Royal Aooghastan Cavalry

Although not finished in time for the 2nd play test of the Assault on Fort Khalaam, this troop of cavalry will join forces with the Haddabiera tribe on Saturday at my Bayou Wars convention game.


Consisting of 12 Lyzard Grin Sikh cavalry, this troop of the Royal Aooghastan cavalry presents a formidable appearance. Armed with a mix of swords and carbines, the unit is patterned after Royal Afghanistan cavalry portrayed in the Osprey North West Frontier: 1837-1947 book. They are dressed in dark cherry red tunics, charcoal black trousers, and black boots and head dresses. I also tried to simulate a bamboo standard pole by painting darker brown rings. For a first try, it looks OK.

But will their dashing appearance also mean they will do well on the miniature battlefield? We'll find out on Saturday.

New Native Unit - Ral Partha Arabs

Yesterday I completed the second of four new native units for the game I will be running at Bayou Wars later in June. It is composed of 18 vintage Ral Partha Arab type figures armed with spears and two others who are armed with swords. These were easy to paint. I used white, cream, camel, and suede acrylic colors for the robes and turbans. The skin was painted spice brown to simulate a tanned Middle Eastern/Afghan look.

The two sword armed figures are in the front. The one on the left appears to be similar to MiniFigs in stature but is missing all the usual MiniFigs markings. He may be a Frontier or Falcon figure. The figure on the right with the flowing cape had some indecipherable markings on the bottom. I have no idea from which manufacturer he came.

I made the banner on my computer by using the MSWord table feature.
The Arabic script, according to an on-line translation site, reads:

"There is but one God,
and Mohammed is his prophet."

This unit will join with two rifle-armed units to form the Silver Fox Clan of the Haddabiera tribe.

New Native Unit: semi-Tuaregs

After the first play test of the assault on Fort Khalaam (see previous post), we decided that the Haddabiera needed some more warriors. So I got busy with the brush and paint. In less than a week, I had a new unit of 20 native warriors. I decided to give them a Tuareg-like character with blue robes and turbans. Only seven of the figures had the lower facial veil so all the others also got one put on with paint. I used three different blues to give them some variation and to simulate the fading of cloth and dye in the hot sun.

This unit is composed of figures from the old Miniature Figurines Carolingian/Moor line. I don't think that they are cast any longer but there are similar figures available in the MiniFig Medieval range. The unit consists of six CM-7 advancing with spear, seven CM-12 standing with spear, and seven CM-6 advancing with sword. I added the Arabic "B" character to the shield using the special character font in my MSWord program, printing it in white lettering on black. A simple hole punch was used and then the circles were glued onto the shields and covered with Elmer's glue before I blended them into the shield using a flat black paint.


The banner is also made with MSWord, but in this case I translated "Allah is great" into Arabic script using an on-line translation program and then pasted that into a pair of cojoined rectangular cells. I then cut it out and glued it to one of the upright spears. Presto, instant banner.

This unit will join two rifle-armed units to form the Black Leopard Clan of the Haddabiera tribe.

I'm please with the way these turned out and how quick they were to paint. I hope the rest of the native infantry and cavalry reinforcements go as quickly.

First Battle of Khalaam

Finally, a week after the battle, the battle report is produced. This report is in a different format from what I normally post. I constructed the report as a PowerPoint presentation using from one to four pictures per slide. I then converted each slide into a separate jpeg file and posted them to the blog. The reader must click on each slide in order to view them properly.

The rules used were The Sword and the Flame by Larry Brom, which may be obtained from Sergeants3 (shameless plug!).

And now Col Campbell's Barracks presents:
























Photographs are courtesy of Bill Hamilton, John Murdaugh, Ed Sansing, and Jim Pitts.

Troops are owned and were painted by Jim Pitts. Almost all are Ral Partha. The Indian lancer officer is Miniature Figurines; the two Haddabiera guns are Foundry Darkest Africa; the Russian officer is Askari; and the Niyam militia are London Warroom Abyssinians.

Terrain owned by Jim Pitts.

Victorian Colonial Battle Teaser

Just a small teaser from the Victorian Colonial game we had this past Saturday (May 16). It pitted an Anglo-Indian punitive expedition of five infantry units, two cavalry units, and two artillery units against the Haddabiera tribe of five infantry units, one cavalry unit, and two guns in the Vale ofKhalaam in the North Central Frontier of Aooghastan.

A more detailed report will be posted on the Jackson Gamers blog (see link in side-bar) later this week.

An overview of the Anglo-Indian expedition as it enters the mouth of the Vale of Kalaam.

Part of the Niyam town militia fleeing a burning and collapsing building.

An overview of the battlefield as the game was drawing to a close.