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Zambezi Campaign 18: Veronique Croissant's gun

2011-12-03T17:18:00.005Z

Ogilvie VC was postulating, in a comment on my last post, on what sort of gun Veronique Croissant was carrying and suggested a Purdey. In fact, she is carrying a Joseph Lang 6-bore percussion elephant gun.

Hampshire-born Lang was originally a gun seller before moving into gun manufacture. He was a contemporary of James Purdey, whose guns he sold, and married one of Purdey's daughters. An excellent competition shot and innovator he exhibited his guns at the Great Exhibition in Crystal Palace in 1851 and then in 1855 at the Paris Exposition Universelle. Veronique's father, Victor, was one of the more than 5 million people who attended the exhibition in Paris and it was here that he first saw Lang's guns. He bought this weapon on a visit to Lang's Cockspur Street premises on a trip to London in 1857 ready for the South African safari he was planning the following year.

Ever since she was a little girl Veronique had a passion for rowing on the River Sâone near the family home in Lyon. As a result she built up very unladylike upper body strength so that she was the only one of the Croissant sisters able to use the gun. Her father, therefore, had no problem with lending it to her when she declared that she was travelling to Africa with her older sister, the intrepid reporter, Amelie.

Zambezi Campaign 17: three more characters

2011-11-27T16:32:00.001Z

I have very little time to paint at present and the light isn't very good anyway but I have managed to finish three more characters for the Zambezi capaign. First up we have Commissioner Sanders Wallace. Responsible for keeping the peace on the whole Upper Zambezi he has no compunction about calling in a heavy military response if the natives start getting uppity. He is getting concerned about Arab slavers upriver; especially as they appear to be in posession of some artillery which is having a very de-stabilising effect on the region. He doesn't figure in the Gary Chalk scenarios but I liked the figure and am just reading Edgar Wallace's Sanders of the River which is a masterclass in conveying character and plot in the most economical and spare way possible.

Sean Sweeney is one of Trader Jones' "clerks" and is very much the hired muscle of the trading post. When he's not drunk on Bushmills Whiskey he is a crack shot. He features in the Trading Post scenario.

Finally, we have the French reporter Amelie Croissant's younger sister Veronique who has always been at the centre of whatever trouble is happening. Amelie has told her to stay behind at the military post but hasn't counted upon her skill as a stowaway.

Zambezi Campaign 16: Amelie Croissant

2011-09-01T23:01:00.000+01:00

This young lady isn't in the Gary Chalk scenarios but I have had her on the workbench for some time so feel I can put her in somewhere.

I was looking for an annoying lady reporter to join the steamboat transported reinforcements but decided what could be more annoying than a lady reporter who is French? Hence she has become Amelie rather than Amelia. Sent by her publication in France (probably something like La Vie Parisienne) in the hope of seeing the British make a mess of things and also follow up rumours of a tribe of warrior women led by a white woman. She will, of course, be a total liablity!

Incidentally, this figure demonstrates how Mr Copplestone is one of the very few who can sculpt attractive female faces. Lots of sculptors can do bodies but very few can do pretty faces!

Zambezi Campaign 15: Arab Cannon

2011-07-17T19:34:00.000+01:00

Well, at last I have finished another unit for the Arab force. For the scenarios I am using I need two cannon like this. The first one I bought from Foundry didn't have a barrel but when I reported this to them they sent me another pack by return. So I have two crews but only one cannon. I think I will use the cannon from my Force Publique army to give a slightly different field piece. The crews are identical but I will paint the other one up differently.

Zambezi Campaign 14: First unit of Wangwana

2011-05-16T12:16:00.000+01:00

Having now finished the British force (except for the gunboat) I have moved on to the Arabs, who are the most numerically large of the various forces needed. The first unit I have finished is of 14 Wangwana: the freed-men of Zanzibar.

These Swahili of the East coast of Africa supplied most of the troops for the Arabs from Zanzibar and, indeed, those who had settled further into the interior, like our theoretical slavers in these scenarios. They also worked for European explorers and this picture of Speke's "faithfulls" gives a good idea of their apperance.

In most pictures I have seen they are shown as wearing white, although they did wear blue and red tradecloth and even some striped material in the later period. There seems to be a suggestion that they may have saved these brightly coloured clothes for best so, on the whole, I am going to keep them dressed in white.

I need to paint three units of fourteen of these and have already got the second unit based and undercoated and the third unit based. I will alternate painting them with other figures I have part-painted on the workbench, so I think I will take a break from these for a bit and finish some Zulus that have been sitting around for far too long.

Leading the unit is an Arab from Zanzibar. In fact many of the "Arabs" at this time had interbred with Africans and, indeed, it was said that they were successful at settling in the interior as they had inherited some resistance to malaria from their African forbears.

These will be useful figures I can use in explorers' forces as well. I thought they might be a bit boring to paint but found the simple colour scheme quite relaxing!

Zambezi Campaign 13: British force completed and two more characters

2011-05-03T22:15:00.002+01:00

Well, it's taken four months but I have now fininished my British force for the Zambezi campaign. A unit of Sikhs, two units of regular askaris, a unit of irregular askaris, two units of Naval brigade plus command and baggage. 61 figures altogether but I painted some extras too so altogether it's 74 figures.

I have also painted two more characters, for the McKenzie's trading post scenario. This requires a trader, McKenzie, and three clerks. My trader is called Jones, after the character in the underrated and quite brilliant animated children's TV series Charlie Chalk. Here he is (right) with one of his clerks Portuguese Paulo (left). I need to find another clerk for him, who will probably be a native and for the fourth character I think I will give him a wife. Hopefully I will get these two done in the next week.

Trader Jones is sick of his bossy wife and wishes he hadn't persuaded her to go up the Zambezi with him as he quite likes the look of the native girls who would be very happy to look after him in exchange for beads, cloth and whisky. He wishes he had followed the example of his brother, Vic, who had the sense to travel to the South Seas instead to set up his trading post.

In fact the British force is not quite complete as I have to finish my gunboat, which means finding a suitable artillery piece and naval crew for it. Mutineer Miniatures have just released a naval gun crew which, although from forty years earlier, will probably do. Their figures will certainly look better with the Copplestone and Foundry ones than the rather lumpy Zulu War naval crew from Foundry.

I have now also started work on my first Arab unit and hope to have these finished by the end of this weekend.

Zambezi Campagn 12: Major Hadden Bowen

2011-04-19T21:25:00.002+01:00

Major Bowen, commander of the land expeditionary force

I had already painted two figures for the British officers but decided that one of them looked to old to go gallivanting about up river so he has been promoted to Colonel and will remain at the base further down the Zambezi. I may put him, Colonel Perceval Hedley, on the paddle boat with the naval reinforcements.

Colonel Hedley

So I needed a new commander for the force, Major Hadden Bowen. I've decided that he is a tough, no nonsense man who learnt his trade in Afghanistan and would be likely, unlike his stuffy Lieutenant, William Baker-House, to dress down in the field.

He also wears one of the wider brimmed Wolseley helmets; named after Sir Garnet Wolsely who sported one in the Sudan War of the 1880s. Also called the Solar Topi, this helmet was not yet official issue for officers (it would be by the Boer War) but was very popular with British officers serving in this part of Africa in the 1890s. They would probably have bought theirs at Cearn & Company, Government Road, Nairobi.

Zambezi Campaign 11: British bearers

2011-04-18T15:57:00.000+01:00

Here is the final unit for the British forces for my Zambezi campaign: the British baggage element. Technically you only need 4 elements but I feel that only four bearers look a bit thin so I have made each element two figures to give a better looking group.

Burton and Speke's original expedition to the Mountains of the Moon, for example, started with around 100 askaris and 100 bearers and that was, essentially a two man expedition. Probably there should be a bearer for every combatant! Some of Stanley's expeditions had over a thousand bearers.

Foundry make two packs of bearers so I have managed to avoid any duplication and still have some left over for the Arab force.

Zambezi Campaign 10: Levy Askaris

2011-04-04T17:13:00.004+01:00

What with being in Asia for most of March it rather hit my painting schedule but I did just finish my final fighting unit for the British force for my Zambezi campaign.

These are levy askaris of which you need a unit of fourteen. I painted thirteen and added a Sikh NCO. This unit uses the Foundry "almost uniformed askaris" and "askaris in European hats and coats" packs. On the basis that it is the eighteen nineties I have put them in rather more clothes than these levy units often wore; often just being dressed in a loincloth or long kilt with a musket. Their commander won't be doing with his native johhnies going into the bush looking like a complete shower, however, so they have picked up discarded bits of unifom from the regulars and added old coats and hats where they can find them.

Still, compared with the regular askari units they look appropriately scruffy.

Now the only figures I need to complete the British force are the eight bearers which are now well under way. Once these are done I will photograph the entire force before moving on to the Arabs.

Zambezi Campaign 9: Sikh Unit

2011-02-26T15:26:00.002Z

The pack of eight Foundry Sikhs

Here is the pack of Foundry Sikhs which I finished today. I was delayed in finishing them as I found out that I had painted their turbans and belts the wrong colour so had to correct that this week.

