Congo Bowmen

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

I just sat down last week to paint a few Foundry Baluchis when, blow me, Giles put some lovely ones up on his blog.  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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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