We chose to re-fight the Battle of Magersfontein of 1899. This was essentially a defensive battle for the Boers who held a line of hills, whilst the British forces assaulted them. We used the ‘By Jingo’ rules from The RealTime Wargames stable, the same group that produced the rules in my previous WW1 game.We used 15mm figures from the collection of Kevin.

As you can see from above we took the roles of the Boers and the British were set up historically, and then the rule system managed them. I was in charge and placed Kevin on the Left flank and took responsibility for the centre and Right flank. Kevin had the effective artillery…… I faced most of the British artillery!!!

As you can see in the photo above we didn’t have enough troops to cover the entire line – so one British attack was going in against thin air – OK if it didn’t then turn our flank…..In the photo you can see the Highland and the Guards brigade set out for attack. However, the Highlanders were halted by a hold order in front of the wire belt, in front of my waiting Boers….who got busy firing. The Guards however came on in the old style…

The yellow counters show a unit that has become unformed due to the Boer fire, effectively knocking it back, requiring to be rallied by the commanders. If you hit it again it becomes dispersed, and then again scatters it (removes it from the game). As the Boers we needed to knock them back so much the commanders could not rally them quick enough, and then they would gradually be forced back and stopped from assaulting the Boer positions. As you can see, it was getting squeaky bum time!!!

It was at this point the brave Boer Commander decided to lead for the front and steadied the Boer lines, the sub commander to the left (Kevin) , however chose to run away…….

At last the British tide was defeated and the remnants of the two brigades started to stream back – the Boers had won!!! The British on the right flank retreated in good order, and the field was left to the Boers.

The rules were excellent and were a lot more structured then I have described, but they created a nerve biting game in the end.