NOT Roarkes Drift (The men who woul be kings)

Sorting out each players units

WelL at the Skirmish show Craig the organiser wanted a Zulu game. so I had to do some improvisation. Firstly to balance the scenario for the rules I improved the British defenders. Firstly I gave them a cannon and then I gave them some Cavalry support. This was enough to bring the game up to a more balanced outing. For the Zulus I increased the unit size from 16 figures a unit to 24 figures a unit!. This would make tem much deadlier in combat and harder to break. But did It work?

Gentleme start your engines
Initial deployment.

I did hear about 4 comment in the day about
 it being set in Spain!
I was just using the buildings I have and NOT spending more money
Maybe that's  frugal.
For me though it was just common sense.

The Zulus approach the compound

And Just manage to break in but are kept at bay by the British
 intensity of fire.

bob Happy to have defended the compound.
Graham and Bob playing British Winn
 

Changing the players round.
This time the Zulus
Swarm the compound as fastr as possible.

 

Despite a solid defence by Tim
The Zulus manage to enter in a few turns

GAME2










Inside the compound the British
Sourounded fight on.







But Numbers are against them

The relief column arrives but not in time to prevent a massacre!

Conclusion!

A minor victory for the British in the first game. And a Crushing defeat for them in the second. This meant that Bob was happy to have won twice! As I am sure Graham was. The British defence in the first game was better organised and the Cavalry relief was able to do better, In the Second Game the Zulus were much more aggressive and it served them well. They had taken the compound before the cavalry could make any impact on the game.

Overall the rules worked well and the first outing for MY Zulus (Miniatures) was a success in that they looked good and there were enough. Ok when it comes to Zulu armies enough is NEVER enough.

Overall I think the additional figures in a unit worked well as it did make the Zulus far more potent which in test games they were not ude to the fragility of the unit sizes. If you play "The men who would be Kings" Rules I would recommend either a LOT of cover for the tribal forces OR to increase their unit size.

THanks for stopping by. More again in a few days.

Just 16 more finished.

Nope not a massive lot done! just 16 more Zulus finished. That is 12 for my main unit and 4 with rifles for my shooting /rifle unit.

They are a mix of 10mm Pendraken miniatures and 10mm Newline design miniatures.

A very quick post this day. as I am now painting Burpas again!

Best wishes Clint

Zulu's (finished for now)

Well as promised on the AHPC here is all the Zulus painted all in one go. By that I mean all in one photo. NOT all painted in one sitting! That would take more endurance than I have.

All the figures are 10mm or 1/200th scale. And while the majority are New Line Design (I bought a £30 army pack!) there are also Penrdraken miniatures scattered among them.

 From left to right. 3 figures on a base or 6 on a double base except rifle bases and then just 2 figures on a base.

Black shields and headdress 24 bases

Black and white shields and headdress 24 bases.

These 2 units will be married veterans so they will be in essence the elite of the army. Feel free to disagree as I have no real strong ideas.

 White shield. 24 bases. These will be the unmarried un bloodied warriors.

I bay need to add a further 8 bases to each of the above units to fit in with the rules, but I will probably just ignore the first 8 hits BEFORE removing bases.

The larges single unit is of course the unmarried but blooded warriors with brown and white shields and there are 61 bases of those. So a further 3 bases would totally finish them

Again I may need to add 7 more bases to fit in with the rules.

And Lastly all down the front 12 bases of rifle armed Zulus. Strictly speaking in the rules I should add a further 4 bases, but I am not sure I will. These have brown shields with white markings.

If I was being totally accurate I would mix and match shields as they did tend to mean different things in different tribes of the Zulus but realistically for game purposes It is easier to keep this simple method for identification purposes.

 In an ideal world where time money space and nagging did not matter I would finish these off with the extra figures as detailed above. But in real life I suspect I will draw a close on this army about here. I still have about 30 figures left unpainted so I have the choice either a small unit of tribal warriors allied to the British (with red headbands) or to bring one other unit up to full strength. So maybe it makes sense to do a further 9 figures (3 bases) of Brown and white shields)

I am not sure which is the best option but I do know I want a break from painting Zulus!


Hope to see you all again on Tuesday, so until then take care have fun and paint if the mood takes you.

You can moan BUT......i don't mean it!

Yes and I do! Moan that is. I dislike painting 10mm Zulus! But when they are done I am happy with them. At this point I think I have about 250-300 left to paint! It is not that they are bad sculpts just that the colours are  very limited and it does tend to get boring painting them. But as I said Once painted and based they look very acceptable gaming pieces. And that is what they are for.

 I will be using the Black powder rules,  just for convenience they do work OK but the MGs and Cannon are underpowered in Colonial settings.  All my opponents and myself have found that if you form square with cannon on a corner all the tribes head straight ior the cannon and destroy the square like a hot knife through butter  , which is not what happened in reality! Still I will over come that I am sure.

Anyway these figures are 10mm Newline Design Zulus with headdress. 28 figures in all (there should be 30 but 2 have fallen under a wardrobe and at some point will need recapturing from their escape bid!)

