Return to Darkest Africa: Zambezi Campaign 25: Heavily armed askaris

Saturday, 30 March 2013

Zambezi Campaign 25: Heavily armed askaris

These are the 12 heavily armed askaris which I need for my Arab army. I finished them today, so that gives me all four of the units of firearm-equipped Zanzibari troops I need for the Gary Chalk scenarios. Wargames Foundry figures, of course.

The Arab force so far: perilously close to an army!

Now all I have to do are complete the sword armed Baluchis, another cannon, plus the leader of the force, and the Arab force will be complete. Then I will have to move on to the three tribal forces I need which will total 140 figures. I'm not sure if these are all armed with spears which means painting cursed shields so I will have to check back in the relevant issue of Wargames Illustrated. A little bit of research has shown that tribesmen in this area would have had Zulu style shields so I will probably have to order them from somewhere. Empress miniatures do them separately I know.

I'll probably take on the second cannon next.

6 comments:

Michael Awdry said...: Looking good and I love the shot of the unit altogether - really taking shape. Not a fan of shields myself as I seem to end up with them sticking at all sorts of jaunty angles!; 31 March 2013 at 11:05
A J said...: Nice result, there. From my own experience it helps to have a mass of slaver/Arab types if going up against British disciplined firepower. As for the natives, I bought plastic Wargames Factory figures. They're a little fiddly to put together, but don't look too bad en-masse. I was also pleased to find they paint up nicely with cheap hobby store acrylics instead of more expensive hobby paints.; 31 March 2013 at 18:02
Phil said...: Very nice work on those figures!
Phil.; 1 April 2013 at 08:04
legatus hedlius said...: Thank you, everyone. I think having done these two units recently has given me the impetus to take on the dreaded Baluchis next!; 1 April 2013 at 10:32
johny hop said...: I notice that Lugard in British Central Africa gave his on sides natives a piece of coloured cloth to tie round their heads much like the Natal Native Contingent in the Zulu War. So I recently bought a box of Natal Native Contingent by Warlord Games which gives you 32 hard plastic figures and two European figures for about £20. Ideal for my lot. Lugard did not say what colour so I assumed red.; 15 April 2019 at 09:37
legatus hedlius said...: Interesting. I have got that box somewhere. Does it provide any spare heads?; 15 April 2019 at 09:44

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Wargaming Darkest Africa

I had never collected metal wargames figures having always been a 20mm plastics man. I had maybe five metal Hinchliffe Napoleonics when I was about twelve but couldn't see the point of saving my precious pocket money when you could get so many Airfix plastics for the same amount.

So I didn't start buying metal figures until about fifteen years ago and the very first metal 28s I bought were some of Mark Copplestone's Foundry Darkest Africa figures. I had pictures of them in the magazines but it was only when I actually saw some figures at Salute that I decided to take the plunge and buy some explorers. For a long time all I bought was Darkest Africa so now I am in the unusual (for me) position of having more figures painted than unpainted. Unfortunately, most of them are painted to a very poor standard. Latterly, I have repainted a few characters and they are much improved but I can't really bear repainting all my tribesmen! Having said that my more recent Zambezi campaign has seen me repainting quite a few figures.

I have read, and continue to read, extensively on nineteenth century African explorers and several scenarios have sprung to mind based on my recent reading of Tim Jeal's book about Stanley.

I use Chris Peers Darkest Africa rules but find them (like all of his rules) relentlessly bloody and am really more interested in gaming a campaign which follows an expedition over a number of encounters and scenarios. For this I have been thinking of modifying Games Workshop's Lord of the Rings rules. Their Battle Companies add-on handles campaign type scenarios well and you can weight the abilities of your heroes to make them more or less indestructible. I don't want a set of rules where my heroes are killed in the first game!

Apart from the classic eras of exploration and colonisation I am also interested in World War 1 in East Africa and will continue to gradually collect the excellent Brigade Games figures for that conflict.

This site will look at the period from 1855 until 1918 and I will try to list useful books and other sources as well.