The force of six Sikhs needed for the scenario

In Nyasaland in 1891 Sikhs were recruited from the Indian Army along with Muslim cavalrymen and Zanzibaris under Sikh NCOs. In 1893 another 200 Sikhs were recruited and were very active in the anti-slaver wars until 1895. By 1898 when the Ngoni rebellion was being dealt with the only Sikhs remaining were the NCOs commanding African troops. Still, there is a good solid historical background which makes their appearance in these scenarios quite justified.

Sikh NCO Nyasaland

I must say I thought that Mark Copplestone had severely exaggerated the appearance of the Sikhs' turbans (more than the usual 28mm exaggeration, anyway) until I found a photograph of a Sikh NCO from Nyasaland. These were big turbans!

Sikh of the Indian Contingent in Nyasaland (c. 1893)

Their original uniform was very colourful, after the Zouave fashion, with a black turban, black jacket with yellow cuffs and piping, yellow trousers and white shirt and gaiters. The uniform was designed by Johnson, the first commissioner for the British Central African Protectorate, and the three predominant colours of black, yellow and white were supposed to represent the three races involved in the force ( African, Asian and European). By the time of our scenario the Sikhs were wearing standard khaki.

The total Sikh's painted

These were pretty good to paint although, unusually for Copplestone, there were a few vague bits of metal, particularly around the water bottle and some of the straps.

I now only have two more elements to paint for the British: the 14 irregular askaris, which I have now based and undercoated and the four baggage elements which will comprise eight porters (as I think four look a bit silly).

I haven't painted any figures other than for this project this year and in two months have done 52 figures, which is my best yearly start for three years.

African library 1: Sir Samuel Baker

2011-02-08T22:47:00.000Z

An elephant hunt from Sir Samuel Baker's The Albert Nyanza

One of the things that keeps me focussed on a wargaming project is reading books about the subject. Of course, the problem for me is that reading a book on a particular subject often then makes me want to start a wargaming project! So I am going to write the occasional post about my Darkest Africa library, which is not that extensive, but provides enough source material to keep me occupied with potential projects.

I will start with Sir Samuel and Florence Baker as the two were, in every sense, inseperable. I wrote about them in the blog previously so have nothing to add here about their lives. I have three books relating to them.

The first one I read is Pat Shipman's To the Heart of the Nile (2004). This is a wonderful introduction to the story of the Bakers and gives Florence a much greater part than is usual in accounts of their activities. It is, however, rather peculiarly full of invented dialogue between them which doesn't damage the narrative drive of the book but does impact on its credibility. Still, very enjoyable and it contains a good number of (small) illustrations.

Lovers on the Nile (1980) by Richard Hall tells the same tale but in a more economical and spare manner. I can't help feeling that the titles of the two books should be swapped to better reflect their contents! It has eight pages of illustrations in the centre.

My third book is Baker's The Albert Nyanza Great Basin of the Nile and Exploration of the Nile sources (1866). Based on his diaries it is a fascinating insight into the experience of a Victorian explorer cut off from all but his own (and his redoubtable wife's) devices. My copy is the 1913 edition and, somehow, these older books add to the sense of adventure when reading them! This book also contains many illustrations of engravings based on Baker's own sketches.

Zambezi Campaign 8: a few oddments.

2011-02-08T17:16:00.002Z

Whilst doing the Naval Brigade I also painted a few other characters. Firstly, and most importantly, I painted the British standard bearer because the scenario forces require one. In fact, by this time, British forces didn't carry standards in battle anymore so we have an unofficial standard bearer carrying the Union flag.

After I finished the British askaris I found, annoyingly, one more which I had missed so finished him up too. I think I will use one of these uniformed askaris to command the group of 14 levy askaris required. I found that I already had enough figures for this unit so they are now based and ready for undercoating once the Sikhs are done.

Finally, I bought some Darkest Africa odds and ends off eBay, mainly to get some more bearers but also included was this female villager. She is an excellent piece of Copplestone characterisation and I thought that she would make a suitably combative wife for the chief of the Wasimba village which gets attacked by the Arabs in one of the scenarios. She is resplendent in red tradecloth skirt and bronze bangles.

Along with the Sikhs I am also going to start work on the British baggage elements. Some of these will be newly painted and some will be old, repainted figures.

Zambezi Campaign 7: Naval Brigade

2011-02-08T16:56:00.001Z

I have, at last, finished the Naval Brigade for the Zambezi campaign. In the scenario they are trying to repair their steamboat. If they do, they reinforce the main infantry force with two small units of six men as well as more food and ammunition. I have gone for the all white tropical uniforms with sennett hats. I am contemplating adding one or two annoying civilians to the steamer's passenger list; probably a female reporter, loosely based on the faintly unbelievable character in the John Wilcox novels. This is merely so I have an excuse to paint a few more character figures, which is helping me not get bored with the unit painting.

Here is the first Naval Brigade unit commanded by a junior lieutenant. I wasn't sure about painting black edging around the brim of the seamen's hats. Some pictures I have seen have them and some don't. In the end I went for not, based on this, as it is an actual photograph rather than an illustration or a re-enactors recreation.

Below is the second unit of six, commanded by a midshipman. These Copplestone Castings figures are on the large side but as the proportions are the same as his Foundry figures it is not too noticeable.

The scenario doesn't list one but I thought they needed a commanding officer so have painted up Lieut. Troutbridge here.

He'll add a few points to the Naval side but a few more troops on the Arab side will balance him out. Finally, I felt that the gunboat would need a captain so here is Capt Rufus Copperfield. Sidelined to the rusting heap that is the paddleboat Queen Charlotte, because of an unfortunate incident with an unmarried lady in a railway carriage, he is determined to take his revenge on the diabolical Arab slavers, or The Press, as he prefers to call them. The rumours that a reporter is due to join his voyage upriver does not fill him with pleasure.

Next up are the Sikhs!

Zambezi Campaign 6: Rev MacSporran

2011-01-24T18:14:00.000Z

Apart from the larger units, the Gary Chalk scenarios require a number of characters as well. Although I am proceeding well on the Naval Brigade I have to go to Turkey this week so won't get them finished until (hopefully) this weekend. They are nearly done but the collars of the sailors require, in total, 90 very fine white lines and this is taking almost as long as the rest of the painting!

So, in the meantime, I painted the Scottish reverend I need for one of the scenarios. Chalk calls him Rev McKenzie but I have named mine Angus MacSporran after someone I met once. You wouldn't have thought that such a name could possibly be real but it certainly is!

I think I might give him a wife, as there is a perfect Foundry figure in one of my boxes. He is a non-combatant so it doesn't matter, from a scenario point of view, if there are two figures rather than one.

The next figures I have based and undercoated are the Sikhs. You only need six but I got eight in my Foundry pack so will paint them all anyway.

I have also started work on the British standard bearer and I found an extra unpainted British askari who will be the leader of the unit of 14 local levy askaris.

Zambezi Campaign 5: Starting the Naval Brigade

2011-01-16T21:36:00.001Z

The Naval Brigade under way as of this morning. I have shaded their uniforms and blocked in the coloured collars, gaiters and rifles today.

I managed to do a few hours on my next unit, the Royal Baval Brigade, today. Amazingly I have managed to stay focussed on this project for several weeks now! I think the good thing is that the units are quite small and there is enough variety in troop types that if I get bored with one I can do a bit on another.

A Royal Navy silor in tropical uniform. White tops were more common in Southern Africa

Naval troops were fairly active in Africa (outside of the main areas of action such as Egypt and the Sudan) towards the end of the nineteenth century particularly against the Somalis and Swahili towns in the eighteen nineties. Troops involved were a mixture of armed ratings and Royal Marines but for this force I will be just using the sailors.

A turn of the century Naval sennet hat. The black trim seems not to have been worn in the earlier period.

As I start to paint the sailors I realise that these figures come from Copplestone Castings "big" period when some of his figures got really huge (something to do with the prescription for his glasses, apparently). I'm usually bothered about this sort of thing but as they are in the same style, naturally, as the Foundry figures it doesn't look so bad and, after all, the Arabs and natives probably weren't so well fed!

Royal Navy sailors in Egypt in 1882

Uniforms of sailors at this time were blue but those in tropical climes also wore white with blue collars and black neckerchiefs. I have already painted a Naval Brigade unit with the blue uniforms and round hats for the Sudan so wanted a different look for these. I am contemplating painting some of the officers with blue coats just for a bit of variety.

My Sudan Naval Brigade figures

Leather equipment was black, with khaki gaiters. Sailors did wear the round hat in Africa but the broad brimmed sennet hat, known as a benjy, was far more common and was, looking at contemporary illustrations, worn with the brim turned up, exactly as Mr Copplestone has sculpted them.

Royal Navy sailors having a spot of bother in Africa in 1894

He has included the distinctive sword bayonets in their scabbards but I would probably have preferred the figures to have fixed bayonets. Also, for some strange reason, he does not include water bottles; something of a neccessity in Africa, I would have thought.

