Zulu War Book Bargain

I was down in Tavistock yesterday and in the local Oxfam bookshop I found these excellent second hand books for just over £15 in total. As you can see, with one exception, they're all Zulu War related, so who knows, one day I may even get to use them for that long planned Zulu War project!

Zulus!....thousands of 'em

Well, not exactly thousands but enough scrounged from eBay to kick start a Death in the Dark Continent army over the summer holidays. I'll be taking this lot to France with me, together with the requisite bases, glue and tools, so that I can start to assemble a small army with which to try out the rules. I've also got a box of the British infantry but that may have to wait until later in the year, as I have other plans to screw up first!

Plastic Fantastic

In the summer holidays I will have a week or so when I'll be on my own, apart from the dog, in Brittany, the rest of the family being off doing other things. This means I'll have nothing much to do apart from reading and solo wargaming, apart from walking the aforementioned mutt and the occasional dip in the sea.

I'm planning ahead for this rate interlude in the joy of parenting, with Plan A being to spend some of the time building an army (or two) in plastic. This has the advantage of being easier to do while away, much cheaper in outlay as compared to metal figures, while being quite a pleasant process at the same time. 

The current idea is to assemble a Zulu and possibly a British army for Death in the Dark Continent using the Perry Miniatures boxes. The other option is to assemble a British army for the East African campaign for Chain of Command. These both have the advantage of being compatible with the excellent modular African savannah terrain that I've recently been gifted, so a great way to kill two birds with one stone, so to speak.

Perry Sudan British Characters

It's been a while since I assembled my 28mm Beja army for The Men Who Would Be Kings. This is the other half of the project, at least to start with, a three man command group for the 2nd Devonshire Regiment in the Sudan c1884-85. The Devonshire's didn't serve in the Sudan but could easily have done so, being one of the regiments in India that might have been deployed instead of the Royal Irish Fusiliers. I've kept them in helmets without covers, which means that I can't use them on the NW Frontier but there you go. 

These three will initially represent the characters in the One Hour Skirmish Wargame Zulu scenario, in which the Zulus will be replaced by the Fuzzy Wuzzies. I'll change the names of the characters to something more West Country too, as it seems more appropriate to have a Sgt Coombs rather than Moynihan, for example. I'll add another nine infantry to this lot next, so that I can use them for TMWWBK as a unit, not just the five needed for the scenario. 

Half Down, Half to Go

It's now June so time for a review of the progress (or lack of it) so far. I've not done too badly over the last six months and have completed one project from my 'to do' list - the Strength and Honour Roman and Parthian armies - although have yet to try out the actual rules. A second project - the Battle of Britain Bag the Hun Finest Hour campaign - has stalled a bit, but I have painted up the fighters for both sides and only need to add the decals to be ready to play a game or two. 

I've changed one of the other projects on the list, the Ancient Naval one has been scuppered, but have replaced it with a  new one - Bulldogs Away! - which is almost complete and ready to go. A couple of new projects have also been added to the list, most recently the One Hour Skirmish colonial thing, but that's eminently manageable and not a major diversion. I've also sold off a load of 28mm stuff on eBay to clear the decks a bit and have only bought a limited amount of stuff over the last six months, trying to keep the lead pile in check. 

I've not played many games and have pretty much given up going to the local club for various reasons, so will aim to address that over the summer with some solo campaign games, no doubt with a naval and skirmish focus. I've also set up the AK47 Facebook group which has proved to be far more popular than I thought, in the space of only one month gaining 289 members, so a successful initiative as long as the momentum lasts. Not bad and there's still six months to go!

Perry Zulus

 

I recently sold my Warlord plastic Zulu army as I didn't like the models, so am now free to use Perry Miniatures instead for The Men Who Would Be Kings and, of course, for One Hour Skirmish Wargames. I have a box set of the Zulu War British infantry, so now have all I need for the Zulu scenario in the One Hour book, which requires only sixteen Zulus including ten with spears, three with muskets and three command or character figures. This will make an excellent little skirmish project but, in the meantime, I am going to paint up twelve British figures for the Sudan version of the scenario, which will also double up as a unit in TMWWBK. 

Queen Victoria's Little Wars

As always, I've been doing some topical reading recently including this book, which I somehow missed before, despite having just about every other colonial warfare book under the midday sun on the bookshelves. It's a good read and full of all those little anecdotal details that make you go, 'umm, that could be a cracking scenario?' I'm also dipping into Col Mike Snook's Go Strong Into the Desert, which is excellent, as well as various Donald Featherstone classics. All jolly good stuff!

Terrain for The Men Who Would Be Kings

We took the kids to the swimming pool this afternoon so, while they were splashing about, I took the time to read through the whole book of rules for The Men Who Would be Kings. It soon became apparent that the desert terrain board that I planned to use for the 15mm version of my project is way too small, at 32'' square, even for the Skirmish Kings reduced sized game or using centimetres rather than inches, so I have had to do a re-think. It would be a shame not to use the rest of the 15mm desert terrain pieces that I've built for the Sandbox Skirmish project, but for TMWWBK's I'll need to make a full sized 6'' x 4'' set of terrain tiles or find a matching terrain cloth to use instead. This has thrown a proverbial spanner in the works to say the least.

In 28mm, however, I have always planned to use my existing Back of Beyond and Wild West desert terrain, which is based on a khaki coloured cloth that I acquired a few years ago and to which I have added various terrain pieces. You can see the effect that I've produced in the photo of a Back of Beyond game above. This is a full 6' x 4' set up and, while the terrain isn't suitable for 15mm, a lot of it is fine for the Sudan in 28mm, being not far off the colour of the landscape itself. I have hills, trees, scatter and buildings, so it's a much better prospect compared to the 15mm equivalent, even if I need some theatre specific extra bits. 

