Go strong into the Desert.

Well, I resisted for two weeks, but the truth is if you're getting into the war in the Sudan...you need to buy the Perry's book 'Go strong into the desert'.

 It hasn't arrived yet but I hear good things, I hope it goes some way to sort out the confusion of the myriad of uniforms worn in the campaign.

Great News! A very timely release by my favourite war games author.

I love the 'Bonnie blue flag' rules and these are designed with the same mechanic. I have just bought some Perrys plastic Madhists to tinker with and then I find this has just been released!

 A project for another day but one I will look forward too.

Some Sudan reference I have been saving on my phone, time to put it on here for another day...

Can anyone identify this regiment in the Sudan? I have tried to find it but haven't been able to turn up a name. This image was taken from Pinterest with no covering info available. In my research I can see that most early regiments to the area wore grey serge but they didn't sport the legging. Maybe this is meant to be a variation of that dress in campaign?

I have the Perry plastic Afghanistan/Sudan box set, but can't find a Sudan unit that these figures actually fit. As I said most units wore trousers in the early years or had some other uniform variation. Maybe the Sudan idea was an after thought for the use of the figures with the North West Frontier being their primary purpose.

 Anyway drop a comment down below If you can help out with this regiment, It fits the style of the Perry plastics but I would love to know who they were.

Zulu Rising

More Zulus

The Zulus enjoy their new 60 x 40mm bases, safer and more organised.

The hectic jumble of light plastics on single bases has been rectified.

My way of storing mini's did not suit these single skirmish type games, this lot would end up becoming one solid tangled mass before long.

Private Williams was left in the box hidden by the horde and missed being based with the rest of his pals. He has been found now and will soon find himself in B company instead.

Basing Zulus

Zulus trying out their new 60mm x 40mm bases.

I really like the look of the units on these big bases...very Zulu dawn.

Basing the Zulu War

Well, I’ve had a busy couple of days trying to figure this one out, finally I made a decision and went for it.
 My Anglo Zulu forces have been collected to play the Osprey's The men who would be kings. To this end I had based them on single bases, however the thought of moving hundreds of single Zulus around gave me a little concern. I've never really been a fan of movement trays and have always lent towards the big base with added scenery.

 One of the biggest problems though was storage, I noticed my single mounted, light weight plastics were taking a battering in the storage boxes, the slender Zulu throwing spears in particular.
 I had planned to base these guys on a double round base of around 40mm but then I happened across the wonderful blog...The lonely Gamers. I was amazed at what I saw and a new plan was hatched, with bigger multiple bases I can make sure all of those slender, brittle spears are safely tucked away in the middle of the base. This would help storage and prevent damage to the units...my mind had been swayed.

The way I figured it ' The men who would be kings' is a large skirmish game and so the base sizes aren't that important as long as you keep a track of the causalities. I have hundreds of 60x40mm bases from years ago when I was planning HOTT armies and I've been trying to use them ever since. At first I lined up the Brits for these bases but they looked a little too spaced out, a more compacted double line looked better so I switched them to 40x40mm bases. The Zulus however looked great on the larger bases and so that was that. An extra figure was added making it four to a base and the visual look was complete. Both sets of bases look good, the British look like small knots of men in open order and a struggling firing line when formed up. The Zulus have the look of great waves of men running across the Velt in their slightly linear formation. Over all I'm really pleased with the look of the units and they defiantly look the part visually.
My only slight worry is the different base size and figure count on the two opposing sides but this shouldn't be too hard to iron out in the game. Some small dice can keep track of wounds. The figure count works out nicely too with the Zulu's having 16 men (4 men to a base) to a unit and the Brits having 12 (3 men to a base).

Working out the base sizes. Although the British looked good on the 60mm frontage they didn't have the same impact as being tightly packed together, so after some thought I took them down to 40mm frontage and a double rank was added These look was taken from the Lonely Gamer's blog with it's never ending eye candy.

British firing line mounted on 40x40mm bases, a mix of Perry plastics and Empress miniatures.

Officers or characters can be left on single bases and accompany the unit.