Both types of uniforms as demonstrated on some Britains figures

I have quite a busy week this week but hope to get them finished next weekend. Then its on to the Sikhs, who arrived from Foundry this week and who I have just filed and based.

Zambezi Campaign 4: Regular Askaris

2011-01-06T15:22:00.000Z

1st Unit of regular Askaris

I have now finished the first two British units for what I am now calling my Zambezi Campaign. These are the two units of 8 Regular Askaris. I have given each one a Sikh NCO.

2nd unit of askaris

I actually painted 26 askaris so have twelve in reserve if I ever decide to increase the forces. To start with, though, I am going to stick to Gary Chalk's initial forces.

The complete batch

To complete the British expeditionary force I need a unit of irregular askaris, a standard bearer and the officer (actually, I am going to use two officers).

Next up and ready for undercoating, is the Naval Brigade. I hope to get going on them this weekend.

Zambezi Campaign 3: Identifying some more figures

2010-12-29T22:11:00.002Z

The British Askaris on the workbench

Progress is slow but steady on the British askaris. The standard of my painting from eight or nine years ago is pretty woeful as it was before I realised that I needed glasses! As a result, I am re-painting most parts of them. The only thing I will leave is the khaki uniforms but will add some lowlights and highlights to sharpen them up a bit. I have also started the six figures I bought on eBay recently. This will give me 26 Askaris so with two Sikh NCOs that is 28 figures. The scenario only calls for 16 figures so that will give me ten spare. Either I will up the numbers of the figures proportionately for everyone or, more likely, I will devise a scenario requiring extra re-inforcements.

The total British forces required under the scenario are as follows:

Expeditionary force

Unit of 8 regular askaris

Unit of 6 Sikhs

Unit of 14 local levies

1 standard bearer

1 Officer

Relief Force

Unit of 6 sailors

One gunboat

However I am going to modify them somewhat.

Firstly, I will add a second officer to the expeditionary force. The scenario allows for the substitution of a second in command if the leading officer is killed. I think that this is a bit silly if he is not with the initial force in the first place. It adds 28 points to the British force but that isn't many to add to the others.

The Royal Navy contingent filed and based

I have found that I have enough figures for the naval force and will add an officer to that. I will also paint a figure for the Gunboat captain. I will need a gun and crew for the gunboat as my paddle boat is unarmed. Foundry make a set of Naval gunners and a fieled gun in their Zulu War range and although they will be much smaller than the rather large Copplestone sailors the look is similar so I will probably go with those.

Foundry Naval gunners

Zambezi Campaign 2: Starting work on the British Askaris

2010-12-23T23:00:00.001Z

In this post I am going to look at the first two units I need to complete for my River Campaign: the British regular askaris.

I have a number of Foundry British askaris which I had started years ago and I also picked up another half dozen in a job lot of askaris I bought on eBay a few months ago. I bought these mainly because they had a fair number of the now out of production Copplestone Zanzibaris in amongst them so the extra British askaris were a bit of a bonus. I decided to get them out and see how they would fit into the Gary Chalk scenarios. Although I said at the start that I wasn't bothered about historical accuracy for this project I had to do some research! I dug out my copy of the excellent Foundry book Colonial Armies Africa 1850 to 1918 by Peter Abbott. This is now out of print and is going on Amazon marketplace for a staggering £90!

Foundry British Askaris from their old website (now you only get six figures in a pack, of course)

The Foundry British Askaris don't actually look exactly like any of the British native troops of the time although they look similar to some. When they first came out the Foundry website had an article that said that "These askaris are based on the troops raised by the British around Lake Nyasa to fight the Arab slavers." This gives us a good clue as to where to start as regards their uniform details. A little history also illuminated the possible location of the action.

Scottish missionary in Nyasaland

As Scottish missionaries (most famously Dr David Livingstone) moved into Nyasaland in the mid 1870s European traders followed and they all wanted a stop to the activities of slavers. Fighting started in 1885 and by 1888 had developed into a major war. In 1891 a force of Sikhs backed by Zanzibaris under Sikh NCOs was formed. It wasn't until 1893 (when Nyasaland was re-named as the British Central Africa protectorate) that the first Africans were added to the forces and supported by a Royal Navy detachment. The slaver war had been won by 1895. In 1896 the protectorate of Nyasaland's forces had been reorganised into the Central Africa Rifles and they saw service against the Ngoni in 1898.

Portugese Slavers

Meanwhile, up in Northern Rhodesia (which wasn't called that yet) in 1889, Arab and Portuguese slavers were very active, preying on the local tribes. In October 1889 Cecil Rhodes obatined a Royal Charter for the British South Africa Company to maintain a police force. Over the next decade white "collectors" backed by small units of native police drove out the slavers; on two occasions backed by troops from Nyasaland. Some of the local tribes were anxious for British protection as they were worried about raids from the Matabele in the south. Several expeditions were launched along both banks of the Zambezi in 1898 to deal with cattle raiding and what have you.

Southern Africa at the end of the nineteenth century

So, we can see the inspiration for Gary Chalk's British expedition up the river. It is a mixture of historical activity in Nyasaland (now Malawi) and Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia). Expeditions were mounted up the Zambezi. We have uniformed African troops and Sikhs backed by the Royal Navy acting against Arab slavers. The period is slightly later than I had imagined: 1889-1898. By this time there wasn't much of Africa that was unexplored so the opportunity for lost civilisations is limited! I'll probably still put one in though!

So, my campaign will be fought on a semi-historical Zambezi in around 1896 but we will fling in some of the tribes from further East in Nyasaland (principally the Ngoni who we have already started to paint). The Ngoni would make an ideal substitute for the annoying pygmies in the original scenario. This all is particularly satisfying as it was Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) I visited last month. If I go again next month (which I may have to) then I hope to actually get a proper view of the Zambezi itself!

Central African Rifles c. 1900

So, if we look at the historical uniform of the Central African Rifles from Nyasaland we can see that they have a khaki smock, khaki breeches and putees with brown sandals and a black tasseled fez. The Foundry figures don't have putees but otherwise they are pretty close. In the earlier period the British levies didn't have uniforms at all and the later levies had a simple blue uniform with a red fez. One thing that is clear is that the later African troops, by the time they became known as the Central African Rifles, had, unusually, black fezzes rather than the usual red. This is so that their headgear matched the black turbans of the Sikh troops. The waist belt and ammunition pouches were of brown leather.

North-Eastern Rhodesia Constabulary late 1890s

Moving west, across to the North-Eastern Rhodesia Constabulary there is a similar khaki uniform but with shorts and no putees, The fez is black and equipment is brown leather with a white haversack

Given these two contemporary historical uniforms our colour scheme for the British Asakaris becomes clear: khaki uniform, black fez, brown leather equipment and white haversacks. Most troops (and some of the Foundry figures) would have carried a blanket roll. Most army blankets I have seen are grey so that's what they will get!

According to the scenarios I only need two units of eight regular askaris. Given I will give them a Sikh NCO each that only means 14 figures. I actually have 20 part-painted and will probably complete them all as I am tempted to up the size of the british contingent a bit because of the expected casualty rate.

I managed to paint their rifles this morning and will try to get their skin done tomorrow. I've given myself a week to get them done as I don't have to go to London for a bit.

A Zambezi campaign: 1

2010-12-19T22:49:00.005Z

The beginning of the expeditionary force...finished today!

I have just read Gary Chalk's article in the April 2010 Wargames Illustrated detailing an anti slaving expedition river-based campaign in Darkest Africa. Chalk, of course, devised the plans for the model African paddle boat that appeared in Miniature Wargames in June 1999. I took his plans and extended my boat which after an enthusiastic burst over two weeks saw it 90% complete only to have it languishing unloved for the best part of six or seven years.

Gary Chalk's brilliant paddle steamer from Wargames Illustrated's June 1999 issue

Chalk's campaign, which he calls, not too snappily, Wilkinson's Campaign Against the Slavers, contemplates five linked scenarios which are played in a random order, except for the last climactic attack on the Arab slaver's compound. Of course you can play more or less and I am tempted to devise some more scenarios for this. The other five scenarios he has are:

The maps for each game from Wargames Illustrated

1 Elephants and pygmies

The British anti slaving expedition run into some pygmies hunting elephants; either of whom may attack them. I don't like the Foundry pygmy figures. I'm just not interested in pygmies. I will substitute another force.

2 Trading post

A British trader is under attack by an Arab raiding party.

3 A mission station.

A local missionary and the expedition come under attack from Arab led local tribesmen whilst waiting for the arrival of reinforcements on a gunboat.

4 A native village

The village comes under attack from the Arabs

5 Attack on the Arab tembe

This is the final scenario whatever other order the previous games are played in.

My paddle boat. it really only requires the rear canopy and a bit of weathering

This is really the set up I have been looking for ever since I got my first Darkest Africa figures ten years ago. I really wanted a river so I could use my paddle boat. I also wanted a British expedition, Arabs and wildlife involved. One of my problems with wargaming is that I tend to be overly concerned with historical accuracy. All of my planned wargames forces take their starting points from the actual forces at a particular historical battle. For this, I think that I am going to treat this more as a fantasy campaign so I am not going to be too concerned about who was where at any point in history in Africa.

