We went back in time to play a set of rules printed in the early Miniature Wargames magazine under the title Drums Along The Watusi in the Rules on a Post Card series.
We used the figures we had to give the rules a try. The terrain was dense jungles with tracks and open spaces. To represent this, we placed dark green areas to represent the open areas and brown tracks. Everything else was dense jungle.
We used our Back of Beyond figures and some British Naval figures to make an international Brigade making their way across the table to the river where boats awaited.
Movement was by throwing 2D6 with an ambush occuring on a result of 11 or 12 in the jungle or 10, 11 or 12 in the open (on the tracks and clearings). Movement was 2 times the result if in the jungle or 3 times on the tracks and through the clearings.
The British headed off through the jungle and made slow progress without encountering the natives until they were two thirds the way across the table.
The Japanese contingent made slow progress the first turn but their rear unit was ambushed on their second move.
The Chinese moved even slower to start with, avoiding ambushes until they were half-way across the table when they were fired upon by the Japanese who mistook them for natives, and were then ambushed by the natives to add to their misfortune. The Japanese tried to redeem themselves by coming to their aid.
It was the French who were immediately ambushed and for the first few turns, continued to have to fight their way across the table with more ambushes each turn. One ambush came from an area that the British had just passed through, leading to accusations of the British being in league with the natives.
Despite the differences in the movement rates and the number of ambushes each nation suffered, they all arrived at the river with one turn of each other.
A very enjoyable and fun game with simple rules.