That's it for today, enjoy the bank Holiday while I start to prep some figures for Matt....

Cheers Guys have a good one!

Hadleys Hope!

 Big Lee (Hadley) has now had 2 000 000 hits on his blog! Which is fantastic. And as he is a generous type he has a fantastic giveaway.

It amount to £100 (in Vouchers).

So as is customary I have decided to enter the draw. One of the criteria I to highlight (or showcase not sure which is absolutely correct) his blog and his 2 million blog views on your own site. So this is it done! Lee if you ever read this put a tick by my name! (What the tick stands for I will let him decide!)


Anyway

First prize in his draw is a £50 Gift Voucher from Warlord Games (https://store.warlordgames.com/)

Second prize is a £25 Gift Voucher from Warlord games. ( same link as above

Third prise is a £25 gift Voucher from Warbases (http://war-bases.co.uk/)

And while I suspect I will not win anything he is a mate so why not show my readers what they could win.

here is a link to his Blog so you can leap straight there and make a comment http://www.blmablog.com/#!/2016/08/the-big-2-million-hits-prize-draw.html

Cheers lee I hope it goes well for you.

next post will be Sunday and should (crossed fingers) be some Zulus..... I still have a few hundred to paint!

A litle bit of everything..... OK NOT evererything!

The painting Mojo has not returned so I Painted up a pair of M16 half tracks for my Arab Israeli wars collection They were still in use in the Yom Kippur war of 1973 as anti aircraft guns.

The rules say I am only allowed 1 but I had 2 models so I thought I might as well paint them both! For those of you who are not all that familiar with the M16 Halftrack if you think of a WW2 M3 American Halftrak with 4 (quad mounted) .50 Browning heavy machineguns in a small turret. Here is a pic of a real one In Israeli colours and Markings. So Colour wise I am pretty close,

The M16 was used in WW2 by America and for many people the "Matchbox" 1/76 scale plastic model was our first introduction to the machine. I know it was mine. While the guns are designed for Anti aircraft I know it can also be used against ground targets either soft skin vehicles or Infantry. By the later part of the second world war it will have little to no effect against tanks.

But in the Arab Israeli wars it still has its uses both against aircraft and to a lesser extent against ground forces, apart from tanks. but still a nice piece of kit to have on the battle field.

 Meanwhile back at the steam punk tank... no NO pictures now until I finish it. But any colonial force be they Zulus or marhdist forces does need something to counter the Beast! So the obvious choice is to include magic! I can Hear certain people "Frowning" from here. And you did not think Frowning made any noise. I can assure you that it does.

 So I present 1 Zulu "witchdoctor". Do not worry I do not see him casting any fireballs and lightning strikes, or any of that sort of malarkey. but more sort of portents and consoulting with oracles and checking the stars and maybe having "Sabotage" card to play on the tank. There may be more on this another time.

 And finally my order from Pendraken has arrived today. I will not go through my whole list of goodies but I have got some stoff for the Steam tank and a whole new project which I hope to get completed over the winter period for Curts Analogue Hobbies painting challenge AND for the Pendraken painting competition.  No reason I cannot do both IF they come out how I hope they will.

Stay tuned to find out what mad thing I have in the planning! But Do not hold your breathe as it will take a while to get up and running!


Hope you found something interesting today. All the best Clint

Doll Drums.

Yes it comes to us all. AND I AM CURRENTLY in the painting Doll Drums!

Which is not to say I have stopped, but is to say I have slowed down considerably!

So slow in fact that I have only managed to get 1 British officer of the colonial period finished.  Many if not most will be looking and saying that is the wrong shade of blue it should be darker. And yes Cavalry and artillery officers should be in a darker blue.

However those attached to the Natal Native Light horse units wore sky blue and that did get faded in the African sun.   And I think he's a pretty good match for the African sky in the Picture.Or if you do not like that explanation just assume it id the uniform colour of Her Majesties Royal Navy Landship Squadron.

Thanks for looking today I will try to get more done and quickly for the next scheduled post on Sunday.

All the Best Clint

Natal Native horse. (10mm)

yes back to my 10mm Colonials. No I have not become the MOST AMAZING figure painter over night... the picture is from the film "Zulu Dawn" and Shows a Natal Native Horseman in action.  Many of you will have realised that straight away.

On with the figures. I bought these 10mm figures about 2-3 years ago from eBay in a job lot of 10mm Colonial goodness. Most of that batch are now painted, but I do have about 100 British foot to do should I need any more (I don't think I do unless it is to change the uniforms from red to kaki). But these 12 horsemen took a lot longer as all the spears and carbines were badly bent and they were on card bases and already undercoated. More importantly I did not know what they were OR who made them.

I now think (but do not know) that they are Magista Militum figures. What I am sure about is that they are 10mm Natal Native Horse.  And as such were used in the 1894 Anglo-Zulu war. Unlike most Natal native units they were fully armed usually with a Cavalry  carbine and between 1 and 3 spears. They were also uniformed in Tan jackets trousers and issued sun hats with red bands around them in cloth. Most Natal Native units only had about 20% firearms with the rest using spears!. But all units did wear the red band around their heads so us ignorant colonials would know they were on our side and not try to shoot them.

