From: "Jens Hoppe, EUV" Subject: 3W: Rorke's Drift (review) - long! I picked up this game last week at a sale at one of my local game stores (for about $8). The game is really two games in one: One game is a game about the Boer War (which I have only glanced at), and the other one is a tactical game called "Rorke's Drift". RD has a pretty ugly map showing the hospital/storehouse compound and the fortifications around it. It reminded me of the map from Command's "Hougoumont" game (#11), although the Hougoumont map is more attractive. There's a lot of detail: Individual rooms in the buildings are shown, and there are several different fortification types; mealie bag ramparts, biscuit box ramparts, wagons, kraals, etc... At the edge of the map are printed several tables, as well as a couple of extra map sections: Since stacking in the hospital may get pretty unwieldy, there is an enlarged hospital map. There are also separate maps for roof & loft locations within the buildings, as well as a off-map box for Zulu snipers on nearby Oskarsberg. When I call the map ugly it's mainly because of one thing: The building walls have been adjusted/aligned to correspond with the hex grid, which means that the buildings look most of all like a closeup of a beehive... RD has 400 counters: Some markers, but most are combat units. British units are individual soldiers: All have their service number noted, and officers and NCOs (and a few others) are named. The hospital patients also have a counter each: A nice touch is that these vary widely in their capabilities: Normal British privates have stats of 1-2-10 (fire-melee-movement), while patients range from 1-1-9 (almost fit & equipped with a rifle) to 0-0-0. We also get the chaplain, the surgeon, and a single civilian. Wounded soldiers have their ratings lowered to 1-1-4, and mortally wounded soldiers are 0-0-1. Zulu units are more generic: Each counter represents 5-7 men. Most units are spear armed, but there are some rifle units as well. Since there were several times more Zulus engaged in the fight than represented by the countermix, Zulu units are also "reused": Disordered, wounded & eliminated Zulu units (which are all placed in a corresponding off-map box) become available as reinforcements on the next game turn, after the British player has recorded victory points for them. The turn sequence is pretty long and involved but the essence of it is more or less: 1. British move 2. Zulu move & place reinforcements 3. British rifle fire 4. Zulu rifle fire & spear throw attacks 5. Zulu melee followed by British melee The turn sequence means that the average early-game attack goes like this: The Zulus move up to the ramparts, get shot to ribbons by the Brits, after which the remaining Zulus get to melee attack the defenders. BTW, naturally the Zulus excel in melee: All are rated as 1-10-12! Apart from the basic move-fire-melee rules, there are a lot of "chrome" rules to simulate the situation: Sniper fire from Oskarsberg, soldiers carrying patients and wounded men, a single "pickax" counter, to allow British units trapped in the hospital to dig holes in the interior walls, rules to allow the Zulus to set fire to the thatched roofs of the two buildings (the rules are a bit unclear on whether both buildings, or just the storehouse can be set on fire), more than one level of wound severity (fit, wounded, mortally wounded, dead), better chance of wound recovery if stacked with the surgeon or one of his aides, British ranked fire attacks against Zulus inside the perimeter, ammunition shortages, rules for night (two thirds of the game turns are night turns), fatigue, exhaustion, rules for Zulus attempting to batter in doors, and much more... The game *seems* well-researched, but I will leave any conclusions on that point to the experts (my knowledge of the Zulu war limited to what I have read in the article in Command 28!). After I had punched the counters, I set up the game. Yesterday I finally got a chance to play it (solitaire, though). Conclusion: It was *fun*!! In the first couple of turns the Zulus were slaughtered, I suspected that the game would turn out unplayable, as wave after wave of Zulus were shot down before reaching the ramparts. In the next couple of turns however, things started to change: The Zulus broke through the fortifications a couple of places in front of the hospital building, some of them climbed the hospital roof and set it on fire (I ruled that it was possible), and slowly the British defense started to crumble: Soldiers manning the hospital perimeter were cut down, and suddenly I had to evacuate the patients before the hospital became surrounded (my fault for not seing that threat earlier!). A few patients made it out, but most were trapped inside. The roof was ablaze and might collapse at any time, and there were dead and wounded soldiers everywhere... In their attempt to evacuate the hospital, the soldiers & patients inside could no longer barricade the doors, and the Zulus broke into the building at several places. I didn't have time to play more than this (I solitaired 7 turns - about one third the maximum number of turns - in 3.5 hours), but anyway; the writing was on the (hospital) wall: I would have been surprised if any British were alive at dawn... So, the full game obviously takes a long time to play. Overall the game is actually pretty big and involved for a half-a-thin-3W-box sort of game. Surprisingly the rules are not as overwhelming as one might think based on my description above, but there were some questions - probably several of them, if one wants to play the game in a very strict fashion. For me, playing solitaire, it was easier to shrug aside minor rules questions: I only had a few big questions, and once I decided how I wanted to rule in those situations, the game went smoothly. The counter density was pretty steep in some places, and the enlarged hospital map came in handy. There are several scenarios: 1. Introductory solitaire scenario. 2. Small scenario covering only the fight around the hospital. 3. Full historical scenario (the one I tried). 4. "Evacuation" scenario - no fortifications! 5. "Make your own fortifications" scenario: Place a plexiglass sheet over the map, ignore all printed fortifications, and draw your own. I like non-WWII tactical games (Hougoumont, Devil's Den, Gunslinger, etc. spring to mind), so not surprisingly I liked this game too. As I wrote earlier the rules are quite involved, but most of that is chrome which helps make the game more colourful. So, I recommend it. It is fun, exciting, colourful, probably realistic, and believe it or not; it's from 3W! Cheers, Jens "Hopsie" Hoppe