The Copplestone sculpted British troops produced by Foundry consist of British officers, Sikhs and askari. I would guess that they are equipped for the early 1880's. In addition, Copplestone Castings produce some nice Naval Brigade figures. The forces are designed for Chris Peers In the Heart of Africa rules which is what my son and I used for our Belgians v Azande game the other week. These contemplate small units with individual firing. The only issue I can see is that they lead to horrendous casualties which is counter to a campaign but the Chalk article has a system for seeing whether figures are dead or recover for the next game. Tweaking the dice roll necessary to recover (he contemplated 50/50) should ensure a reasonable force for the campaign.

The forces neccesary for the five scenarios are not too bad in total.

British Expedition

British force (Sikhs, regular askaris and irregular askaris) 40 figures

British reinforcements (naval Brigade) 12 figures and a gunboat

Scenario 1 (elephant hunt)

37 pygmies

Scenario 2 (Trading Post)

38 Arabs

4 Whitemen

Scenario 3 (Mission)

42 Arabs (an additional 14 are needed over what is necessasry in scenario 2)

42 allied tribesmen

Scenario 4 (Native village)

61 tribal figures

47 Arabs plus a cannon (again, around 30 are figures that have been used before)

Scenario 5 (Arab stronghold)

56 Arabs plus a cannon (so a few more Arabs needed)

In total that makes 56 Arabs, 52 British, 37 pygmies (or equivalent), 42 Arab allied tribesmen and 61 native tribesmen. So around 250 figures in total, which is a lot. Of these I already have most of the British around half of whom I have already started painting. I have all the Arabs but haven't painted any yet. I do have some Congo style tribesmen who I could use for some of the forces and these would probably serve for the The Arabs' allied tribesmen. The peaceful villagers could be any generic tribesmen in loincloths (or less) and I would give them generic hide shields to distinguish them from the the wicker shileded Congo types.

The replacements for the pygmies are intriguing and I am tempted to use my Ngoni, some of whom I have already painted. Adding forces at this point seems a little ambitious but I am very tempted to produce a force of warrior women as a complete fantasy army. But maybe that calls for a seperate scenario involving a white queen and her acolytes. It would be good if I could throw in Tarzan and Jane, a fiesty female reporter, an aristocratic big game hunter, a lion hunt and giant gorillas as well, somewhere!

Anyway it is all very enthusing and having finished the two required officers and three of the six Sikhs needed today I will start work on the British Askaris next. I have already based the Arabs so, given most of them wore plain white, they shouldn't take too long.

The biggest issue will be representing the river on our gaming board but Guy has just told me to use blue card and not worry about fancy scenics!

The other solution is to replace the British with Belgians which would mean that I had enough for the anti slaver force instantly. Maybe we can have some trail games using them.

I have just extracted my paddle steamer from the loft, along with the Christmas decorations, so will have a look at that over the Christmas break.

Return from Darkest Africa

2010-12-14T21:15:00.003Z

It's behind you! The Zambian giraffe is darker than its fellows in the rest of Africa

Well, I have just returned from my first visit to real Africa! I have been to Egypt, Tunisia and Libya before but this was my first trip to Darkest Africa. I travelled to Lusaka the capital of Zambia but did get out of the city into the countryside to see some wildlife last Sunday.

This particular wildlife got a bit too close to the jeep for my liking!

It was all very exciting and I was unfeasibly delighted just taking in the scenery let alone any of the animals. Incidentally, when we set up our recent Belgians v Azande wargame we thought that the scenery was far too green for Africa but the countryside in Zambia looked just like that; basically like Surrey with the odd palm tree! Admittedly, it was the beginning of the rainy season but even so...!

Landscape with Sable Antelope

I stayed in a very nice hotel, the Intercontinental, and was gratified to find that it did an excellent breakfast (always important when travelling!) and even had HP Sauce; the true sign of civilisation! In fact the food was very good generally and I enjoyed the antelope steaks I had for lunch one day.

£2.75 for a Vodka martini? I paid £23.50 at the Ritz the other week!

The bar at the hotel was obviously one of the happening places in town, especially on Wednesday night which is "ladies night". There are some very attractive women in Zambia and on Wednesdays they get dressed up (or actually undressed in many cases) and go out hunting in packs. I had to fight off one particularly attentive young lady over the course of about four days (she worked in the health club) but escaped from this young lioness (with only a few scratches).

We enjoyed South African malaria girl at breakfast one morning

There was also a medical conference on at the hotel and that meant a lot more women than you get for your usual infastructure conference! South Africans mainly but also Australians and Europeans. And with a Vodka martini at only £2.75 in the bar it was easy to keep them entertained.

Mosi: it's excellent!

Zambia has two local beers, Castle, which is run of the mill anonymous lager and Mosi which is much more interesting and has a nice hoppy flavour. I drank a lot of that!

The ground really is red. It looks completely wrong on wargames figures' bases though!

On the business side things went much better than I expected so I will probably have to return in January in which case I shall try to get down to Livinstone to see Victoria falls and the Zambezi (I only saw it from a distance but it was still exciting to do so!) I was accompanied for much of the time by our African representative A who is a striking Masai lady!

A at the minister's cocktail party

Needless to say I am all enthused about Darkest Africa wargames again and have identified three projects. Firstly, I want to get some of my wildlife figures painted and buy some of the Foundry giraffes! Secondly, I want to finish my riverboat model. This is because, thirdly, there are some great Darkest Africa scenarios in the April 2010 Wargames Illustrated, which I have only just read. They involve a British expedition travelling upriver to look for Arab slavers. I actually have some Foundry British started and so I want to tidy them up and see what else I might need for these scenarios.

Darkest Africa wargame: Azande v Force Publique Belgians

2010-11-29T13:37:00.000Z

Rohan meets the Congo in the kitchen

On Saturday, my son, Guy, announced that he would like to play a wargame the following day. He had managed to get his homework done early and so he would have a free Sunday. Invariably, when we play a game it is Lord of the Rings but this time he wanted to do something historical. We went through my painted armies and worked out we could do both sides for Romans v Britons, Anglo-Saxons v Vikings, Early WW1 Germans V French and British or, what he eventually chose, a Darkest Africa game.

Azande unit 1: Copplestone and Foundry Azande musketmen

What swung it was that he liked the look of my Belgians, which I have been painting up over the last year. This would be their first outing. In contrast, my Azande were the first of my metal figures I ever played a game with. This was at Guildford Wargames club when they took on Mike Lewis' (of Black Hat Miniatures) Belgians which, I see from the army list I produced at the time, was in February 2004. They hadn't seen action since then but had been boosted by some extra musketmen since that outing (as they were comprehensively trashed).

Unit two: Azande armed with kpinga

I dug out Chris Peers' Darkest Africa rules while Guy set up the table using a GW battlemat over the top of my Citadel Realm of Battle board. He did manage to make it look a little less like Middle Earth by the addition of a couple of palm trees and some aquarium "jungle" plants.

Unit three: Azande spearmen

I chose my army first, using all of my Azande but not using the Congo allies which I use sometimes to boost the forces. Somewhere I have another couple of dozen Azande to paint which I might do now as the points value of Guy's Belgians was such that he didn't get to field many figures.

My fourth unit: more musketmen

Forces were:

Azande

1 Leader

1 standard bearer

1 unit of 11 agile warriors

1 unit of 15 agile spearmen

1 unit of 16 musketeers

1 unit of 12 musketeers

56 figures in all

4 baggage elements consisting of two musicians and a couple of girlies.

Guy's small force deployed on a hill

Belgians

1 Leader (white man)

1 standard bearer

4 units of six Force Publique soldiers

26 figures in all

4 baggage elements consisting of a mule, two porters and a "man with a bottle of rum", according to Guy (Pirates of the Caribbean has given him a fascination for rum which his teetotal mother finds quite disturbing!).

Guy was a bit concerned about the relative sizes of our forces; especially as I had a lot more Belgians I could field and he was very tempted by the mountain gun but thought that it cost too many points.

It was a straightforward encounter battle and as Guy hadn't played the rules before and I hadn't played for years we just put our units within the required six inches of the long table edge. We could have put one unit 18" in as an advance guard or even put one in hidden ambush but decided not to play any add-ons this time.

The Azande advance...

Guy put his force on a hill at one corner of the board and, as he later told me, his plan was to stay there and let me attack. In a very un-Azande like way I decided to charge at him head on and right from the start suffered casualties caused by his elevated askaris. They outranged my musketeers by 20" to 10" and they could fire every move whereas my musketmen had to spend a move re-loading after every shot they fired.

Shooting is basic and brutal in the Darkest Africa rules. Targets and shooters are dealt with individually and his Belgians hit on a score of five or six; scores being worked out by a D6 throw plus 2 and a few modifiers (such as -1 if at more than half range). Guy's first volley knocked out enough figures that I had to take a morale test which, fortunately, the Azande passed. Both the leader and the standard bearer were too far away to help on the morale test. Indeed the standard bearer got consistently low movement dice (movement is a set amount (2" for Azande plus a D6) and never caught up with the main force so was useless as a morale test saver (which is, basically, their only role).

