Zulus in Triumph! ?

A place to talk about MESHWESH army lists
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skc
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Zulus in Triumph! ?

Post by skc » Wed Sep 29, 2021 10:22 am

Your mention on the Facebook page, of North American first nations now having army lists. This certainly reflects the versatility of this rule set.

This got me thinking. How about Zulu in future? When I get a gap, I'm happy to help, from what resources I have, in working on a List.
Not sure as enemies, does one also include the white settlers? I guess you're getting more into firearms, artillery then? Maybe complicated? But then 1st Nations also used them. The Zulus did too, but to a very minimal extent)

Attached Map: Battle of Isandlwana. (our "little Big Horn.";)
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David Kuijt
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Re: Zulus in Triumph! ?

Post by David Kuijt » Wed Sep 29, 2021 11:19 am

skc wrote:
Wed Sep 29, 2021 10:22 am
Your mention on the Facebook page, of North American first nations now having army lists. This certainly reflects the versatility of this rule set.

This got me thinking. How about Zulu in future?
In Fantasy Triumph, sure. In historical Triumph, I doubt it. Historical Triumph stops with the military changes created rise of massed gunpowder weapons in the Renaissance. The First Nations lists even stop before they are introduced to that sort of warfare -- the Columbia Plateau list ends upon the widespread adoption of the horse, around 1700, long before they were exposed to gunpowder weapons. We have a wide variety of Sub-Saharan African army lists (see the Sahel Africa thematic category), but we stop them once muskets are adopted. Zulus are in the Colonial period (or Franco-Prussian War period, in Europe) way after this. Even though the Zulu army could be represented in standard Triumph (almost certainly as a huge mass of Raiders, Maneuver 3 or 4, with some interesting Battle Cards), their opponents (both the English and earlier the white settlers of South Africa) are a post-Napoleonic force with better weapons than the US Civil War.

My personal preference for gaming the Zulu wars is through a skirmish system; that allows for games with small numbers of defenders and reflecting very interesting terrain advantages and asymmetric battles like Rorke's Drift. DS and I were working on a skirmish game for the pre-gunpowder period 15 years ago, but what we had proved unworkable back then; we might revisit it eventually, but we've got too much on our plate right now.
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David Kuijt
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Re: Zulus in Triumph! ?

Post by David Kuijt » Wed Sep 29, 2021 11:37 am

skc wrote:
Wed Sep 29, 2021 10:22 am
I guess you're getting more into firearms, artillery then? Maybe complicated? But then 1st Nations also used them.
None of the lists we have for First Nations go into the period where they had firearms. And in most cases, the lists don't go into the period where they were exposed to enemy armies with firearms. In many cases they don't even go into the period where they were exposed to smallpox, typhus, and other European diseases.

I'm working on a Plains Indian list -- and no, it will not have horses, it will represent the combination of settled farming and nomadic buffalo hunting with dog-pulled travois that typified the eastern edge of the Great Plains region before horses were introduced around 1680-1700. The main part of the western and central Great Plains region would have been purely small tribes of nomads with dog-pulled travois; fifty or a hundred individuals per tribe; maybe 10 adult males total each; they didn't have the population density to be represented in an army list. The same problem exists for much of the Great Basin tribes, excepting the various pueblo-dwellers.

So no, we are not getting more into firearms. For most of the army lists, Triumph stops when massed firearms begins. For the First Nations lists in North America, Triumph stops at the introduction of European diseases or the horse.
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skc
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Re: Zulus in Triumph! ?

Post by skc » Wed Sep 29, 2021 2:10 pm

Thanks for clarifying the firearms & disease story.

Although the Zulus became a formal military nation in the early 1800's,initially no colonial armed forces were involved, and they fought numerous enemies, usually in the form of rival clans, Perhaps they could be represented from that era. Just a thought.

Would be interesting to see how they would fare against, say a Marian Roman.
Speed, numbers, and tenacity were their forte. They would need to outnumber opponent significantly. (Raiders may be too expensive? Maybe Raiders Fierce? Warband Fierce & Fast? Horde Fierce & Fast? with some extra strength factor? (They should ideally have No Camp as a routine without paying points for.) ....

but then these Battlecards it seems are the preserve of Fantasy. Or is there some overlap? I've often thought Gallic Warriors/Warband should have say Fierce, to represent their impetuosity. (& Grow their numbers)

Like the idea of Skirmish. Rorkes Drift would be ideal for that.
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Rod
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Re: Zulus in Triumph! ?

Post by Rod » Wed Sep 29, 2021 3:12 pm

Fierce is built into warband and warriors.

Certainly pre-gunpowder zulus could be considered, but I don’t think we have a lot of information?
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Re: Zulus in Triumph! ?

Post by David Kuijt » Wed Sep 29, 2021 4:11 pm

As Rod says, we don't have much information about cultures in the region before the arrival of colonial forces. That's a big problem in South America pre Inca -- we know the Wari (Huari) and Huanca existed, what space they occupied, who they fought, how long they were civilizations -- everything. Except any information about what their armies, weapons, etc. looked like, where we got nothing.
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Re: Zulus in Triumph! ?

Post by FanatiChris » Wed Sep 29, 2021 4:48 pm

Don't know how accessible these resources are, but this Oxford bibliography on precolonial warfare in Africa looked interesting: https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/vi ... 9-0149.xml

And a related paper that caught my eye: https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstrea ... 200103.pdf
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Rod
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Re: Zulus in Triumph! ?

Post by Rod » Wed Sep 29, 2021 9:54 pm

I think the issue we have with the African cultures is similar to the problem we have with a lot of the North American Indian tribes. Very little written history because I do not believe the Bantu languages had written forms prior to European contact and most of that happened post medieval world so outside the bounds of Triumph time period.

Now we possibly surmise that cultural warfare was pretty much unchanged up until that point and project that backwards into the past, but it is conjecture.
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Re: Zulus in Triumph! ?

Post by skc » Thu Sep 30, 2021 6:11 am

Thanks guys for the updates and info. Not an easy subject to pin down. For my own local interest, I have a few family books on the subject.
Here's a Wiki on Shaka period.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaka
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