and he would be a very poor Arab indeed who possessed only ten. These slaves, under their masters' direction have constructed roomy, comfortable, flat-roofed houses, or lofty cool huts, which in the dangerous and hostile districts, are surrounded by strong stockades. Thus, at Unyanyemb‚ there are sixty or seventy large stockades enclosing the owner's house and storerooms, as well as the numerous huts of his slaves." According to Stanley these are not isolated, many interior villages have Arab as well as native populations, with the Arabs having the wealthy farms with numerous fields and herds.

page 44

Stanley employs men from his former 1872 expedition to find Livingstone and makes them his chiefs, they total 21men, all natives or Arabs.

page 48

"...the path was often only 18 inches wide in Africa, and hemmed in on each side with dense jungle."

page 50

"The total weight of goods, cloth, beads, wire, stores, medicine, bedding, clothes, tents, mmunition, boat, oars, rudder and twarts, instruments and stationery, photographic apparatus, dry plates, and miscellaneous articles too numerous to mention, weighed a little over 18,000 lps., or rather more than 8 tons divided as nearly as possible into laods weighing 60 lps. each, and requiring therefore the carrying capacity of 300 men. The loads were made more than usually light, in order that we might travel with celerity, and not fatigue the people."

page 51

"But still further to provide against sickness and weakness, a supernumerary force of forty men were recruited at Bagamoyo, Konduchi, and the Rufiji delta, who were required to assemble in the neighborhood of the first mentioned place. Two hundred and thirty men...affixed their marks opposite their names...for wages varying from 2 to 10 dollars per month, and rations according to their capacity, strength, and intelligence, with the understanding that they were to serve for two years, or until such time as their services should be no longer required in Africa, and were to perform their duties cheerfully and promptly."

page 65 - 66

"There are six riding asses also in the expedition, all saddled, one for each of the Europeans...and two for the sick..."

"..the procession as follows: Four chiefs a few hundred yards in front; next the twelve guides clad in red robes of Joho, bearing the wire coils; then a long file 270 strong, bearing cloth, wire,beads,and sections of the Lady Alice; after them thirty-six women and ten boys, children of some of the chiefs and boat-bearers, following their mothers and assisting them with trifling loads of utensils, followed by the riding asses, Europeans and gun bearers; the long line closed by sixteen chiefs who act as rear-guard, and whose duties are to pick up stragglers, and act as supernumeraries until other men can be procured; in all 356 souls connected with the Anglo-American Expedition. The lengthy line occupies nearly half a mile of path which at the present day is the commercial and exploring highway into the Lake regions."

page 66

"Edward Pocock is kind enough to act as bugler...He has familiarised Hamadi, the chief guide, with its notes, so that in case of a halt being required, Hamadi may be informed immediately. The chief guide is also armed with a prodigiously long horn of ivory, his favorite instrument, and one that belongs to his profession, which he has permission to use only when approaching a suitable camping-place, or to notify to us danger in the front. Before Hamadi strides a chubby little boy with a native drum, which is to beat only when in the neighborhood of villages, to warn them of the advance of a caravan, a caution most requisite, for many villages are scattered in the midst of dense jungle, and the sudden arrival of a large force of strangers before they had time to hide their little belongings might awake jealousy and distrust."

"...the fervour of the dazzling sun grows overpowering as we descend into the valley of the Kingani river. The ranks become broken and disordered; stragglers are many; the men complain of the terrible heat; the dogs pant in agony."

page 67

"Frank and his brother Edward...have now got the sectional boat Lady Alice all ready, and the ferrying of men, goods, asses, and dogs across the Kingani is prosecuted with vigour, and at 3:30 p.m. the boat is again in pievces, slung on the bearing poles, and the Expedition has resumed...

"There are several reasons which can be given, besides heat of the Tropics and inexperience, for the quick collapse of many of the Wangwana on the first march, and the steadiness evinced by the native carriers confirms them. The Wangwana lead very impure lives...with the importation of opium...betel-nut...inhaling the smoke of...wild hemp...with the thermometer rising to 1400 Fahr...."

page 71

"Congorido, a populous village...The stockade was newly built, and was a good defensive enclosure.

"Mfuteh, the next village, was another strong, newly enclosed construction..."

page 72

"Blue Kanika and the red-barred Barsati are the favourite cloths in this region. The natives dye their faces with ochre, and, probably influenced by the example of Wanyamwezi, dress their hair in long ringlets, which are adorned with pendicles of copper, or white or red beads of the large Sam-sam pattern..

page 77 - 78

"Desertions from the expedition had been frequent...Kach‚ch‚, the chief detective, and his gang of four men...recapture sixteen...deserters...but the cunning...soon discovered this resource... absconded...We then had detectives posted long before dawn, several hundred yards away from the camp, who were bidden to lie in wait in the bush, until the expedition had started, and in this manner we succeeded in repressing to some extent the disposition to desert...but even this was not adequate...Fifty had abandoned us...taking with them the advances they had received, and often their guns, on which our saety might depend."

page 80

"Dec. 23.-The rainy season began in earnest...we are hungary-for there is a famine or sarcity of food at this season, and therefore can only procure half-rations...I myself have not had a piece of meat for ten days. My food is boiled rice, tea, and coffee, and soon I shall be reduced to eating native porridge, like my own people. I weighed 180 lbs. when I left Zanzibar, but under this diet I have been reduced to 134 lbs. within thirty-eight days."

Apparently the expedition goes for two weeks at this point without finding game when he finally brings down two zebras.

page 82

"Five succeeded in deserting with their guns..."

page 83

"Quarrels were frequent, sometimes even dangerous, between various members of the Expedition...I myself was frequently sick..."

page 89

"The Warimi...Feathers of the kite and hawk, manes of the zebra and giraffe, encircled their foreheads. Their arms consisted of portentous-looking spears, bows and yard-long arrows, and shields of rhinoceros hide. The women, I imagine, are generally a shade lighter than the men...many shaved their heads, leaving only a thin wavy line over the forehead."

page 96

"our sick were many, twenty had died, and eighty-nine had deserted between the coast and Vinyata." (all within forty-nine days)