Size wise they are a very good match for my 10mm Pendraken colonial troops (and yes the steam tank! More of that another time). So they should fit in well as Pendraken do not at the time of tying make any Natal Native Horse. And that is perhaps the point you will never need so very many of these in fact the amount now painted should be more than enough.  Actually I may need more, as I know every wargamer wants to have something just a little bit quirky under their control and as a club we do tend to have several players to each game.

So my Zulu War 10mm project continues and next time some more Burpas for Matt, as some are on the painting table already.

Thanks for looking today, I hope the weather is good for you. All the best Clint

More Zulu's

I was going to call this post getting it wrong in every way! But that is a bit harsh and |I assure the kind and gentle reader that it is of course not in every way.

If you ever decide to paint a Zulu army make sure you have plenty of Zulus. One or two will just not do you do need a serious amount. So here are my next 33. (And that is just a drop in the bucket! Bucket not ocean let us not exaggerate!)

So what did I get wrong, well not so very much as all that but one thing that is quite important. Well probably more than just one thing, but 1 thing I am aware about.

Here is what happened! I did have a painted example on my painting table to copy and copy I did. I finished the 33 and was feeling jolly good about it. All based and varnished and ready to put away. It all happened in the putting away.  Below is a picture of the few painted so far, many more to go. And then I noticed that the ones with the headdress had different  colour shields from the ones I have just painted also in a headdress.  Opps.

As Zulu Impis (Regiments are identified by their shields I had clearly started a third regiment without realising. Therefore I do have one of 3 solutions!

1. I can start a 3rd regiment and be content and allow more space in the boxes for them. (Brown and white shields)
2. I Can re-paint the shields of these new troops to bring them into line with my other troops in headdress. (Black and white shields)
3. I can re paint the previously painted troops to make them match the newly painted. (Brown and white shields)
4. Re paint both sets to get black brown and white shields (Black and brown and white shields as a tricolour!)

At this stage I am thinking option 2 makes the most sense. While I still have many to paint it is possible to carry out option 1 but I know the nagging voice in my head will tell me of for being lazy. Option 3 is also possible and just as much work. Option 4 is more work and historically not correct but I could fudge it enough to make it look convincing. But I think In reality it needs to be option 2. But I just cannot face it today. so Maybe Monday night!

All the best Clint

Zulus in headdress.

Well it has been 6 months since I touched this project simply because having bought all the stuff and started and gotten started I just found very little joy in doing it. But you know me eventually I do return to old projects and get them moved on.

The figures are all Newline Design in 10mm. I selected 10mm for my Zulu army for two reasons. 1 you do need a lot of Zulus to make it
look good which for ease of storage and ease of Transportation means small figures. And 2 as my Mahdists and British are in 10mm it just made sense to keep them the same scale so I can use things in both cases.

So here we have 27 figures of Zulus in headdresses and Black and white cow hide shields. They come in packs of 30 figures but I dropped one figure while undercoating it out of doors so I just cut them back to the next unit size (27) until I found him and started the next lot. He is now found and ready to spray with primer and that will be started this afternoon. They will not be done in a hurry though as I do not get a sense of achievement from doing them but hope to by seeing a mass of them when finished.

There are only 3 poses in each pack and at 10mm tall little need to convert any or change them, Just a simple change of shield pattern and they are good to go. At the rate I am painting these I might get them finished in the next 5 years. But I suspect it will be quicker as the more you do the faster you get AND the more you want to paint them as the mass grows. At least that is what I keep telling myself.

That's it for today, Have fun enjoy the sun and I should post again on Monday and I hope an AAR.

All the best Clint

10mm zulu's started.

 I have started my Zulu horde. These are al 10mm Pendraken and Newline Design 10mm colonial Zulus.

They really were no fun to paint, not that they are bad figures  just that they are monotonous. So much brown and white. And not a lot of other colours at all. I could have painted the shields in different colours but as I want them to represent the tribe that attacked Rorke' s Drift, that tribal force only used brown and white cow hide shields. Pure black or black and white or pure white shields in various combinations were used by the main body of troops to attack at Isanwanda but as my mate Tim is building the drift it would be wrong to paint the shields different colours. At least at present as I need to get a few, quite a few, more done first.

Here is a second batch. My eyeballs were not quite bleeding just yet. So I decided to limit it to a mere 36 this time. 

All the figures are for "Blackpowder" and are mounted on either single bases (3 figures to a stand) or double stands (6 figures). This should allow me to adopt some suitable table top formations when a game starts. And also to fit neatly round any terrain that I need to. But I admit it's still a lot of bases to move.

I have several hundred more to do so I expect by the end you will be as bored of them as I am. So I am having a weeks break from them and come back to them next week. which means you can expect to see more in a fortnights time (I hope).

That's it for today's update I hope you are having a really good day. Take care and all the best from me.

Cheers Clint