Ill Gotten Gains

Simon put on this game at the club.  My Sudanese figures got to venture on to the Table Top in the pay of a dastardly adventurer who had looted ivory and gems from Africa.  The rules were Men Who Would Be Kings.  Karl was on the dark side as well, looking after red and blue Arab gunmen.  Curtis and John were the good if very unlucky natives - Massai warriors.

Trudge, trudge, trudge.

The white Arab gunmen seem a bit reluctant.

Natives arrive on the left,

but they soon scatter after a few volleys from the blue Arabs,

and a shot or two from the cannon (not yet in view).

More natives, this time on the right.

Note cannon at top of the image.

There is also the plane, which the dastardly adventurer intends to make good his escape in.

My Sudanese warriors get ready to charge the natives.

Meanwhile two more groups of natives have appeared in the rear.

Moving swiftly under the acacia trees.

The natives fall upon the blue Arabs who promptly get a move on.

(Always tricky when the results of your attack see the enemy

 going further in the direction they were heading anyway.  Doh!)

Unlike these natives who my Sudanese have bested and pushed back.

The white Arabs stand to fight hoping their shots will hit the mark.

They do and these natives stall.

All over.

The red Arabs well aimed shots put an end to the other natives.

The Sudanese had chased off their opponents.

The dastardly adventurer jogs off to board his plane.

 100 years later his descendants will have to apologise.

If only he had thought of the consequences of his actions

it would have saved a lot of future bother.

 

 

They Don't Like It

I roped Stephen into playing a game with me at the club.  Brendan joined in to.  Using the ever adaptable Song of Blades and Heroes, eh, Songs of Drums and Shakos, I came up with some very simple profiles for the few figures I have in my Sudan collection, including my just completed Beja warriors.

In order to encourage Stephen to get on with his Dad's Army figures, I made this game about Corporal Jones having to take his newly arrived boys out on a patrol.  Brendan added that one of them, Rifleman Pike, had lost his hat and that was what the patrol was about.  Made sense to me.

Corporal Jones, in his sun faded uniform,

addresses his boys in their bright new green threads

"Now lads, we have to find Pike's helmet

They form up ready to scour the sands of Sudan for poor Pike's helmet

The newly arrived indigenous inhabitants

 do not take kindly to these strangely garbed and coiffured intruders.

A shot rings out from a rusty musket creating much smoke, but little damage.

However some followers of the Mahdi rush the patrol.

Pike makes it to the rocks and finds his helmet.

but his comrades might be in a spot of bother.

The peaceful inhabitants rush to join in, 

concerned that they might be missing out on the fighting,

Corporal Jones' last words are "Don't panic!"

Enter Lieutenant Napier and the rest of the platoon,

coming to the rescue, if a tad late for some of Jones' boys.

Pike, without his corporal to tell him to put his helmet on his head, 

places it at his feet and wonders what all the fuss is about.

"I don't see anything."

He is quickly proved wrong.

Lieutenant Napier now has to contend with the Fuzzy-Wuzzy tribesmen!

He skillfully starts to retreat after ordering covering fire,

but then standing in the way of said covering fire.

Oh dear.

Pike has perished.

Who will tell his mum?

One shot wonder!

Unlike the Mahdists who rarely failed activation rolls 

my guys generally and repeatedly failed to budge.

Still, they looked good.

I did make a few changes on the fly.  Main one was using only half the Sudanese.  Corporal Jones had a sword, not a rifle and the bugle was given a rifle rather than nothing.  Shooting result that was greater than but not double produced a knock down or rather a duck for cover.  Knocked down figures lost their abilities.  Not sure I had the mechanics for the Lieutenant's group activations worked out properly, but regardless, we had fun. 

Beja Warriors

The famed Fuzzy-Wuzzy, although you probably can't call them that these days.  Never mind.  These were figures from Dave's surplus that I was reminded of when I went looking for a hand.  They were easy to paint up, harder to photograph.

I don't know the figure brand, but they are 28mm.

I like the animation and subtle variations 

which I tried to further enhance with varying skin and fabric tones.

But I felt these photos were too dark 

and you can't see the whites of their eyes!

Better, but now I see I could have done a better job with the eyes.

Well, I proudly couldn't as just getting the white speck was hard enough.

And eyeball would be a brush stroke too far.

Not so noticeable in the photos,

but I used a matt varnish and the flesh would look better with a slight sheen.

But another job done, although I should make up a movement tray for them.  Better still they have now seen action on the table top (see next post - They Don't Like It).

Songs of Drums and Pith Helmets

Regardless of how this game played I knew it was going to be a success as it meant that I finally got to use my new terrain mat, plus the some of the Mahdists that I had recently finished as well as some British opponents for them that had come into my possession.

I thought Songs of Drums and Shakos would be easy to adapt and it was except I couldn't find a point system.

There were two squads of British each of one officer and five infantrymen.  The officer was Q3 C2 Leader armed with pistol and sword.  The infantrymen were Q4 C2 armed with rifles.  The leader gave a plus one to Q if they were with one long.  The infantry didn't have to reload.

