Sunday, January 11, 2009

Colonial "Mayhem"






Why the Title? Well I have always wondered how the "Brits" held on to their Empire for so long, especially when the army only numbered around 120,000, could it have been that they confused every one with "Red Tape" Why you ask is this "Wargamer" publishing these images" Well let me explain, yesterday, Sunday, I put in an order for "Din Of Battle" Piquet Rule Set covering the Colonial Period, I have always wanted to purchase these rules because in the future I want to set up a campaign with my follow gamers using the Mapless Campaign System featured in "Command Piquet". I am hoping by instigating this it will get us motivated to game more often. When the word Campaign is mentioned players think of conquering the "World" No! not with this system, for it uses a "Campaign Event Timeline". More about this in the future. All I have to do now is to contact players and fix a date when we can get together and make a decision on what Colonial Period or Periods we can all agree upon to play and what rules to use. Of all the periods I know, this period seems to be well covered when it comes to rules, I came across another set "John Company". I don't know how they game, may be Scott knows? While I am still writing on the subject I intend in the future to collect figures for gaming the Russian-Japanese conflict in 1905. If any one is interested then let me recommend "Rising Sun And Tumbling Bear, Russia's war with Japan" by Richard Connaughton. I have almost finished reading it and I have found it very informative both in the historical aspect and the battles. So if anyone likes gaming the Early period of World War 1 than this period is some what similar. I have found that I can use miniatures from the "Boxer Rebellion" as the uniforms for both parties did not change. I believe "Old Glory" do a good range.
On the same day, I was looking through my library, when I pulled out Ian Knight's book "Rorke's Drift 1879" published by Osprey, having given it a quick read through I decided to take some photos of my "Colonial" figures, so here they are. The images are from the Zulu War and Sudan periods. The majority of the Sudan British were painted by a follow gamer Mark Temple, who is, in my opinion an Excellent painter, the British Lancers, he painted are exceptional. I was responsible for painting the Zulus and the "Red Coated" British. The Buildings by the way, were hand build by the son of a very good friend of mine, Bill Baxter.
The first image is a photo looking through the main street of a Sudanese village, the second is an aerial view of No 1. The fourth photo shows a British unit just about to be hit in the flank.
That's it for now, I hope you are enjoying reading my ramblings as much as I enjoy writing them.

1 comment:

  1. Good stuff Bob, I feel that your Fuzzy Wuzzies and Ansar would look great if you hit them with Army Painter Strong tone. I will show you how I do it when we have that Franco-Prussian game, this weekend? Funny you should talk about Din of Battle as I just won it and Hallowed Ground on Ebay. I will give you a call later today. Cheers Scott

    ReplyDelete