Here they come again!

After the first two sessions, I moved all of the units back to their starting positions. Both British and Zulus got to recover some casualties, each side was able to redeploy (the poor British had to set all of their troops in place before they knew where the Zulus would attack).  Once the halftime show was complete, the Zulus began their second wave.

The Zulus find the blind spot in the British defenses...

I knew the game was going well when both sides declared that it would be impossible for them to win the battle.

The north wall holds,for now, but another impi approaches from the west.

Once more, the Zulus hit the rampart by the hospital. Friday's session will determine the final outcome.

Rorke's Drift 2016

Our study of Rorke's Drift/Isandlwana last year was so resoundingly popular that I decided to add it to the regular rotation. Comparing Zulu and British ways of thinking about war was provocative, especially after reading Marlantes' What it is like to go to War. And, of course, we got to watch Zulu, one of the best war films of all time, in my opinion.  Ian Knight provided a lot of the reading for this section, through both his excellent Zulu Rising and his more approachable Osprey book on the Zulu War.

The  Battlefield.  I gave the students a chance to deploy the British inside the compound.  The two "horns" of the Zulu attack were moved off the board and allowed to appear anywhere on the flanks on turn three.

Bromhead's platoon. Though most of the figures are Old Glory,I have some plastic Zulus from Warlord. And, of course, I had to represent the cinematic heroes with the character miniatures from Empress!  Michael Caine can be seen in the left foreground.  Note that this is before the students deployed the British infantry within the compound.

And here is Stanley Baker with his platoon.

Two Zulu leaders push the head and loins at the ramparts.  The northern walls seem thinly manned...

Holy crap! says a British commander. That's a lot of Zulus!

Where we left off today's session.  Despite heavy fire, two impis reach the walls.

My mandala week

So, I write about miniatures so often in this blog, I frequently neglect some of my other nerdy enthusiasms.  But I here confess to being an art nerd, so it was a thrill for me when the Art Department at my school invited a Buddhist monk named Losang Samten to create a sand mandala in our school over the course of a week. Losang told us that his mandala signified "compassion," and he took plenty of time to talk and meditate and joke with teachers and students.  He's sort of like Yoda with better grammar.  The gamer in me noticed how much the mandala resembled a landscape--it was far more textured than I realized.  It was very easy to get lost in its elegant contours.

I thought it was funny that Losang used dyes from the craft store, where I buy my terrain paints.  The natural earth colors he obtains from Sedona, where the Rabuck clan will be visiting in a week..

And people say that painting miniatures takes patience!

At the end of the week, Losang and some of the younger students destroyed the mandala.  Don't get too attached to material things (unless they're your best painted minis. I'm pretty sure Buddha allowed an exception for those).

We carried the colored sand in a procession across campus...

...and dumped it into the Wissahickon Creek.  Losang is 75% of the way across the photo, and you can see a thin trail of sand falling into the water.  What a cool thing to experience, and what great relief to be able to visit the mandala in a busy and stress-filled week.

Tabletop Germantown 2016

It's time for my Military History class to take what they've learned from their theoretical readings (Clausewitz and Sun Tzu) and their reading about their first case study (The Philadelphia Campaign of 1777, in which our school played a minor role) and take it to the tabletop and try to win a battle.

This year, we were using my 15mm AWI troops and a set of rules that echoes Black Powder, but embraces many concepts of the house rules my club regularly plays with. 

Washington advances up Germantown Pike towards the Chew House. Like the historical general, he decided to engage the Light Bobs garrisoned there rather than plunge ahead to the main British lines.

The main British force in Germantown. A smallish game this year, as I only have six students in the class.

The battlefield from the south. Though our school moved out of Germantown in the 1960's we are still along  the banks of the Wissahickon Creek, which lies on the left.

The British commanders talk tactics.

While the Yanks dice to see when the other wings of Washington's force arrive.  As it turns out, the Game Washington was much more lucky with the timing of his attack than the historical Washington was.  This proved to be a decisive factor in the outcome, as the British elite reserve took its sweet time arriving.

The troops on Washington's  far left were able to encircle Germantown. Historically, these militia units (meant to be a diversion) never showed up.

The British commander committed the whole  Hessian force to stop Armstrong's Pennsylvania militia on the Continental far right. In the post-game analysis, the British commanders realized that they should have sent one unit to delay these troops while sending most of their force to hold the center.

Teenage generals are often impatient.  Much of the British line advanced north to meet the continentals, rather than wait for them to fight on ground of their choosing.

The Chew House served as a minor speed bump, and with their reinforcements arriving early, the Continentals were able to engage a smaller British force just north of Germantown.

When the British elites finally arrived, they found some Virginia line waiting for them.  To make matters worse, a botched command roll meant that the columns of soldiers had to take enfilade fire down the length of their column for two turns.

Can it get worse for the British? With utterly abysmal dice rolls, anything is possible! The Hessian move across the Wissahickon met with disaster, and despite the best efforts of their Jagers, the longer ranges of the militia rifles proved telling 

Washington starts to strut as he rides triumphantly into Germantown.

Run away!

The Nerd Club hosts the Normals

Every year, our school allows members of the community to host mini-assemblies.  This year, clubs were encouraged to share their enthusiasms with their peers. The Leland Society (named after former student and American proto-nerd Charles Godfrey Leland), also known as "The Nerd Club," hosted a variety of nerdy games. We had Settlers of Catan, King of New York, and a game of X-Wing (which I ran).

Pilots of the Galactic Empire

And their rebel scum counterparts

King of New York on the left. On the right, a maze game with mirrors and lasers.

The guys were really getting into Settlers.  It took only a few minutes for the jokes about sheep and "woods" to come out.

The Falcon and Po Dameron took advantage of an  uncoordinated Imperial attack.

Overall, the kids had a blast. Rumor had it that  the nerds put on the best show.  But we all knew that, didn't we?