Belgians take the high ground

Guy then pushed one unit onto a hill and blasted away at the Azande from on high; whittling down my units at an alarming rate. Because of the dense terrain I could never get my musketmen to get enough guns to bear and they suffered with their ten inch shooting range.

The Belgians form up...

Seeing how well things were going Guy brought the rest of his Belgians down from the hill and they formed a devastating firing line, routing one unit and annihilating another. In order to win against a Colonial army like the Belgians you need to close into hand to hand combat with overwhelming numbers. In the end I did get three figures into melee but by that time they were outnumbered by the Belgians and were all shot on the way in to the attack.

These three Azande did charge but to no avail...

Although I did pretty much clear the hill of the Belgian advance guard by then it was too late and my forces were totally destroyed. In the end Guy's army surrounded my baggage elements, the only figures I had left on the table.

The Belgians capture a ready made party: musicians and girls!

So, it was a fun, quick game, over in about two hours, and we will certainly have another one soon. Next time I am not going to charge European troops head on and I will also go for smaller units. The figures in the bigger units, especially the musketmen, got in each other's way a lot. Small units of musketmen and bigger ones of hand to hand troops are what is needed, I think.

Guy's losses

I was lucky with my morale tests but at one point it looked as if I was going to see an entire 16 man unit bolt. I will also look at painting up some more Azande so we can field more Belgians. One thing it had shown me is that I don't need any more Belgians; not without a lot more natives anyway. I had been planning on buying some more but now realise that my Belgian army is, to all intents and purposes, complete. Hooray!

My losses!

Music to paint by: Mountains of the Moon soundtrack by Michael Small

2010-08-22T10:33:00.024+01:00

I like to (have to!) paint to music and prefer to have something vaguely appropriate playing in the background. I'm having a bit of an Africa phase at present and so have been struggling to find enough relevant music.

I had a few pieces, the Zulu soundtrack of course (with the addition of the extra pieces from the Silva Screen version-I am nothing if not a completist!) and Out of Africa both by John Barry, but neither are particularly African sounding.

Some of the incidental music from Hatari, by Henri Mancini and some of Laurence Rosenthal's music for one of the Young Indiana Jones episodes was much better.

I also have some genuine Zulu music and other African chants but, rather like bagpipe music, there is only so much of it you can listen to at a time!

I was delighted, therefore, after a long search, to find a copy of the Mountains of the Moon soundtrack on the internet from a UK seller (rather than one of those dodgy bulk sellers from the US you find on Amazon). Mountains of the Moon is the ultimate Darkest Africa film and I am sure Mark Copplestone knows it well!

The film itself is based on William Harrison's superb (although somewhat controversial) novel Burton and Speke (1982) which is, rather surprisingly, currently out of print. The novel is based itself on Sir Richard Burton and John Hanning Speke's accounts of their attempts to discover the source of the Nile. Harrison, (who also wrote the original short story and the subsequent screenplay for the film Rollerball) himself co-wrote the screenplay with director Bob Rafelson, for whom it was a very personal project.

Its not Zanzibar but this is what it must have looked like at the time

I actually didn't see the film until after I had started buying the Foundry figures and reading some of the original accounts of African exploration. I was amazed at how well the film visualised these accounts.

Burton and Speke's prototypical explorers camp. Watch out for Somali tribesmen!

For the soundtrack to his film Rafelson turned to a composer he had used before; New York born Michael Small. Small had scored two steamy Rafelson thrillers; The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981) and Black Widow (1987). I remember taking a girlfriend to the former as a first date and it certainly had the desired effect on her; with a lot of the credit going to Small's sensuous music!

Sidi Bombay (with rather better teeth than the original)

Small was born in 1939 the son of an actor who instilled a love for musical theatre in him. Whilst Small learnt the piano and started to write for student reviews he actually studied English at Harvard and didn't study music formally until after university.

Classic Darkest Africa expedition with required baggage elements

After some TV work Small scored his first feature film in 1969 his breakthrough coming with the score for the Jane Fonda film Klute (1971). He then wrote the soundtracks for a number of well-known films including: Comes a Horseman (1978), Marathon Man (1976) and The Stepford Wives (1975). He also provided music to some of the worst films ever resulting in the situation where his scores were very much the best thing in them. In this illustrious category comes Jaws: the Revenge (1987) and Wagons East (1994).

Masai!

Smalls score for Mountains of the Mood mixes some memorable sweeping themes, urgent action cues and ethnic music which draws on some recordings made by David Fanshawe. It really is the perfect music to listen to when painting Darkest Africa figures and I have already based up John Hanning Speke and Richard Burton to work on when I get back to the UK.

Its a shame Mark Copplestone never did any Arabs on camels

The film itself is a must see if you haven't already. Filmed in Kenya, rather than the original locations (which are now in Tanzania), if it doesn't make you want to buy loads of Foundry Darkest Africa figures nothing will!

Congo Bowmen

2010-07-18T09:41:00.002+01:00

I am trying to finish some figures that have been sitting around half painted for far too long so here is a group of archers from the Congo who would make good allies or opponents to the Azande.

I'm pretty sure that the Azande themselves didn't use bows (using their kpinga throwing knives instead) and, if they did it would have been early in the Darkest Africa period on as they took to the musket early; using it for an ambush based type of warfare.

Omani Baluchis

2010-06-04T15:06:00.019+01:00

I just sat down last week to paint a few Foundry Baluchis when, blow me, Giles put some lovely ones up on his blog. http://gilesallison.blogspot.com/2010/05/baluchis-1.html This was rather like the lunch I went to a couple of summers ago where my wife was very proud of her expensive new dress only to find that someone else there had an almost identical one...and that person was Liz Hurley! Or, maybe, its just that great minds think alike..!

My figures are from the Foundry "Baluchis in Arabian dress" packs. What makes them distinctly Arabian is that they are all carrying the distinctive "J" shaped Khanjar dagger; meaning that they originate from Oman.

The Baluch (technically, Baluchi is the name of their language) are a people whose origin is rather mysterious. They may have been descended from Syrian Arabs or, more likely, be Persian in origin; coming from the Caspian. Wherever they originally came from, they settled in that part of central Asia where modern day Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan meet. In the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries many Baluch crossed the Persian Gulf and settled in Oman, Bahrain and an insignificant little fishing village called Dubai.

I gave this one a waistcoat using traditional Baluch colours based on this picture of a Baluch woman

The first Baluchs in Africa were mercenaries hired by Saif bin Sultan, the imam of Oman, who was leading a campaign down the East African coast. Driving the Portuguse out of their stronghold of Fort Jesus in Mombasa in 1698 the Omanis, with their Baluch soldiers, soon cleared them from Zanzibar and from the coastal regions of what is now Mozambique as well. Zanzibar was a prime conquest housing, as it did, the main east African slave market. In fact it became so important under Omani rule that the ruler of Oman, Sa'id ibn Sultan, moved there from Muscat in 1837, made it his main residence and commenced a major building programme. By this time many of the Baluchi soldiers and their descendents, who had been followed by other Baluchs from their homeland, had spread across East Africa from their original garrisons at Mombasa, Dar-es-Salaam, Zanzibar and Pemba. They kept their distinctive identity, however, but by the 1850s, the period which these figures represent, "Baluchis" could have been born in Oman, Africa, Iran or Pakistan; hence the variety of dress in the Foundry packs.

The Omani Baluchs tended to favour plain, saffron dyed robes. Apart from the Khanjar dagger they were armed with silver damascened, long-barrelled (because of their weak gunpowder) matchlock muskets, and long straight swords (non-Arabian Baluchs favoured a curved sabre).

Addax antelope

The Arab Baluchs also carried a small 30cm diameter buckler which was often white, either through bleaching, or because it was made from the hide of the addax antelope. One of these figures is depicted with the four boss Persian type of buckler more often seen on Baluchs from the eastern side of the Persian Gulf.

By the early 1880s the Baluchs, as official troops of the Sultan of Zanzibar, had been dismissed and replaced with troops dressed in a more conventional Egyptian style, so these figures are for the pre-Colonial period. Natural opponents would be Masai, Tuta, Ngoni and some of the Congo tribes including the Azande.

My Khanjar dagger; probably the best present I have been given on an overseas trip (apart from the Chinese girl the Foreign relations ministry "presented" me with in Beijing)

The distinctive Khanjar dagger (actually that is tautologous; "khanjar" is simply Arabic for "dagger") is still seen regularly in Oman and every adult Omani male has one; usually kept in a red, velvet box. I have been to Oman several times and was lucky enough to be presented with one by an Omani minister. The silver filigree is distinctive and the hilts are usually sandalwood or, on expensive examples, ivory or rhino horn.

