Warlord Games African Warriors

I needed some general-purpose, late nineteenth century African Warriors to test a scenario for the new Skirmish book  am currently writing for Pen & Sword so I bought one sprue each from Warlord Games' Natal, Zulu-married and Zulu-unmarried ranges to get a nice mix.

They sell these as one offs without bases at shows and on eBay for the princely sum of £2 a piece - which is a great deal by anyone's reckoning.

The photo above shows spear and shield armed warriors.

Another photo showing warriors with various firearms.

Wargamers for both artistic and entirely practical reasons do like any army/regiment to have a unified style that defines it as distinct from other armies/regiments on the table: GW are masters at this. But photos of African warriors from various armies in the field, as opposed to in dress regalia, suggest they were neither uniform nor necessarily particularly distinct so it is not entirely unrealistic to use a mixed appearance, general purpose force as a money-saving fudge.

Except for artistic and practical purposes of course.

IHMN - Rough Diamonds

Sergeant Murphy leads a team of skirmishers in an exercise on Salisbury Plain.

In Her Majesty's Name - Jolly Good Chaps

Some Jolly Good Chaps of the sort that built The Empire, dont'cha know.

Sourced from Warlord Games Zulu War range and eminently suitable for IHMN.

Pip, pip!

Sudan Nuggar

The small 20 ton cargo boats of the Nile are known as nuggars. They feature heavily in the Sudan Campaign being used as ferries and to transport troops and supplies up stream on the north wind. Sometimes they were towed behind steamers in a train. I made the sail a bit small for practical reasons.

The boat is made from the Sarissa German Sturmboot model, This kit is a real dog with an oversized base, a gaping hole in the bow, and a water drive too long and fragile for a wargame model.

It is however cheap at £5 and gives one a launch shape suitable for conversion.

IHMN: Sanders of the River

I bought a few little toys at Salute, cough - yes I know.

One of them was a Sarissa laser-cut steam launch suitable for VSF, steampunk or just colonial skirmish games.

This is a great kit and great value for money for ten of Her Majesty's Guineas.

I painted up the sides, sunshade and boilder and gave it a good coat of Army Painter tone varnish.

Pip, pip, old fruit.

IHMN, Royal Artillery on Mars

"Six-legged chappies, three rounds of cannister, fire..."

The model is Warlord's 7pdr from the Zulu Wars. Just right to support my Martian Rifles.

IHMN, Naval Brigade

A naval shore party to back up the Pongos in red coats.

These chaps can be relied upon to bring a bit of professionalism to a bloody encounter.
We've got some sailors and officer with a Nordenfelt mounted on a gun carriage and another officer leading a squad of Royal Marines under command of a sgt.

Pip, pip.

Black Powder - Blood on the Nile

The Warlord Games Blood on the Nile supplement is due shortly so I decided to churn out some more 1/72 units.

This week - Anglo Egyptians.

IHMN, VBCW, Royal Artillery Armoured Tractor

Based on a steam tractor the Royal Artillery armoured tractor is designed to tow field guns through enemy fire. It is equipped with a turret mounting a light howitzer to protect the artillery crew while unlimbering.

The chassis is reversed to put the vulnerable boiler at the back and the front wheels have been moved further apart for stability given the heavy armour around the cab.

The tractor is shown here in desert camouflage - Martian desert camouflage - although the paintwork has proved surprisingly effective in the Sudan.

The tractor has been issued to batteries of The Honourable Artillery Company who have promptly been nicknamed 'The Raspberry Tarts' by the rest of the Royal Horse Artillery.

IHMN, Zanzibar Slavers

I had a birthday recently and my wife bought me some of Wargames Foundry 19th Century Zanzibar Slavers. They will do for any of the Gulf Arab states in this period.

A Really Big Gun

We have lots of military guff lying around in Kent. This piece is a gate guard at the Royal Engineers Museum in Chatham.

Arab Nile Dhow Template

This is the template for an Arab Dhow from the Major General Tremorden website which is now moribund and only viewable on archive.

I thought the Major General wouldn't mind me repeating it here.

IHMN: Battle Of Camberwick Green or They Don't Like It Up 'Em

Camberwick Green is a small 'village' in South London which was partly destroyed in the Martian Invasion. The Martians left three 'artifacts' in the fields just outside the High Street.

