I'm sure there's a war game in here somewhere

I knew that weird plant in the garden would make a good backdrop for something...
 This fascinating story of an English Lt Colonel sent to Africa in 1998, to oversee the construction of a bridge. The bridge was being built by 3000 workers imported from India. Being unused to the country, they slept in canvas tents, unaware that two male lions had decided to change their diet to include man. Patterson goes from royal engineer to big game hunter as he tries to track down these two big cats, who seem to be blessed with magical luck. Stories differ at the number of people actually killed, but 135 is generally stated. Two lions in nine months, that's a lot of attacks. It's a famous story, written as only a turn of the  century Englishman could write, which i think adds to its charm. It became a best seller instantly across the Empire and even Teddy Roosevelt became a huge fan, wanting to know every detail.

It has been made into a number of films, probably the most famous being ' The Ghost and the Darkness' in 1996. I watched this film last week on Amazon and it lead to me ordering the actual book of the story.

 I'm pretty sure a 'One hour wargame' could be made out of this epic battle between man and beast. The events are quite unbelievable but true.

There are some good documentaries on YouTube too, well worth a watch.

Zulu game

The second tussle of the afternoon was a 20mm ‘The Men who would be Kings’ Zulu game. Again I had never actually played the rules so this was great fun. I was shocked by the speed of the zulus. Their double move made them cavalry like as they swept across the terrain. The game was based on the battle of Isandlwana and the same outcome was achieved.

Although I started this project in 28mm for the same set of rules, I can really see the benefit of doing it in 20mm. The masses of Zulus looked great as did the British companies in formation. Also a lot more figures could be used on the limited table space.

My little Hales rocket battery that I had created for my friend was soon engulfed and silenced. Even though I was on the opposite side, I really wanted it to do some damage. However, much like real life, it was swept away. Another fun game with a completely different pace to it.
 

At least this time I was on the winning side!

British Rocket Battery 20mm 1879

The great thing about working in 20mm is you can paint things up very quickly. I seem to blast through these little chaps even with their fiddly details. I have to say I really enjoyed this little side project and it even got me looking at my 20mm 7th cavalry stuff again.

I love the fact that some officers wore blue patrol jackets, it makes for a much more interesting scene.

This scene in the film was the main influence behind creating the unit, let’s hope they do better on the board than they did in real life.

I decided to base them on 40mm circular bases so they could turn and face different directions and still look together as a unit.

I bought two pack mules from Irregular Miniatures and they seemed to fit the bill nicely. 

Small stones from the garden were added to act as pale rocks in the arid African grasslands.

A nice little project this one and the figures painted up well.

 

Creating Russell’s Battery in 20mm AZW

A friend of mine has started a 20mm Anglo Zulu war project using the great range from Newline Designs. The range is actually very good, covering most of the troop types needed for a good game. One item they don’t have though is the rocket troop made famous by the film, Zulu Dawn.

He mentioned this to me and I thought it would be a lovely surprise to make him one.

My very early thoughts were to cut a block of bolsa wood and have do, at that scale it should be fine I thought. However after a bit more thought I come to the conclusion, if you’re going to do something, do it right. So I hatched a cunning plan to actually see if I could make something that could pass as historically accurate.

I found a nice length of plastic sprue from an warlord Games orc set and that became the trough of the launcher. Rather than worry about filing a ‘v’ in it, I decided to paint it in. I figured at that scale it would look okay. It worked out better than I thought it would.

I used the artillery figures from the range as a guide to how big to make it.

The legs were created by cutting and bending paper clips. The Hales rockets were cut from a 28mm lead spear and filed to shape. Not bad I thought, a little crude but a lot better than a block of bolsa wood!

This collectors set of figures was a good help with scaling the models and also the colour of the launcher. I decided it must be artillery blue as in the Napoleonic wars, so used my handy Foundry triad paints to paint it.

 

Sarissa precision Zulu wagon

 Well the new wagons from SP arrived and the answer was yes they were easier to put together than the 4ground ones, however part of this kit is in fact cardboard. This didn’t seem to cause any real problems until it came to painting. I use a lot of washes in my quick style and this started to warp the cardboard side planks. So be a little careful with your wishes on this one.

 This kit was a slightly higher price than the other two but does come with ammo boxes. These are a real arse to make and a different glue should be used from wood glue. Although it is really tempting to leave these out and use sculpted cargo, they actually are worth the trouble when finished. They also make great cover when taken out of the wagons.
So all in all nice kits and worth getting.

 I sprayed one wagon with French blue and this matched exactly some reference I had found one line from a collectors range of Anglo Zulu larger figures. The other will be brown with red wheels.

Zulu Wagons

 I was really impressed with these MDF wagons with the way they turned out. They were quite quick to build and almost fun... almost. The SP kit popped together really well as it was such a simple build, the 4ground flat bed wagon took longer but has great detail. I especially like the iron rims on the wheels. I have ordered two more flat bed wagons this time from SP so we will see if their simple design carries through to bigger designs. Yeah a worthwhile purchase from EBay and should add some more drama to the battlefield.