These figures were, as ever with Mark Copplestone sculpted ones, a delight to paint. Like Giles I had to think about skin tone but Baluchs are quite pale so I mixed a sort of sun-tanned Caucasian colour. African-born Baluchs were, by this time, quite often the product of mixed marriages and so a wider range of skin tones can be used for them.

Oman is a lovely place, with attractive towns (deliberately lacking in high rise buildings), friendly people and attractive, surprisingly green, mountain valleys filled with pomegranate trees. I thoroughly recommend The Chedi Hotel in Muscat, if you are ever there. I don't usually like modern minimalist hotels but this is very well done, with villas scattered around cleverly sited pools of water, a nice beach and wonderful restaurants.

First Masai

2010-01-07T18:42:00.007Z

I have finished my first Foundry Masai warrior and he came out very well; largely because the black, red and white shields are so striking. Painting the shield was really very easy and that had been the bit I was putting off. I have undercoated some more now and will start them tonight.

This particular figure would make a good scout for a World War 1 East Africa British army. I hesitated about the loincloth colour but went for a later trade goods red rather than the original animal hide effect. Even though earlier Masai fighting Baluchis and Arabs should probably be wearing the animal hide, the red looks so good that I am going to stick with that I think. It's an easy choice with the next lot anyway as they don't have loincloths!

Whilst researching shields I came across this splendid painting by famous fantasy artist Frank Frazetta which I hadn't seen before. It certainly demonstrates the problem with oversized cast spears! I was reading recently in one of the magazines a suggestion that someone should start producing detailed in scale weapons in hard plastic. This would be an excellent idea: the Wargames Factory plastic weapons and shileds are certainly prefarable to the Empress Miniatures metal ones. The Masai's spears are unlikely to be a top choice for someone having a go at this, however!

Masai by Frank Frazetta (1980s reworking of 1961 original)

Coming soon...The Masai

2009-09-10T10:34:00.005+01:00

I've managed to resist these, somehow, for a decade (yes the Foundry Darkest Africa range is that old and more) but the recent 20% off Bank Holiday deal saw me give in at last. I plan to use them as opponents to my Arabs and Baluchis, early Colonial DOAG Germans and in WW1 skirmishes.

Foundry are a funny old company. I'm not one of those people who habitually knock them as I like (most of) their figures and find their mail order service exceptionally good. It's almost instant gratification with Foundry. You put your order in one day and quite often they arrive the next. I don't even have a problem with price as I'm very lucky and don't really have to budget. However, some of the things they have done baffle me. In order to prevent price rises a few years ago they took most of their packs from eight to six figures a pack. This meant that some figures effectively disappeared or turned up in odds and ends packs. Secondly, and much more annoyingly, they stopped including weapons in some packs. I recently bought some of their (excellent) gladiators but the retiarii didn't have tridents included! I was lucky in that I found some on eBay, but how annoying! I have had a similar problem with the Masai. the Masai had quite distinctive looking spears which Foundry included in their packs. No longer! The usual note that you have to provide your own wire spears is apparent. So when my packs arrived; no spears. But blow me down you still buy the individual cast spears as seperate packs on their website (they work out at 24p each). This really is a bit much. If you are making the spears and the figures need them you really should include them. My annoyance was tempered somewhat by the fact that all the supposedly six figure packs had seven figures in them. Even so...

As usual I have started one figure to see how it goes and once my Sudan game is over I shall be working on Masai and Zulus at the same time for a bit.

Death in the Dark Continent by Chris Peers

2009-08-26T13:27:00.003+01:00

I just picked up the new Chris Peers African rules. I have had his In the Heart of Africa rules for some time and even, shock, played two or three games with them! However, as he says in his introduction to the new set they were, firstly: designed to go with the Mark Copplestone Foundry figures and so included a restricted set of armies and secondly, were really a large scale skirmish set.

The rules cover the period 1870-1899 and end at the latter date quite deliberately as he believes that the Second Boer War was a different sort of campaign. What it does mean is that these rules will work for the Zulu War and the Sudan as well as other colonial conflicts. Some new lists are included over and above those in the original rules: such as Mahdists and much better coverage of Colonial armies in different theatres.

My only slight concern was the need to have multiple based troops but given he suggests a 60x30mm base for 3 troops and mine are based on 20x20mm then making small trays will deal with this quite easily (if time consumingly!) It will be interesting to try them out and compare them with The Sword in the Flame which also uses larger units, rather than being a skirmish game; although in the latter figures are individually based which can make moving large numbers very time consuming.

The rules are available from North Star (although I bought mine in Orc's Nest in London, which is only about 400 yards from my office in trendy North Soho!). North Star also have some extra lists available for free download.

http://www.northstarfigures.com/prod.php?prod=194

Time to paint some more Ruga Ruga, I think!

Ngoni standard bearer and witchdoctor

2008-05-29T20:27:00.006+01:00

In Chris Peers' Darkest Africa rules the leader in an Ngoni army has to be one of the warriors. The figure on the left, therefore, represents a standard bearer who can cancel out a compulsory morale test.

The witchdoctor can force an opposing unit to take a morale test but is really only effective against other tribal opponents, not white men or Arabs (the latter is not clear from the rules but can be inferred).

Female Tuta archers

2008-05-29T07:49:00.004+01:00

The Tuta or Watuta people lived in Northern Tanganyika and were the northernmost of the Ngoni sub groups to have migrated from Southern Africa. They were feared raiders and provided Mirambo with large contingents of warriors. They also fought the Arabs in Tabora but later the Arabs themselves used them as mercenaries. At the end of the nineteenth century they were pacified by the Germans, peacefully, but that doesn't mean we couldn't do a what if scenario.

Both Sir Richard Burton and Grant say that Tuta women fought alongside their men, with Grant specifically mentioning they fought as archers. Whilst there were many examples of West African warrior women it is all a bit more debatable in the East. Both Grant and Burton's accounts were third hand from Arab sources. Nevertheless, I like the idea of a small unit of women archers as a bodyguard so this will make up half of the force of ten I am going to paint. There is only one odd thing about these figures: they have no quivers, so I am not quite sure where they keep their arrows!

Three more figures

2008-05-21T09:45:00.009+01:00

I finished three more Darkest Africa figures this weekend. From left to right District Officer Hedley, Lord Greystoke and another Ngoni.

District Officer Hedley is actually a Copplestone Back of Beyond figure but I think he makes a very good fellow to look after a district up the Zambezi somewhere during the later colonial period. You'll find him living in his bungalow overlooking the steamer jetty, listening to Gilbert and Sullivan, hunting anything that moves, drinking gin and being "looked after" by a couple of native girls.

The original Daktari jeep.

District Officer Hedley is, of course a character from the 1960's TV show Daktari which I watched when I was little. It was mostly famous for its character of Clarence the cross-eyed lion and it's zebra striped jeeps, since copied by safari parks all over the world.

Hedley Mattingly.

District Officer Hedley was a minor character who popped up occasionally and was played by a British-born actor called Hedley Mattingly. This was all a source of great amusement in our house as my father's name was Hedley (as indeed is my second name) and it was the only other time that we came across the name (other than in the famous tort court case Hedley Byrne v Heller!).

He is wearing a Brasenose tie, of course.

The Lord of the Jungle figure is another Foundry Darkest Africa figure. I have never been a fan of Tarzan, my Edgar Rice Burroughs phase (when I was about ten) concentrating more on his Mars and Venus series, but in a Pulp Africa, rather than a purely historical one (and my universe contemplates both) then he should appear and, anyway, I have already painted Jane.

More Ruga-Ruga

2008-05-05T22:04:00.006+01:00

At last I have managed to finish some figures. A trip to Turkey took out most of my week but over the Bank Holiday I finished these Ruga Ruga, bringing the total to fifteen.

I'm still working on some more Ngoni and a couple of Darkets Africa characters, including Tarzan.

I ordered some more Zanzibaris from Foundry and they arrived whilst I was away. I also got a copy of the Foundry book Armies of East Africa by Chris Peers. Haven't had a proper look at it yet but it looks good.

More Wildlife from Foundry

2008-04-08T11:58:00.006+01:00

Foundry have just released some more African wildlife which is very good news. I have some of their lions but it is nice to have some lionesses as well.

http://www.wargamesfoundry.com/collections/GPR/6/index.asp

They are a bit Lion King looking but match the lions, I suppose.

Foundry Rhino

The rhino is not as nice as the Copplestone ones (which are still the best wildlife out there) but the baby rhino is a must buy for my daughter!

Copplestone Rhinos

Five more Ruga-ruga

2008-03-21T21:07:00.003Z

I haven't posted or painted much as I have been ..in Africa! Admittedly not Darkest Africa but North Africa. It was Africa nonetheless!

I started these before I left and finished them today. I attempted to paint a cheetah skin for the first time. It looks OK.

Five more Ngoni

2008-03-02T22:16:00.008Z

I finished another five Ngoni today. Two of the Ngoni (on the left) have the Zebra mane headresses popular in Southern Tanganyika.

Some of the Ngoni dyed their cocks feather headresses red and the character with the club and red feather headress will be my tribal chief.

I worked on bending the shields with some pliers and they look better than the flat ones I painted last week.

