Jacklex Indian Gunners 'rediscovered'

As you know I have converted some Indian gunners for Jack's Madhists forces.  These were essentially the Jacklex Indian Mountain Gun crew.  When I did the conversions for the Sudanese Standard bearer I went back to some pictures I had taken of Jack's Colonial army that Bob had laid out on his table to have a look at the Sudanese figures.  By chance Bob had set up an Indian Gun crew next to them and these were standing around a field gun.  

The more I looked at the pictures I had taken and others I had taken a couple of years ago I couldn't find the Indian Mountain Gun crew in Jack's collection.  I then went to the jacklexminiatures.com website and discovered that Mark Lodge didn't have the set of 'standing'  Indian Gunners that Jack had in his army.  Really odd! 

I contacted Mark and sent him the set of figures which after cleaning turned out to be a set of 4 conversions that Jack had made.  The heads don't match any of the other figures in the Indian army range so they are not simple head swaps. These conversions must have been made over 40 years ago and have never been part of the Jacklex range till now.

I pleased to say that Mark has now recast them and they are available from jacklexminiatures.com

I like the addition of the 'tassle?' from the centre of the turban.  It gives them a certain flair.

It makes you wonder are there any other missing Jacklex figures out there?  Do you have anything, if so please get in touch.  We are also looking for the list of Jacklex figures which was produced by the Harrow Model Shop in the 1980s.  Finally, any pictures of the dioramas which were in the model shop and that were sold when the shop closed.

Mahdist Gunners

Some eagle eyed viewers of the post reviewing Jack's colonial armies spotted a set of Madhist gunners and I have had a couple of questions about them and whether they ever went into production.  The simple answer is 'no' they are my conversions.



I have to confess that once Bob laid out all the figures we started asking ourselves why Jack never got around to making certain figures, and why over all the years we hadn't noticed?  

We had gone over the thorny ground of 'Senior Command' command figures with him lots of times, but in Jack's wargames they really didn't count, so you only come across them in the ACW range.  Same with Standard bearers and the struggle even Stuart Asquith had trying to get him to make them for the colonial range.  I still remember Jack shaking his head and saying they never had them and finally bowing to pressure and making them but never casting or adding them to his collection.

Anyway, back to what struck us as missing.  On the Mahdist side we both felt they would benefit from some artillery. Guns were captured during the war and turned on the British and Egyptian allies.  From what I have read gunners were often Egyptian artillerymen captured and forced to work the guns or indeed deserters/converts to the Mahdist cause.

Having done lots of conversions for my S range armies I figured it must be possible to do the same thing for the Jacklex figures.  Looking at the figures on the table, I came to the conclusion that the simplest and quickest way to give the Mahdist some gunners (we had plenty of guns!) was to use the Indian artillery figures.  They have turbans after all so I was a good way there, Mark Lodge (jacklexminiatures.com) very kindly set me a couple of sets and I set to with my scalpel and sandpaper and removed all the belts and pouches, not to difficult.  I then added a little bit of 'green stuff' to hang down from the turban and already the figures looked different.  I them added more 'green stuff' to extend the jackets.  The paint job hides a multitude of sins as I can never seem to get it right with that stuff!  Jack always used 'Plastic Padding' so I am going to try that in future.  Anyway, in terms of conversions I made two crews, we didn't need lots and all eight figures didn't take very long at all.  The longest bit was waiting for the 'green stuff' to harden.  Yes, exactly like watching paint dry!  

This has spurred me on to do a set of head swaps to give the Egyptian/Sudanese contingent a set of gunners in white with red fezzes, should look rather fetching, using the British artillery figures as the basis.  I will post some pictures once they are done.  

Jack's Colonial Army

Jack has allowed Bob to take all his Colonial figures so we can have a game with them.  Bob has put all the figures on the table and whilst we have played with them in the past it has been with parts of the collection.  For the first time Bob has put out all the British, Indian and Sudanese and supporting artillery on the table together,  We both think there are some more floating about but even so they look impressive and it is the first time we have seen them like this.  So I went and took some pictures before they go back in their boxes.  

Bob also laid out the Mahdist forces.. Jack painted the overwhelming bulk of these figures over 40 years ago,

The really good thing is that these lovely figures are now available from https://www.jacklexminiatures.com

Mahdist Forces

Jack made the scratch built the fort.

20mm Jacklex Russian, Pathans, Indians and British the game that never was

It has been a long time since my last post.  I have been busy on our other site www.abcwargamers.blogspot.co.uk.  I set up a game for Jack Bob and myself using Jack's 20mm Russian, British and Indians and my Pathans.  All the figures  with the exception of a couple of my Pathans are Jacklex 20mm.

Interestingly, although Jack made the Pathan range he never painted any, choosing instead to use them in his Madhist army.

Having put all the figures out for a game fighting across the table, I decided at the last minute to change this and fight along the length of the table.  The report of that game is on our sister site, www.abcwargamers.blogspot.co.uk.  However, I took a lot of pictures of the table and the figures before changing it, so I thought I would post them here is anyone is interested.  Some pictures will seem similar to the game as I kept the basic scenario the same.

One interesting development is I think Bob and I persuaded Jack to make standard bearers for the Russians.  We shall wait and see.

Jacklex 20mm Artillery and Sailors

A belated Happy New Year.

Continuing my trawl through Jack's boxes of colonial figures here are some of his artillery and Sailors.  As with the previous posts, these were painted by the man himself nearly 40 years ago.  There are more wagons and machine guns and light guns I have yet to take pictures of, but for now......

These are shown with 4 horse teams, but because of the way Jack set this up horse teams could be as big as you wanted.  The RHA in my British Zulu War army is a six horse team.

Colonial Gun and British crew...

.....and now the same gun with the Indian crew.

More 4.7 inch guns than you would know what to do with.  Gunners are shown in both Khaki and Royal Naval uniforms.

As with the artillery teams, you could add as many pairs of oxen to this set as you wanted. It looked pretty spectacular with 6 pairs of oxen although it took up masses of room on the table.

The great thing about Jack's colonial range was the breadth of it.  He made sailors to go with the infantry, making naval landings and support possible.  My apologies as these are not the best pictures.

Slight adjustments to the arms creates a variation on the running figure

Jack's ship's crew.  I am not sure this was ever produced commercially.  Jack made these a few years ago to go with a paddle steamer.  You can see the origins, the figure designed to hold the ships wheel looks very like it is based on the Boer horse holder and the ship's captain on a British officer with binoculars from the colonial range.