Living in the wilds of Arizona, coping with severe heat, apache raids and evading personal watercraft, I am also faced with long periods of solo play. Hence the following. Last Father's day my kids got me a computer, since then my gaming has been on line and I also discovered a myriad of sites devoted to gaming. While there is much to recommend many of these sites, I was struck with two conflicting impressions. First that Napoleonic gamers are infernal intellectual snobs and secondly that Colonial gamers seem to have a lot of fun. As I make my living as an infernal intellectual snob (lecturer and college professor) I really prefer my gaming to be fun. This brought about a way to play colonial games that were fun and could be done solo. For fun my thought immediately turn to my long-time friend Larry Brom and his venerable but viable "THE SWORD & THE FLAME". This being a great set of rules of long standing and quotes Kipling. I then turned my attention to "solofying" them for my long under used Zulus. In addition, "Call to Arms" recently came out with a new set of 20mm Zulus and cable movie channel showed ZULU once again. What could I do? I decided to try a solo variant of TSATF base on an article by Robin Peck in the old PW Review. THE SYSTEM There is really very little to learn as the mechanics are almost all as in the parent game. THE NATIVES The size and order of battle of the native force is decided upon. These are set up in either 20 man foot units or 12 figure mounted units. Half size units of these may also be set up. The natives are then placed along one end of the table in all their savage finery. It almost makes the game worth playing just look at them. There they shall remain until they ambush the redcoats. Remember too, that a rough three to one numerical superiority makes for a good game. MOVEMENT Movement follows the basic card and dice method of TSATF. However when a black or Native card is drawn there is automatically a chance that an ambush may occur. No other movement for natures takes place on the drawing of a black card except in the case of continued contact following an ambush in the previous turn, where upon the natives may ( but not must) follow a western unit. Every time a black card is drawn, a check of each western unit is made to see if it is ambushed. In this way the action seems to spread itself throughout the game. CHANCE OF AMBUSH (percentage dice) Western unit in open terrain 00-20 Ambushed 21-99 Not Ambushed Western unit in rough terrain or Within 5" of such 00-40 Ambushed 41-99 Not Ambushed -10 from dice roll if the western unit has already been ambushed ACTION IF AMBUSH OCCURS Native ambushers appear 5" plus 1D6 inches from the western unit. Then roll percentage dice: 00-25 Ahead of western unit 26-50 Left of western unit 51-75 Right of western unit 76-99 Behind western unit The game proceeds in the normal TSATF manner once the native unit is placed, (firing etc) however the native may not fire until is determined if will charge. CHANCE OF CHARGE Native have 2 to 1 advantage or more 00-40 Charge 41-99 No Charge Native have less than 2 to 1 Advantage 00-20 Charge 21-99 No Charge Modifiers to Dice Zulus, Tigermen -20 Dervishes, Pathans, Indians, or Chinese Boxers -10 Boers +20 Melees resulting from charges are fought out in the TSATF manner. MORALE PHASE Regulars morale rolls are made as per rules with routed units routing, even native ambushers. Native units which pass morale however may "slip away" That is disappear. Again percentage dice are thrown 00-30 Natives disappear 31-99 Natives stay to fire and fight next turn. Western Pursuit of disappearing natives: Western units roll dice for distance to see if have the movement to pursue. If they do then percentage dice are thrown: Close or Rough Terrain 00-20 Natives located 21-99 Natives not located Open Terrain 00-30 Natives located31-99 Natives not located Breaking off contact: Western units may attempt to break contact after first turn of firing/fighting resulting from an ambush. If the natives have not "Slipped away" they may follow as per parent rules. As the games progresses various native units will suffer casualties. Once each native unit has been used a simple dice roll may be used to see which ambushes again. Open terrain is assumed to be slightly undulating with scraps of cover thus allowing skilled natives the chance of ambush. Back to MWAN #114 Table of Contents Back to MWAN List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 2001 Hal Thinglum 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