The Boer War — Companion Tools

Four single-file tools that handle the game’s arithmetic and rules lookups so you can keep your attention on the veldt. Each carries the relevant rule-case tags in its margins, so the tools double as a quick rules reference. Everything runs offline in a browser; no install, no accounts, nothing saved to a server. Drop all files in one folder and open this page.

The tools

BW 8.0 / 10.0

Combat & Siege Resolver

Field combat on the CRT with full terrain and card modifiers, pre-roll odds, the complete Counterattack cascade, and siege attacks on the SRT. Every result carries its morale consequence.

BW 4.0 / 14.0 / 18.0

Morale & Victory Console

Dual morale tracks with a live trigger monitor for contingencies, crises, demoralization, and sudden death; town-control capture morale scored automatically; and an end-game victory calculator with the Victory Table distribution.

BW 4.0 / 5.0 / 14.4

Campaign Card Assistant

Deck-state manager with draw, hand, discard, retained, contingency, crisis, and removed zones. In Hand maxima, scenario setups, contingency shuffle-in, and the crisis / Diplomacy & Propaganda end-game chain.

BW 7.2 / 7.3 / 9.0 / 12.0

Supply & Rail Tracer

Interactive campaign map. Place units and fortresses, set town control, and trace supply for either side with full LOS, ZOC, rail, protectorate, and desert rules encoded. Edit terrain and rails, then export a corrected dataset.

Shared dataset

boer-war-mapdata.json — hex grid geometry, regions, terrain, rail network, rivers, and town data. Consumed by the map tool; editable and re-exportable there. download JSON

Designer’s notes & verification

Errata candidates spotted while building these tools

Flagged for your judgement against the printed rules; several look like typos rather than rules intent.

BW 3.3 dates Scenario 3 to “January 1899,” but the Turn Record Chart places January in 1900 (turn 4). Likely should read October 1899 or January 1900.

BW 3.3.1 deploys four field forces (A, B, C, D) but names only three locations. One force’s placement appears to be missing.

BW 3.3.6 lists “AK” infantry for both republics, whereas Scenario 1 gives the OFS “AK” and the Transvaal “SA.”

BW 12.2 cross-references armored trains to BW 11.0; the armored-train rule is at BW 10.3.

BW 10.6’s siege-eligibility list reads “Boer infantry corps,” but only the British field corps; Boer forces are infantry units, not corps.

BW 9.3 cites the Replacement rule as 15.0; in the Standard Rules it is 14.0.

The page-2 nationality key places “Germans are controlled per the Expansion rules” under the Portuguese entry.

BW 5.1’s “Short scenario” +1 die modifier is not tied to a specific scenario in the text; these tools assume it applies to the shorter variant (offered as a checkbox in the Morale Console).

Map digitization — points to verify against the printed map

Hex centers, the rail network, and town locations are extracted exactly from the map PDF’s data layers and validated (all 282 hexes, all rail edges hex-adjacent, rail net fully connected).
Region borders were reconstructed from border dash-marks, river courses, and repeated visual checks. The Natal southern border (rows 18–19) and the exact Basutoland extent are the least certain; verify these.
Terrain (rough / forest / desert) was read from map texture and is approximate at blob edges. The map tool’s Edit map mode cycles terrain per hex and exports a corrected dataset.
Rivers are attributed to hexsides approximately and are advisory only; confirm river-crossing combat modifiers from the printed map.
The campaign card manifest (exact counts and full effects) was not available; the Card Assistant is prepopulated from rules text and is fully editable.