Hoorah for Oom Jack

The first batch of Scuby Boers are now done. 

Scruby '25mm' (~1/72nd) Boers. 

(My apologies on the pictures, I was going to borrow my wife's camera but now it has gone missing !!?)

I'm still finding the glossy block toy style very difficult to paint convincingly. It is so much faster and easier to use washes to soften, blend, shade, weather and also to disguise little slips but once done, these figures have just the sort of toy look I was aiming for so I will persevere. I know from looking at some of my old figures that the old painted 25mm Marx figures were not as carefully painted as my memory would have it but the feel of these now is much the same as the feel of those figures was back then. 

The Jacklex and Scruby figures are quite different in style.The Scrubies are "finer" and the ones with open arms are softer and more amenable to animating but the Jacklex are hairier with more character. One on one, up close, the different hat/head size makes them less compatible than hoped for but luckily painted up and seen on the table at arms length they seem just fine together. 

A mix of Jacklex 20mm (the hefty guys) and Scruby 25mm Boers.

I can't consistently decide which I like better but I've enjoyed both so much that I would cheerfully buy more of both even though I have enough for the games that I have planned. I do intend to pick up a couple of each of the Jacklex positions that I don't yet have  but that will have to wait a bit as will an equally small Canadian and British force to oppose them. (My apologies to all those Aussie readers who feel left out).  In the meantime, they should see action against Ron's Brits before the end of the year.

Sometimes its a positive blessing to not have spare cash to over buy or this project might out grow itself in a hurry!

We interrupt your scheduled battle report for this flash report

Its been one of those weeks, haven't had time/energy to do a battle report although I did offload the pictures from my cell camera today. HOWEVER, I got TWO, not one, but TWO packages in the mail today.

Yup, all the way from England, a Jacklex 4.7" naval gun, apparently captured by Boers.... Its a tab smaller than my old Britain's gun but more accurate and just right for the 3" grid. ohboyohboyohboy.....

Cavalry L to R Jacklex Boer, RAFM NWMP

Infantry L to R Jacklex Boer, Partha British, Jacklex US 1917, Esci British, Jacklex British, Esci British, Partha British, Jacklex Boer.

I was a little concerned that these figures might be a tad small to fight Ron's Partha's and they are pushing my boundaries though they should normally be far enough away from the British to make the difference ignore-able.  The horse are small even if they are Veldt ponies, so I may remount them on some spare horses.

In any event I don't expect a lot of Boer War games at Ron's place and they are, as anticipated, a perfect match  for the old Esci British and thus other plastic Colonials which offers some nice options for mix and match (and wagons!) for home use. Hopefully the Historifig Scrubies will be here by Christmas and I can plan an expansion for next year.

Meantime there are a dozen painted plastic Brits in the cupboard and a few more in a state of nature. (Bought those in my trailor trash days in the mid-80's along with the Airfix ACW and a few Zulus. Hmmmm seems to me I gave a way a few sprues of Esci Zulu's a few years ago, oh well don't really want to do Zulus again anyway, they'll probably show up in a HOTT army on some junkyard planet some day.)

Since it was my wife who actually cleared the mailbox today, it was almost inevitable that this ebay find would arrive on the same day. I've had my eye out for an Elastolin  4cm Landsknecht range gun for a while but they tend to rise too close to $100 for me indulge a whim. Couldn't believe it when I saw this one for $10 with no bids and 2 hours to go.It has some minor damage, a missing bracket in front and the trigger doesn't work so you have to pull back on a piece of nylon line to cock the spring. It'll still send a matchstick across my table though! Not that I'm going to fire matchsticks at my Elastolin's, especially since they are glued to 60mm masonite bases!.

Getting to be a bit of a Boer

Images from Historifig website 

Well, I've taken the plunge. Last week Ron broke out the Colonials for a nail biter of a Colonial game with "my" Brits just hanging on to a ridge for a narrow win. With a  decision still pending on the best way to scratch my long deferred  Boer  War itch, I took the plunge when I got home and ordered some Scruby Boers from Historifigs and then a handful more of Jacklex figures from Spencer-Smith (gotta  have a classic 4.7" somewhere in my collection) to get me started.

Reinforcements on table from a week ago with Brits holding the hill. Ron Porter's figure and table.

Not saying I will never do it in 40mm toy style but these classic ranges have the right sort of OS look, are cheap enough for even my budget and, based on pictures and remarks on the Plastic Pelisse  and John's Lead Garden and my own experience with Scruby 25mm Mamlukes, are close enough to the Ral Partha's that  I'll be happy fielding them on the same table. 

For now it will be a small force for Battlecry games to be followed by British, and then I suppose by Zulus/Matabele/Basuto. Whether or not it ever expands and blossoms into something else or reaches as far as Tel el Kebir is another question for another day.

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This week, long time friend Simon MacDowall (red 'jumper') crossed over the pond. Its been  a decade or two since we have been able to squeeze a game  in but Ron graciously hosted us for a 3 player Battle Cry game, a long way from Simon's usual fare but just right for a quick break from the pub. This time it was the Afghans defending the ridge and Simon and I ended up on the same side, the first time in 40 years as far as we could recall. Innuendos that it was no accident that Simon's Afghan force (see http://legio-wargames.com/#/the-legio-blog/4553964887 for more pictures)  was driven off the ridge and wiped out before reinforcements arrived, must surely be dismissed in face of the great personal risk run by my General and his escort who defeated Ron's right wing, capturing its general and preventing the capture of the only flag we held at the end. Luckily enough of my men were left at the end to be able to garrison his tribal areas as well as my own once we let the British buy peace.

As an aside, probably the last time that all 3 of us were in the same place at the same time would have been at a meeting of the Montreal Wargamers at the old fort on Ile St Helene in 1976/77. 
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OK back to designing my card table game and experiments with going small but grid-less or not and with abandoning casualties or not.