An Epic New Dawn For The Zulu Wars In Black Powder From Warlord Games

Warlord Games has announced a massive new range of miniatures and accessories for their latest Black Powder: Epic Battles book, ZULU!  The first wave is now available to pre-order and already covers the vast majority of what you need to fight out the Anglo-Zulu War. Let's kick things off with a look at the brand new plastic sprues for the forces.

British and Natal Native Contingent

The core British infantry frame allows you to build both British riflemen and Natal Native Contingent. The box for the Brigade lets you make eight bases of each unit type so they can be fielded as two large regiments of four bases in each. The British look great, with a nice wide range of sculpts in a variety of poses ready to form ranks. The sprue also includes a bugler and officer. Providing support for the British army are the Natal Native Contingents. Largely used to support the main British forces in South Africa, they became the primary defence against the Zulu forces. Recruited mainly from the local Basuto and Mponso peoples, this force excelled at dealing with the Zulus due to an extensive history of fighting them. Easily identified by the red headbands with a smattering of European equipment as well.

Natal Native Horse and Natal Mounted Police/ Carbineers

The Natal Carbineers were drawn from some of the more established, or better off, Natal families and were considered to be a somewhat elite unit. They were only assembled in times of trouble, but despite their part-time status, they were well-equipped and armed with pistols and carbines, being capable of firing from the saddle or dismounting to give deadly volley fire. Both they and the mounted NNC are available in a cavalry brigade box containing six bases of each mounted, and eight bases of each dismounted. With a bit of a trim on the pith helmet spikes, the police could do a job as the 1st King's Guards Dragoons that were sent to reinforce Chelmsford during the campaign.

Zulus Married and Unmarried Warriors

The Zulu Impi Brigade box contains a mix of married and unmarried warriors split half and half. The unmarried warriors make up the bulk of the Zulu forces and are responsible for forming the horns of their fighting formation, bedecked with feathers and straw; they're easily identified from the more sombre veteran married warriors. If I had an issue with the frame is that they are split half and half, while in actuality the ratio should be 3:1 for the unmarried to married warriors, but it's not a deal breaker. The sculpts have a ton of detail for heroic 10mm and I love the skirmishing look of them. Warlord have even included a couple of Sanga-Nguni cattle per frame so you can build your own herd to protect or to stampede through your opponents' lines!

British Riflemen

The set contains eight regiments of British riflemen to represent the 24th Regiment of Foot, whose six companies formed the core of number 3 column of Chelmsford's invasion. Twenty-four bases of infantrymen double-ranked but with a skirmishing look to them rather than the shoulder-to-shoulder lines of infantry we've previously seen with Black Powder Epic ranges for AWI and Waterloo and the extra spacing somehow makes the miniatures look bigger; they're a fantastic-looking job.

Natal Native Contingent

Like the British riflemen, the Natal Native Contingent also make twenty-four bases; however, in the case of the NNC they make only six regiments for gameplay with the natives stacking deeper than the Europeans. Across the two columns, the NNC had seven companies at Isandlwana forming the bulk of the British invasion force. They're accompanied by Boer officers and NCOs

Mounted Natal Native Contingent

Five troops of Durnford's Natal Native Horse were accompanied by a selection of mounted police, Natal Carbineers, border guards and Newcastle mounted rifles. Although they could shoot from the saddle, they were often deployed as mounted infantry and so the plastics give the option with horse holders if needed to deploy them on foot for more accurate fire.

Married Zulu Impi

Twenty Regiments of Married Zulus form the veteran core of Ntshingwayo kaMahole Khoza's force at Isandlwana the chest and loins of the force ready to fight the invading aggressors.

Unmarried Zulu Impi

There are also eighty bases of unmarried Zulu to form the horns of your force.

Zulu Impi Details

Hale War Rockets and 7 Pounder Cannon

The last of the fighting figures in the Isandlwana box are a set of warlord resins for the two British 7-pounder RML cannon and a single Hale's Rocket Launcher. Both cannons were lost during the battle and while the hope was that Hale's rockets would scare the unsophisticated Zulu in fact they ignored the one rocket that was lost before being overrun and butchering all of the crew from the three rocket teams.

Terrain

While not specifically for Isandlwana, there is a lovely set of resin terrain pieces in the box. Four British Bell Tents and wagons can be used for the British camp that is about to be overrun, no sign of Bob Hoskin, though. There is also a set of iQukwane rope huts: one Large and three small Zulu Indlu Huts, which will see a lot of use in future campaign games.

Isandlwana

Along with all the fun stuff, there is an A0 Isandlwana map, roughly 33" x 46" for your games to play out on, along with dice a quickstart Black Powder Epic Battles: Zulu How to Play booklet, the full A5 rules are included as well to let you expand your games beyond the initial conflict.

Rorke's Drift // Black Powder Epic Battles Zulu!

The Defence of Rorke’s Drift on the 22nd and 23rd of January 1879 is the stuff of legend. Just over 150 British and colonial troops defended the mission station against attacks from Zulu warriors numbering between 3,000 and 4,000, a force that had peeled off from the main force at Isandlwana and travelled the six miles to attack the mission station. For the defenders' efforts, no fewer than eleven Victoria Crosses were awarded. As the box contains the same plastics, I won't spend a lot of time on those again and instead point out the unique points of this set.

Rorke's Drift Characters

The most exciting thing for me is the character models; beyond the eleven VC recipients, there are a host of other people who became famous through their actions in the defence. Right off the bat, Marco Sano has done an incredible job in taking the 28mm designs from the Horns of the Buffalo set and recreating them as heroic 10mm minis. If you don't believe me, go and check them out right now; I'll wait. They're all here, from the commander of the Drift who held everyone together, Commissary Dalton, to Dan the ferryman and his dog who prevented night attacks from winning through the defences!

British Defenders Single-ranked

It is worth noting that while the plastics for the British defenders are the same, they specifically rank them singly on the bases compared to the standard regiments to give them that thin line of defenders look. With 120-ish miniatures in the box, the defenders are pretty much 1:1 to their historic counterparts. While the attacking Zulu reserves number 650 in the box, really selling the numerous attackers coming thick as grass and black as night!

Rorke's Drift Buildings

Two MDF builds along with a host of resin terrain pieces let you accurately build the defences, even down to the cookhouse and the outhouse that can save your ass in several ways! Biscuit boxes and mealie bag ramparts and final redoubt complete the resin sets, giving you a one-stop shop for the game.

Like Isandlwana Rorke's Drift also comes with an A0 printed map including outlines so you can place all of the relevant terrain exactly where you need to and have the topography without needing to build a full table (at least to begin with). Again, books both full rules and a quickstart are included with six dice to let you get your Zulu on. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to practice Men of Harlech.

Yes, I know it's not accurate; just let me have this!!