Rose not Zulu War

 And Jacklex officers!

It's pretty much experiment/play time again. Or still experiment/play time. This time I'm looking at how to fit the Rose 20mm Zulu Wars range into the alternate pulp world with an extended/totally anachronistic timeline - you know, a world where 1879 fit quite nicely with 1930?

I've already made a start looking at Rose figures for pulp actions...

Now I'm trying some painted as more-or-less Zulu War but with black painted helmets. Question was, do they stand up as Home Service helmets in that scale. Plus query do I use Prussian Blue or Dark Prussian Blue for trousers? And why did I do 10 figure sections instead of 16? OK, 16 takes longer...

I did facings in 3 different colours. Reason? Can then call them as different regiments if I treat a 10 figure unit as a battalion. Of course, I didn't think that if I made them 16 figure units then it would fit in with a 4 element DBX unit! On the other hand,use them as 8 figure sections, then 3 sections would fit for a 24 figure/6 element battalion.

So units are 1 officer (Jacklex, no need to do head swaps!), 8 riflemen and loading figure as an NCO. Can't claim credit for that basic idea - pinched it (thanks Charles - and yours are painted a lot better than mine!)

So the idea is to see if  these figures will do as alternate universe/pulp marines or infantry for a number of nations, including French and Germans. Key words are 'will do'. The pith helmet is not really a good home services help except at a distance and with poor eyesight - but 'will do'. Alternat universe, alternate design. Hopefully, I can also 'integrate' them (with support from Jacklex figures) into my 1897 universe as well!

'Colour' is another issue. Every picture I look at has a different colour blue for British and French infantry! Some are very dark, almost black like French Napoleonic tunics. Others are more of a mid blue. OK, 20mm different to real life, the French especially were trying out different uniforms at that time anyway. I've never really been happy with British trouser colours - again, feel I should do them darker rather than lighter! So eventually I'll go with what I think looks better!

Zulu

When I was building my Minifigs Kushite/Blemmye armies I needed a load of cheap spearmen to act as Nobades/subject Kushite spears. The problem was solved when I picked up a couple of hundred Zulus at the bring and buy at a convention. Most of the figures are Minifigs Zulus, not convinced that  a couple aren't by other manufacturers though.

These were always going to be quick dry brush jobs. The first hundred were quickly finished and pressed into service, the rest are still being used in various ways. Might even cast up some Colonial Brits sometime.

 There's nothing else to really say about these - the time spent on each figure was minimal and I didn't use any fancy colours. Mainly lots of white.

For bright colours I waited until I did some figures for my Hyborian Black Nations army - but even these weren't exactly a major effort time-wise.