There were four mobs of Mahdists, each with a flag bearer, drummer and three to four swordsmen.  The flag bearer was Q3 C2 with the ability fervor (which allows a warrior to reroll one fail if they are in range).  The drummer was Q3 C1 and acted to extend the range to one long.  The swordsmen were Q3 C2 and armed with a sword which gave them a bonus in combat (+1 for better weapon).  All the Madists move fast (one long).

 The Madhists were positioned randomly based on a dice rolls (using the benefit of the 12x8 grid).

The British squads entered from each end and had the objective of meeting up in the middle.

 The Mahdists were quickly able to attack Mark B's squad.

 As controller of the Mahdists I kept them hidden as best I could by the terrain.

 Mark B's squad is being overwhelmed.

The red dots represent deaths.

 Simon's squad also came under fierce attack.

 After a gruesome death, the remnants of Mark B's squad flee.

Simon's squad fight valiantly on, but the Mahdists are relentless.

I had only given the force composition limited thought, but was basically happy with it.  Perhaps I had too much terrain that limited the British superiority in long range fire.  Often they were attacked before they could get a shot in, so maybe an overwatch action is required.

Regardless, it was great to get the figures and terrain into action.

Thirty Mahdists

Another project finished.  The figures have been in my possession since December 2014 when I received them as part of the post NWS Kris Kringle shuffle.

I started work on them in December last year, The Mahdists are Coming, so it has taken me just under three months to complete them.

Flags came from http://www.warflag.com/flags/colonial/dervish.shtml

 A bit of over exposure.

Now corrected, but I liked the previous bright glare of the hot Sudan sun, 

so kept that photo in the mix.

 When I say complete...  Well, this base...

 Is different to this one.  In the previous base the figures are resting on an extra washer that gives then just that bit of extra height so their base sits better with the movement tray.

 For what is a simple uniform, the flesh tones took me the most time, then I put in some double work on the white tunics.  But the coloured patches were easy.  

It helped that I was working on other projects while doing these.

The flags, as noted, were images sourced from the Internet and printed, folded, crushed and glued.

Also, note on this figure that I have him sitting on a second washer which would be the next task if I decide to raise them all so they sit flusher with the sabot.

 It took me a few brain cycles to finally settle on how I was going to base the figures.  I am very happy with what I came up with as it was relatively easy to do, versatile and provides other opportunities. 

I had these 25mm slotted magnetic bases I was going to use and I figured doing a sabot that would then be affixed to a metal base was the way to go.  This failed as the base size for Sands of the Sudan would have only accommodated four figures (as it is the recommended basing is 7 to 10), but worse my 25mm bit meant it was all too tight to reliable drill out four holes (as can be seen above).  Plus the 25mm bases would have been a snug fit.  I then switched to 20mm plastic bases and a 20mm bit but that would also have been a tight fit as well and still left me with the magnetisation to do.  But then I found the miracle ingredient:

These washers were perfect, coming in at 18mm made for a decent fit.  I glued the drilled out MDF base to a backing of magnetic paper (actually one of those fridge magnets that are now prevalent in mailbox drop advertising material).  I painted the MDF first which made life easy.

Terrain

 And here we have the thirty Mahdists swarming over my latest bits of desert terrain.

 I wanted ridges and cliffs.

 But more importantly I just need a bit more to supplement my previous production.

The Mahdists are coming...

... along nicely.

Cleaned up. assembled and undercoated.

I first posted on these guys late December, 2014.  I didn't think it was that long ago, but three years these days ain't a long time.

Unfortunately I don't know the manufacturer of these figures.  I'm sure someone will tell me.

Recently they had started to inch towards my painting table.  With the hot weather I found myself unable to continuously paint, but could start fiddling with figures.  I'd also been doing a little bit of research aided by a cache of Osprey books and more recently a concerted effort to start indexing my Military Modelling magazines (which of course finishes before their article in 1985 on the Mahdists).  Luckily it was Pyjamas to the rescue.

What got me thinking I could actually paint this number of 28mm figures was this article by One man and his brushes. So rather than my usual black undercoat hand painted, I was going to try spray painting them with a white undercoat.

But before I could do that I was struck by indecision.  Should I base them singly (on 20mm square bases and use them for Songs of Blades and Heroes or similar skirmish type games), or should I base them for Impetus Basic Battles?  While it could still change I have decided to base them for Sands of the Sudan as that rule set's 100mm by 45mm base (of 7 to 10 figures) will fit within an appropriate troop type IBB base of 120mm by 60mm (just need to make a sabot).  These 30 figures will make four bases.

The figures cleaned up okay, only a few needed major work (drilling out a wad of metal cast between the legs on three of the drummers).  However now they are undercoated I see more mould lines I should have dealt with (hopefully a lick of paint will deal with them).

I very rarely use spray paint (except for varnishing) and had to get up early while it was still cool and not windy.  I used a Tamiya Flat White (which by a Xmas miracle had turned up in Stanbridges yesterday when it wasn't there on Friday).  It was a great relief when I found that the spray had worked.  There are numerous areas not adequately covered (which is why I normally do this step by hand), but which will be easily tackled in my next planned step which is the application of some light grey to the recesses.

It is possible I might get these figures finished next year.