The Ngoni shields were very similar to Zulu ones and so here are some pictures of Zulu shields to show the construction and colouring. The shield is made from cow-hide with its natural colouring.

On the back you can see how the carrying pole was attached. This is an original pole from a Zulu War period shield. Finding these now is quite unusual as those brought back to Britain as souvenirs were usually rolled up and the pole discarded.

The fur decoration seen at the top of Zulu and Ngoni shield poles was usually made from Antelope or Springbok fur and so would have been a light, sandy tan colour.

First Ngoni

2008-02-18T07:12:00.010Z

I have painted the first of my Copplestone Castings Ngoni. They took longer to paint than Azande warriors but that is becuase their costume is more elaborate. They look very splendid, though, and I have got another five on the go. The shields, in particular took ages!

The shields are the only things I would take issue with as regards accuracy. The figures themselves are very accurate but the shields are modelled as flat. The Ngoni's Zulu-style shields were made from animal hide with a pole threaded into the back to give them rigidity.

Most of the pictures I have seen of them show them as slightly convex with the edge turned up slightly. The Copplestone shields are too thick to bend but I guess it doesn't matter too much as the size and profile is spot on.

Ruga-Ruga

2008-02-13T20:31:00.007Z

I started a bunch of Ruga-Ruga some years ago but never finished them. I've decided to build a force for the warlord, Mirambo, so I will need a mix of Ngoni, Watuta and Ruga-Ruga. I opened a new pot of varnish for these and, as often with Humbrol varnish, the first coat was very shiny. I tried two more coats but it stayed shiny so I went for another tim which was much better. If there is one thing I hate it's shiny figures!

The bases are pinker than I usually do for hot climate figures because, as Sir Richard Burton said, "Africa is a red land". Actually I looked up some pictures of Tanzania and tried to paint the bases that colour but they looked far too red!

Coming next: Ngoni!

2008-02-01T09:47:00.000Z

For some reason I have a sudden urge to paint some more African tribesmen and although I should be doing some more Azande, to finally finish off my army, I have a couple of packs of Copplestone Castings Ngoni in the lead pile. So I cleaned them and based them this week and hope to get some done over the next few weeks.

The picture above is from a 1958 postcard showing some Ngoni in their traditional cocksfeather headdresses. It's a good colour reference for the shields too.

Sidi Bombay

2008-01-28T11:14:00.000Z

" The source of the Nile is that way!"

Here is my Foundry Sidi Bombay figure, which I finished just before Christmas.

Sidi (or Seedy) Mubarak was born in about 1820 and was a member of the Yao tribe (who now live in Mozambique, Malawi and Tanzania). At the age of 12 he was captured by Arab slavers and sold to a wealthy Arab merchant in Zanzibar. When the merchant moved to Bombay, Sidi went with him. He was freed in his early thirties when his master died, adopted the surname “Bombay” and returned to Africa. He joined the Sultan of Zanzibar’s army and was posted to Chokwe garrison. It was here that Burton and Speke, setting out on their expedition in 1857, hired Sidi and five other soldiers to protect the group.

Burton had originally appointed a half caste Arab, Said Bin Salim, as head bearer of the expedition but fired him when he discovered he was stealing form the expedition. He replaced him with Sidi Bombay. Burton later said he “worked on principal and worked like a horse..an active servant and an honest man” and we was “the gem of the group” (of bearers).

Sidi (seated) with bearers.

He was a powerful man with sharpened incisors but he spoke Swahili and also Hindustani so he was the only person, other than Burton, that Speke could converse with. He acted as Speke’s gun bearer, lugging two heavy guns with him at all times. Bombay proved to be a tough and resilient figure who became a key member of the expedition although he could be temperamental and his appetite for food became legendary. Speke, in particular, came to rely on him and hired him for his subsequent expedition with Grant where they continued the search for sources of the Nile from 1860 until 1863. Later, he was also hired in 1871 by Stanley during his search for Livingstone and by Cameron in 1873 for his transcontinental trip. He, therefore, had a major role in four of the most important European explorations of Africa. He was given a pension by the Royal Geographical Society in 1878 and died in about 1885.

Sidi and his famous teeth!

German Schutztruppe Askari

2007-12-14T20:56:00.001Z

These are my Schutztruppe Askari. They are Copplestone castings figures. The German is a Brigade Games miniature sculpted by Mike Owen. These are dressed as they were at the beginning of the war. Later on they adopted floppy hats and kahki puttees.

Jane Porter

2007-11-24T21:46:00.000Z

Here is the Foundry Jane figure by Mark Copplestone. I finished her today having started her years ago but then had a failure of nerve over painting all that skin! I'm not sure whethere she should be in this blog or my Pulp one but as her fame is so closely linked to the Dark Continent I have put her here.

Jane Porter was the daughter of Professor Archimedes Q Porter and was stranded on the West African coast in 1912. Rather in the reverse of the situation regarding Henry Morton Stanley she is often believed to be British but was, in fact, an American, hailing from Baltimore, Maryland. Saved from the perils of the jungle by Lord Greystoke she returned home to become the fiancee of William Cecil Clayton. Back in Africa in the lost city of Opar Jane, appalled by Clayton's cowardice, renounced him and declared her love for Lord Greystoke.

Greystoke and Porter had many more adventures in the jungle and indeed, elsewhere. They married (although there must like, the Bakers, be suspicions about the nature of their relationship before this; especially given her immodest garb) and had a son Korak.

Henry Morton Stanley

2007-10-28T21:47:00.000Z

I finished him off today and he has come out OK. He was a repaint of a figure I did years ago but doesn't look too bad given the number of coats of paint he has had!

The Copplestone sculpted Foundry figure is based on his clothes in a series of photographs taken in London, with his young gun-bearer Selim, after finding Livingstone. Unlike some of Copplestone's other Darkest Africa sculpts, which really capture the look of the historical figures, the Stanley figure is too gaunt and angular. Stanley had a rather rounded face but in a figure only just over an inch tall we can't complain too much I suppose!

The way I painted the pugaree on his pith helmet is based on the one he wore when he discovered Livingstone which is now in the Royal Geographic Society.

Famous "American" journalist Henry Morton Stanley was actually an illegitimate Welshman named John Rowlands who spent much of his early life in the workhouse. He got himself to America as a teenager and promptly started to re-invent himself more often than Madonna, taking on the name for which he is now famous. Stanley fought for both sides in the American Civil War and then covered the Indian Wars as a journalist, using very little veracity but a lot of writing style. As a result, he was hired to cover the British-Abyssinian war by the New York Herald and scooped his rivals by means of the creative use of bribes to ensure that his story was telegraphed first. He became a roving reporter and eventually found the "lost" Scottish Missionary Dr David Livingstone in 1871 during an expedition financed by his newspaper but which was almost entirely his idea.

His "Dr Livingstone, I presume" quote probably is, like much of what he wrote, total invention or, at least, hugely embroidered truth.

An excellent book on this quest is Into Africa by Martin Dugard which, whilst not entirely totally historically accurate in some areas, is, nevertheless a fantastic narrative acount written with great drive and style and is highly recommended for anyone interested in Darkest Africa.

Stanley's own book, How I Found Livingstone, is also a very good read only being even more inaccurate.

He returned to Africa for a truly epic expedition which saw him cross the continent from one side to the other finally tracing the route of the Congo a task which had been beyond many other explorers. He used a steamer called Lady Alice which could be taken apart and transported overland. The boat was named after a girl he thought was his fiance in New York but during his journey she married someone else, much to Stanley's understandable distress when he eventually returned from Africa.

Stanley did not receive the acclaim he expected for this amazing achievement largely because of passages in his book, In Darkest Africa, where he describes making what looked like an unprovoked attack on some natives. He tended to over-exagerate the numbers of natives killed in various skirmishes and rather than make him look more heroic as he had intended, even to Victorian readers this was considered excessive. It was not helped by the fact that the British public thought he was an American.

Tim Jeal's excellent book on Stanley offers a convincing defence for Stanley's actions which has made it unpopular in some circles but it is a truly wonderfully researched and written book which is unlikely to be superseded as the standard work for some time, if ever.

It is here that we leave him because Foundry make an older Stanley in his characteristic self-designed outfit from the period when he cut his way across King Leopold's Congo Free State and I will look at that controversial period another time.

Sir Samuel and Lady Florence Baker

2007-07-27T21:56:00.000+01:00

Sir Samuel Baker was one of the most active of African explorers in the 19th century and travelled everywhere with his “wife” Florence. He was one of those captivated by the race to find the source of the Nile, which was eventually discovered by his friend John Hanning Speke who trekked inland from Zanzibar. Baker took the more conventional, but no less arduous, route of following the river from Egypt.

Born in 1821 in Enfield, Middlesex, Baker came from a well-off family who had made their money from sugar plantations. He had three sisters and three brothers, including younger brother Valentine who commanded the Egyptian forces at the disastrous first battle of First El Teb in the Sudan in 1884.