I'm now debating if it's a good idea to go for 15mm, given the terrain issue, although it is my first choice and I do like my bespoke terrain board a lot. Why isn't anything simple? At this rate, some Zulus are even looking more straightforward!

Into the Jaws of Death

It's the Easter holidays so time to catch up on some reading, with this optimistically titled book at the top of the reading list. I have Mike Snook's book Go Strong into the Desert, which is brilliant, so I'm looking forward to this one, especially as a source of inspiration for colonial skirmishy wargaming. Yet another use for my desert terrain or even that dusty box of plastic zulus?

Beyond the reach of Empire

I'm thinking of a colonial something or other in the latter half of the year, although Lion Rampant and Frostgrave also high on the list of things to do, assuming the Chain of Command Japanese continue to creep their way forward to completion by Xmas! With this in mind, I'll be doing some reading around the subject, starting with Beyond the reach of Empire which I'll be packing for my camping trip next week. This might mean skirmishes in the Sudan could be on the cards, but they could also pop up in Darkest Africa, Zululand or the North West Frontier?

Victorian Steel

 

I followed a link on TMP to this set of big battle colonial rules this morning and liked what I found a lot. This is a ruleset designed specifically for colonial wargaming and includes just about everything you would need for the period. I have a 15mm Mahdist army that I set up for Patrols in the Sudan, which is a great set of rules but very much a company level skirmish style game, so this set of rules would be a good way to scale up to brigade sized games. It also ticks the wargame campaigns box!

 

 

The rules are designed around square stands of 2 to 6 figures, each of which represents a company, with eight of so companies forming a brigade. I have enough 15mm dervish to put together several brigades, although I do need to finish off the highlighting and detailing, which I could add to the list of things to do over the summer. I don't have any Anglo-Egyptian forces yet but there's plenty of 15mm figures in the leadpile that will double up for PITS.

 

You can read more about the rules here:

 

http://www.victorian-steel.com/about-the-rules

 

One of the nice things about the rules is that a proportion of the cover price goes to the Combat Stress appeal, so it's a bit of a no-brainer all round. The rules also include two 28mm flag sheets, although what they are isn't specified, but I guess they are probably for the Sudan. I don't have plans to do anything in 28mm for this but I do have some 28mm plastic Zulus that would be a great way to branch out into larger scales.

 

 

I think I'll order a set of the rules instead of the Frostgrave option, as it would make more sense to make use of my existng 15mm armies rather than starting something completely new. If they arrive before the end of term I can work out what I need to do to either finish off the 15mm Mahdist or to assemble the 28mm Zulus. I've always had a soft spot for colonial gaming so this looks like a really exciting ruleset and a very effective way to get an existing project finished off.

Black Powder Zulu!

This arrived in the post a few days ago but, due to work, I haven't had time to sit down and read it through yet. It's supposed to be a Xmas present but I'll have a sneaky flip through this weekend before it gets wrapped up and put under the tree. It looks stunning and is full of historical detail with a minimum of rules specific content, so it'll be useful for other rules as well as for Black Powder, which is handy as I also like the look of Chris Peers' Death in the Dark Continent' rules for this too. 

Like Wolves on the Fold

I'm half way through the exam marking, so to give me an incentive to get the other half done, I've unshelved my copy of this hardback, which I picked up second hand a while ago. I need a change from the Kindle and a proper old fashioned book seems like a really good idea. I'm sure it will be a very interesting read and well up to the standard of Go Strong into the Desert.

Zulu Dawn?

I did the number crunching on the 10mm Zulu options today and have decided to go for 28mm instead, at least for the moment. It's not that 10mm is more expensive, varying from 18p to 12p per figure, it's more a question of bang for your buck, if you'll excuse the terminology. As finances are a bit tight at the moment, this is a bit of a sticking point.

The various 10mm ranges are very nice, especially the figures from Magister Militum, Steve Barber, Newline Designs and Pendraken, but they don't really have the visual impact of 28mm unless deployed en masse. This tends to cancel out the monetary incentive to a certain degree. There are some lovely figure ranges out there in 10mm but it's just a little too tiddly for the price tag.

As a result, I've ordered a less than full price Warlord Games Zulu Starter Army boxed set from a trader on Ebay, which I'll add to the presents under the Xmas tree this year. I don't know when it'll get unpacked on the workbench but I'm looking at 2014 as 'Africa' year, so it stands a good chance of some attention in the next twelve months.

Zulus!

I've just finished reading this Osprey Combat book and jolly good it was too. I was a bit dubious about the format, which contrasts a typical combatant from either side of a conflict, as it seemed a little gimmicky and pointless, despite the stonking Peter Dennis artwork on the cover. 

However, on reflection, I think it really works and gives a history from below feel to the narrative, which is a refreshing change and ideal for those of us who like skirmish level games. The text is by Ian Knight and is, therefore, well worth reading.

The Zulu War is something I've been interested in for a long time but never got round to, for the usual tedious reasons. I have a dusty box of 28mm Black Tree Zulus and British infantry somewhere that is at least a decade old and I've been thinking about the potential of plastic for quite awhile.   

I've also pre-ordered a copy of the soon to be published Zulu War supplement for Black Powder. I really enjoyed the single game of Black Powder that I played a while ago but have been put off by the large number of figures required for a typical scenario.

However, the ease of painting Zulus is a significant incentive to give it a go. I may go for the 28mm plastic option but 10mm is also a real possibility, especially as the Perrin Zulu War range is so well sculpted. It's made be wonder if 2014 might be Africa Year on the workbench?