Thursday, March 24, 2011

Meanwhile back on the North West frontier.


Blogspot won't let me upload the picture I took of the freshly painted Rosmark gun crew, presumably because the bases aren't flocked. But, as long as the casting pot and paint brushes were in use, I decided to finally get add the first trial figure to a long awaited project and luckily it seems that blogspot has no objection to fuzzy pictures.   

The figure I painted goes back to 2006 when I sculpted and cast a Baluch sepoy for service in Egypt  in 1881. 
. Here they are capturing the enemy citadel in Dick Larsen's version of Shambattle played using a set of Morschauser inspired rules.  

The long awaited project is my toy soldier version of the 1st Afghan War, Conquest of Scinde and Gwalior and the two Sikh Wars, all rolled into one fictional and ongoing campaign. I am planning to sculpt some of the figures and hope to get some of the old Scruby colonial miniatures as well, but I haven;t started yet. To kickstart the whole thing, I decided to see if my Baluch could be transformed into a  reasonable toy soldier version of a Mahratta infantryman. Not quite right but close enough for me to incorporate a unit. The pose is a little steady and the mold has developed real flaws so what I'll probably do is cast up a score of figures, paint some and do head swaps onto various other figures to come up with an undisciplined, ragged looking  bunch. They're a little big compared to the bulk of the figure's I'll be using but not unreasonably so.   .  




7 comments:

  1. What size figures are they, Ross?

    As you might know I've decided that this will be a "Colonial Year" for my gaming activities . . . so I'm sure that I will be inspired by your efforts.


    -- Jeff

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  2. Hi Ross,

    I would love to hear about some of this campaign if it has made its way into writing yet! Sounds like a heap of fun.

    All the best,

    DC

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  3. I look forward to seeing more of this campaign. Nice figures.

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  4. Jeff, I have indeed been keeping an eye on Afristan. These are more of my older style, actual 40mm figures.

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  5. DC, I've been collecting inspiration and back ground info for the last 12 or so years while I figure out how to translate it onto a gaming table.

    There's nothing much in writing yet, but there will be.

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  6. I presume Leonaur have a lot to answer for on this one?

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  7. Conrad, no, at least not yet. They are new to me. Lady Sale's Memoirs were good but I already had Lt Vincent Eyre's which were more to the point when it comes to toy soldiers and wargame scenarios.

    Most of the books have come from used or military book dealers. Some originals published in the 19thC, some last qtr of the 20th C editions with comment + memoir ( Like Sepoy to Subedor, the story of Sita Ram Pande in his own words ) and some new facsimile editions like those Leonore has. I should do a post on books for this.

    Most need to be reread and since more and more old books on these wars are becoming available free on line, I need to schedule more quiet time for reading.

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