The Mad Mahdi of Omdurman had a vision that the Martians were really Islamic Jihadis and that the artifacts were messages from Jesus who now lived on Mars. Accordingly he depatched Osman Arzak on a Nile Dhow on a long cruise across the Mediterranean Sea, up the Atlantic and Channel and into the Medway. Their objective was to capture the three Camberwick artifacts

The voyage in the tiny sailing boat was ghastly, not least because Arzak insisted on bringing his favourite horse.

Arzak's force included Ansar armed with proper Islamic weapons, swords, spears, shields and a bad attitude, and some Jihadiyya riflemen.

The march of a Mahdist warband through Kent did not go entirely unremarked. The locals were used to Martians, vampires, assorted daemons and the odd Prussian but Mahdists were something else so a platoon from the Buffs under Captain Adrian Nash moved to intercept, hurrying along the Kent lanes in a Thornton steam waggon chased by several farm dogs and a small boy hurling conkers.

Arzak split his small army into four, separating his rifleman out to the wings and dividing his Ansar into two attack groups who raced down the lanes between the fields.

The British rifle fire proved singularly ill aimed and the whirling Dervish reached the 'infidel turks' (aka the Buffs) largely intact. Sudanese riflemen captured the right and left artefacts and Arzak jumped over the fence at a full gallop to capture the one in the centre.

All the Mahdists now had to do was retire with the captured Martian gizmos worth 120 victory points while the Dervish occupied the Buffs. An easy win even if all the Dervish in the rearguard died

That, of course is where it all went wrong.

Captain Nash was an Erudite Wit with a working knowledge of Arabic and he made an unfortunate remark involving Osman Arzak's mother and a diseased camel. Naturally, Arzak took no little exception to such jollities and, forgetting the point of his mission, ordered an immediate assault on the Infidel on his right. Only a single Jihadiyya riflemen remembered what he was about and sneaked off with the loot.

On the Mahdist left flank things proceeded as planned, a Jihadiyya riflemen picking up the artifact and legging it.

Captain Nash died bravely under a hail of spear points but in general the Buffs proved pretty good at bayonet work and the Dervish found they did not like it up 'em.

Even worse, a certain Private Means on the right flank proved to be a crack shot, knocking down each Jihadiyya riflemen in turn who picked up the left flank artifact. He even shot Osman Arzak out of the saddle as he galloped off the field.

When Adrian and I totted up the points we found we had exactly 49 victory points each: a most satisfying end to a great game.

IHMN: Sand of the Desert is Sodden Red

The year is 1886. Wolsey's Khartoum relief expedition has failed. Despite the British winning every battle, they lost the war. The Relief Expedition is replaced by the Frontier Force which garrisons Wadi Halfa on the Egyptian southern border up near the second cataract of the mighty Nile. Conditions are hellish with temperatures of 122F recorded in the men's tents.

The newly arrived Dorset Regiment is soon christened the Dying Dorsets as they lose one third of their strength without hearing a shot fired in anger.

A half company of men camped out by some ancient ruins by a tributary of the Nile is down to just eight effectives when a friendly river Arab dashes into the camp with the awful news that the Khalifa's Merry Men are coming. Sergeant Shaun Murphy has just enough time to form a defensive line.

We used the IHMN rules to recreate an historical skirmish between the Ansar and the Dorsets on the frontier.

The Ansar raiders, commanded by El Jon, a cousin of the deceased Mahdi sent North by the new Khalifa to get him out of the way, consist of eleven men armed with properly Islamic weapons: swords, shields, and spear. They also have verses of the Koran in amulets worn on the body that are guaranteed to turn the British bullets to water (so they get the water bullet advantage).

They are supported by six Jehadiya African riflemen. These warriors are not true believers so do not get the water bullet advantage. I class their guns as carbines despite them being Remington breech loading rifles captured from the Egyptian Army because the Jehadiya tended to cut the barrels down and knock off the sights. The Jehadiya cannot use volley fire.

The Ansar objective is to kill all the infidel.

The Dorsets want to survive.

Let battle commence.

The Ansar dash forwards in one of their bounding charges while the Jehadiya lay down a desultory supporting fire with their usual inaccuracy.