He married a conventional wife, a vicar's daughter, and dragged her off to Ceylon for eight years where he successfully bred cattle and embarked on many of his characteristic hunting forays into the wilderness, publishing a number of books including the splendidly named The Rifle and the Hound in Ceylon. His wife was obviously not so robust and died in 1855 shortly after they returned to England. Not sure of what to do with his life he accompanied the Maharajah Duleep Singh, last crowned ruller of the Punjab, on a hunting trip to Central Europe.

Vidin

Their boat was holed on an ice floe in the Danube and they had to stop off in Vidin, in what is now Bulgaria but was then part of the Ottoman Empire, for repairs.

Whilst there he attended an Ottoman slave auction and saw on the block a beautiful teenage Transylvanian girl, Barbara Maria Szász, who had been orphaned in the Hungarian uprising and brought up in a harem where she had been given the name Florenz. Despite having being bought by the local pasha, Baker stole her away and the couple fled back to the Austro-Hungarian Empire in a coach. She was about fourteen years old at the time. He was thirty eight.

They lived in Central Europe for a while but all the time Baker was reading of the escapades of his friend Speke and his quest to find the source of the Nile and developed a great yearning to go to Africa..

In 1861 he traveled to Cairo with Florence, as she was now known, who he called his wife (although they were certainly not married at this stage). He explored and hunted in the Sudan and Abyssinia to acclimatize to the continent before setting off from Khartoum, still accompanied by Florence, for a journey up the Nile. Whilst Burton, Speke and Grant all took the conventional route from Zanzibar into the interior of Africa, Baker decided to follow the river Nile itself. This was no less arduous and involved having to cross the great marshy area of the Sudd.

He was ably assisted by Florence who spoke fluent Arabic (a well as Hungarian, German) which she had learned in the harem. They met Speke returning from Lake Victoria, in 1863, which he had rightly identified as the source of the Nile, although his inability to conclusively prove it haunted him and he died shortly afterwards either from a hunting accident or suicide.

The Bakers continued exploring in the lake regions of Africa and went on to discover and name Murchison Falls and Lake Albert despite usually having a far smaller accompanying party than other expeditions.

Returning to the UK after four years in Africa he was awarded the Royal Geographical Society's gold medal and got married to Florence in 1865.

In 1869 he led a military expedition (with Florence) to fight slavers in Equatorial Africa, having been made Major General and Governor of Equatoria by the Viceroy of Egypt with a salary of a staggering £10,000 per annum. They fought the slavers, including a pitched battle in Masindi, for three years.

The Bakers returned to Britain in 1874 and bought an estate in Devon. He continued to travel and write books until his death in 1893. Florence outlived Baker by 23 years and in later life was looked after by her step daughters, one of whom was only six years her senior.

Baker has never been as well regarded or famous as his contemporaries Burton, Livingstone, Speke or Stanley. Although he was knighted in 1866 there was always rumour and innuendo about his relationship with his wife and her unconventional origins. Although she had been only fourteen when she first started living with Baker this in itself would not have counted for much; the age of consent in Victorian England was 12, although no lady would be generally acceptable until she came out into society at 17. Although Sir Samuel and Lady Baker were personally charming enough to conquer most of Victorian society the Queen refused to receive Florence at Court as she believed Baker had been "intimate with his wife before marriage", as indeed he had.

These days Baker is vilified because of his attitude towards the Africans and Arabs he met during his travels and is now considered a racist. Unlike Burton, Speke or Livingstone, Baker detested most of the Africans that he met; although to be fair, reading his book In the Heart of Africa, he does seem to have met up with the most despicable, untrustworthy, traitorous and ghastly people on his travels.

The figures are both from the Foundry Darkest Africa range. Although many pictures of Florence in Africa show her in a conventional Victorian lady’s dress and wide brimmed hat she did, when away from western company, indeed dress in an outfit almost identical to the one her husband had designed for himself. The Foundry figure reflects this and looks like the self portraits that Baker did of himself in his exploring clothes. No pictures exist of Florence in her equivalent outfit but Baker was very careful in his writings and pictures to portray Florence as a conventional Vicyorian woman. This she most avowedly was not, riding astride a horse in trousers, for example, when ladies rode side-saddle. So it is quite likely that the pictures he drew of her were not reflecting what she actually wore but what society would expect her to wear. As Baker seemed to often portray her in a blue dress (perhaps it set off her hair, she was a blonde – a source of constant amazement to the Africans) I have chosen to interpret this as her wearing a blue version of Baker's more conventionally coloured attire.

Azande leader

2007-06-26T21:52:00.000+01:00

Later in the period some of the Azande, particularly leader's bodyguards, affected Arab dress. Foundry do some Arabised musketmen and I should pick up a couple of packs for my army. I also have some more rank and file I need to paint which I got on eBay recently. Best to add to an army I already have than start a new one!

Princess makeover

2007-06-26T20:24:00.000+01:00

Before
After

I got home early today so had a go at re-doing my Azande princess. She looks much better. It makes me realise that most of my Darkest Africa stuff will need re-doing (except the tribesmen, they look OK).

Azande

2007-06-26T10:02:00.000+01:00

The first figures I bought from the Foundry Darkest Africa range were some generic tribal warriors which I equipped with basket shields to be allies of the Azande, who were the next figures I bought. These were the first 28mm figures I had ever painted, after a lifetime of plastic, and they look a bit ropey now.

In fact, the first figure I painted was this one to serve as a princess. She definitely needs a repaint. I might have a go to see if I can improve her this weekend. It might make a good "before and after" project.

I like the Azande as an army; they are the Uruk Hai of Darkest Africa! Their name means the people who possess much land, and refers to their history as conquering warriors.

The Azande were experts at ambushes. In the early period they used bows and then later muskets.

During all periods, however, they used their characteristic throwing knives the kpinga.

These Azande musketmen are a mixture of Foundry and the later ones Mark Copplestone did for his own Copplestone castings, some of these were painted more recently and are a bit better done than some of the earlier figures I did.

This is my Azande command group, at least they know what to do with a Belgian!

An Azande Chief's hut.
Classic basketwork shield and knives. The sickle bladed ones are for hand to hand combat rather than throwing. The caption on this picture refers to them as Niam-Niam (or Nyam-Nyam) both of which terms were used to describe them by 19th century Europeans; the word being of Dinka (Sudan) origin and meaning great eaters (they were reputed to be cannibals).

The Azande would hold up to four kpinga in their left hands concealed behind their shields. In 1925 Emil Torday wrote; "The first attack was made of arrows..then all of a sudden some objects glittering in the sun as if they were thuderbolts come whirling with a weird hum through the air.. it smites the warrior behind his defence with its cruel blades." Nasty!

The Azande shield was known as kube and was made of split rattan cane reinforced with tightly braided ropes around the rims. The characteristic patterns were so that warriors could identify each other in the dark. There is a good collection of them in the Pitt-Rivers museum in Oxford (see picture below).

They also have a good collection of Azande and Belgian colonial stuff in the military musem in Brussels. It's rather an old fashioned museum with everything in old wooden cases but it suits the material somehow. I'm over there later in the year so will try to take a picture or two but I remember it being very dark and flash photography is probably not allowed. I also recently saw a nice Azande shield in the National Museum in Copenhagen. They had quite an interesting exhibition on the colonial Congo when I was there in March.

The best piece on the Azande for wargaming purposes is this one by Chris Peers, the author of the darkest Africa rules, and tells you everything you need to know.

http://www.wargamesfoundry.com/library/azande.asp

I played a Darkest Africa game at Guildford against Mike's (of Black Hat Miniatures http://www.blackhat.co.uk/) Belgians but my Azande got quite comprehensively massacred by his White Men and gunboat mounted cannon. Jolly unsporting! Most of my units were destroyed or ran away before they even came into combat!

The Azande people still live in the southern Sudan (mostly), The Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. As usual tribal groupings are not recognised by colonial boundaries; the cause of most problems in Africa. Here is a Zande (singular of Azande as well as the language) girl and her Basenji hunting dogs.

Mbongo, Mbongo they drink it in the Congo..

2007-06-22T15:13:00.000+01:00

I have decided to set up yet another wargaming blog as I am getting back into Darkest Africa wargaming again. Partly based on my current project on the Sudan,

http://sudan1883.blogspot.com/

but also due to a documentary on The Nile I saw on TV last weekend. I have always been interested in the exploits of explorers such as Burton, Speke, Livingstone, Stanly and Baker so the appearance of 28mm figures of these and many other characters (who would have thought you would ever be able to buy a 28mm Sidi Bombay?) by Mark Copplestone for Foundry pushed me into buying my first ever 28mm figures five or six years ago.

I have a fair number of painted figures already and, needless to say, a big collection of unpainted ones (including a Foundry Belgian deal I really need to address.

My most extant army is an Azande one with Congolese allies and I will put some pictures of these up over the weekend.

I have played several games at Guildford using Chris Peers Darkest Africa rules and am also tempted to try a game or two using The Sword and the Flame to see how the rules differ..

Oh, and Mbongo, Mbongo is the Zande name for the Elephant fish. And you thought it was a drink..