The Dorsets fall back slowly, firing aimed shots and the Mahdists start to die.

The Ansar pile into the British line to be met by determined bayonet work.

The Dorsets fall back 'by the numbers', one half of the unit laying down withering fire as the other retreats through them. Two Dorsets fall to spear thrusts and a third is trapped but they sell their lives dearly.

The Ansar charge peters out after skewering two more Dorsets.

Sixteen Mahdist fanatics stain the sand sodden red.

Veteran Sgt Murphy advises his men to bayonet the Mahdist dead 'just to make sure'.

A great fun game. IHMN works really well as a colonial skirmish game. Of hand I can't think of a better set of rules for the job.

Dervish Camel Rider

Couldn't resist picking up another Dervish figure painted by Paul from Rochester Models.

More Whirlin' Dervish

I have added a few new figures to my whirlin' Dervish skirmish army - sorry couldn't resist the alliteration.

These are 2nd hand eBay models that were decently painted that I have essentially touched up and rebased to style them into my current models.

Black powder - Sudan: Highlanders

Painted up some old 1/72 Airfix Highlanders that I've had in the unpainted box since Jesus was a management trainee. Decided to use red coats because I get sick of painting khaki. Either would be correct in the Sudan. The British Army was in the process of abandoning the red coat for camo colours. The last battle in the Sudan was a massacre due to the Maxim gun. Red coats were no longer a good idea in the age of rapid fire weapons and smokeless firearms.

Black Powder: Sudan Battles

There are so many good 1/72 toy soldier figures available for the Battles of the Mahdist Revolt in the Sudan that it just cries out to be wargamed at this scale.

The Mahdist revolt was near identical to the ISIS revolt today with the same viciousness and fanaticism. It also occurred in an ex Ottoman Colony, or to be more exact a colony of an ex Ottoman colony.

Every so often, I like to get one of my armies on parade. Today it is the turn of the Sudan combatants.

It is dark today so I have had to use flash which is less than satisfactory. It is difficult to get any depth of focus so I have taken a few shots from different angles using bounce off the back window.

I use Priestley & Johnson's (sounds like a firm of dodgy undertakers) Black Powder Rules. I was put off Peter Pig's Patrol in the Sudan rules by the review by Clint in Anything but a One. Peter Pig Rules tend to be highly specific, which kinda restricts what one can use them for.

Black Powder is way more general but has a rules 'tool kit' to tailor types of troops so that they show the characteristics of their historical counterparts.

Even so, one has to use house rules to cover gun boats, and the Dervish ability to hide huge blocks of men in wadis that close at great speed through crummy terrain. British troops were instructed to treat Ansar infantry as cavalry to counter this.

These are the British troops that I have painted so far. On the left flank a cavalry brigade with two regiments of Hussars and one of Abyssinian mounted infantry supported by two batteries from the Royal Artillery.

In the British centre is a Brigade of infantry, two regiments of British light infantry and three of Indian, two small, supported by two batteries of machine guns and skirmishers from the Naval Brigade.

The British right wing has two battalions of the Camel Corps supported by a gunboat: a navigable river is a useful bit of terrain for the latter.

And here are the Mad Mahdi's men - who don't like it up them!

A 'brigade' of Baja led by Osman Digna, the only Mahdist general who understood modern warfare, consisting of two units of camels and two of infantry, one large, supported by two batteries of captured Egyptian guns whose crews have been 'persuaded' to man them.

The rest of the army forms a single brigade of Arab/Sudanese consisting of two unis of Ansar, one large, and two units of Jihadya riflemen. The Mad Mahdi banned his Ansar from using un-Islamic weapons such as firearms - what was good enough for the prophet etc. Two units of Baggara on Camels completes the brigade.

'Course, both armies are works in progress. I have boxloads of stuff unpainted. My next units will be some British Highlanders, some more Egyptian infantry, a few Bashi Bouzaks and so on.

So little time, so many models.

:)

Mahdist Standard.

Came across this interesting bit of 'loot' at the Royal Engineers Museum. It's a Mahdist standard in colours of copper and gold.

IHMN: Captain The Honourable Price-Waterhouse, Naval Brigade

Another of Warlord's Rorke's Drift models.