Outremer Arab Spearmen

Back to Outremer. 

Having decided on the plan for the next all dayer - It turns out we might be woefully short of Arab foot types. 5 weeks nothing like deadline to focus the mind.

Not usually a fan of plastics for gaming, I tend to lose bayonets and spears during regular game play, but you can't argue with the value for money. Gripping Beast offer 40 figures for £25.00 - 62p a figure can't be bad.

The box contains 8 sprues with enough to make a mixture of spear, bow and sword armed units together with command elements horns etc.

The Sprue contains 3 round shields and two teardrop so plenty of mix for the various units, while there may not be obvious leader types they are very useful to fill the ranks of generic warriors.

Good quality casts with minimal mold lines and and they detach really easily, limbs are pre-molded carrying spear or sword so construction is minimal.  

The Gripping Beast figures fit in well with other manufacturers hidden amongst the masses are a bunch of Footsore and some Black Tree Design

The shield designs are from Little Big Man Studio such a good time saver.

Next up more cavalry.

Arab Light Cavalry - Outremer

The Crusader project rolls on.

After the Christian Foot Knights time for some Arab cavalry, these have sat in the draw of shame for several years and the Outremer project is just the nudge needed to get these on the table.

I used Footsore shields to ensure they mix with the rest of the faction currently on the paint table, the decals are from Little Big Studio and are such a time saver, it's doubtful I could get even close to a similar output or standard.

The horses are a little larger than their Footsore counterparts, I will post up a comparison in a future post. But based up with scrub and scatter they will fit with the larger collection.

The Muslim forces are coming together nicely.

Mameluks Cavalry Force within Sharp Practice.

With the first outing of the new look Egyptian project tonight and after completing the French Legere time to switch back to more Ottoman's.

The Mameluks were originally slaves who came to rule Egypt for themselves, they were renowened horsemen each riding an Arabian stallion, their tactics were to charge in at the gallop discharging their carbines and numerous pistols before finally slashing with the Scimitar....

Following up to the rear of the Mamelukes was a number of foot servants at arms, there role was to mop up after the charge and collect the discarded firearms before finishing off any survivors.

The core of the cavalry were painted a few years ago but a quick reorganisation and some newer releases from Brigade Games mean't that they were in need of a slight make over.
I have added in 4 further mounted figures to bring them up to a more rounded cavalry force.

I am a little light on the core cavalry as the unit should be made up of 8 figures for the Mameluks, but will consider back filling still further in the coming months for now it will be 6 figures on the table but will fight as 8.

The core make up for Sharp Practice is as follows together with the supporting stats.

Leader Status III

Leader Status I
Three groups of Impact Cavalry.
Leader Status I
One group of Scouting Cavalry
Leader Status I
One group of Wallahs with Big Choppers.


53 Points
 

Mameluke Cavalry					Type	Impact Cavalry
Points Value	9	Weapon	Carbine and Sabre		Size	8
Formation	First Fire	Controlled Volley	Crashing Volley	Step Out	Drill	Characteristics
Always	Yes	No	-	2	2	Tally Ho, Sam Colts Equalizers.

Scouting Cavalry - Bedouin					Type	Scouting Cavalry
Points Value	4	Weapon	Lance		Size	8
Formation	First Fire	Controlled Volley	Crashing Volley	Step Out	Drill	Characteristics
No	Yes	No	-	2	-	Tally Ho, Moveable DP, Prominent Leader

Servant Men at Arms					Type	Wallahs
Points Value	4	Weapon	Big Choppers		Size	12
Formation	First Fire	Controlled Volley	Crashing Volley	Step Out	Drill	Characteristics
No	No	No	-	1	-	Prominent Leader, Tactical, Moveable DP.

Cutlass! - AAR - Adventures in Atlantis.

My apologies for the lack of posts of late, I had high hopes for December in terms of hobby time, but a combination of things has meant little or time to myself, still with less than a week before Christmas I can see light at the end of the tunnel and it's no someone bringing me more work.

I mean't post this a few weeks ago, I have been itching to try the Black Scorpion rule set - Cutlass! for some time and whilst the figures queue up behind the French (more on them in a future post) a recent club night saw the first outing and a small encounter pitting Atlantian Guardians against the Borites a reptilian type creature which inhabits the swamps of Atlantis.

Background

Atlantis was dying of the seven cities the first two have been "lost beneath the waters of the outer limits forever" and the third one, Troya, is now deserted and empty. Elsewhere the swamp lands are slowly rising and Mogdaan, Zaarg and Borite attacks on the fourth city of Vaar are increasing in frequency and ferocity.

Atmir has been ordered to take a Guardian Patrol and a handful of trusted slaves into the Outer limits to gather intelligence on Borites numbers and their intentions.

The swamp lands of Atlantis.

Atlanians and human slaves land on the beach looking to see signs of the Borites.

Guardians deploy on the flanks looking to protect the poorer Humans from an sneaky lizard attack.

The reptiles lie in wait.

It starts to go wrong from the start, a Borite is spotted and shot at, he reacts and charges into contact with the lead scout.

The Prisoner soldier is injured in the first round of combat - ouch.

Meanwhile as the Guardians struggle to contain two Borites to their front even though they out number them 3:1, a far larger war party looks to flank the patrol - Gulp.

With many of the Atlantian patrol, spooked, injured, stunned or unloaded, the reptiles start to move in for the kill.

Caught on both fronts the patrol struggles to hold back the attackers, the occasion blow is parried but Guardians and slaves start to fall.

A poor action total for the Atlantians sees them swamped by the swamped dwellers (sorry....). Who with a much better Action roll are able to bring a number of extra attacks to bear.

Atmir and his two surviving Guardians flee the beach. He will be able to report back that they are a credible threat and bloody tough....

On reflection I probably over equiped the Lizardmen or gave them to many bumped up stats or did the Atlantians just suffer from the curse of freshly painted figures?

The rules worked really well and the action points make for an interesting encounter, perhaps the first game for many a year where a single character who has the drop on several can run a mock before the defenders can get into any order.

The Atlantians well armed wasted several orders trying to react to a single ambusher and the close terrain meant they had difficultly get any aimed shots off before the guys with swords and pointy sticks arrived charging in and over coming most of the the defenders.

It will be interesting to play through with the generic offerings in the book to see if the out come was much different. But this scenario for me had a real early colonial feel to - Last of the Mochians anyone?

On a slightly disappointing note and a learn for the Black Scorpion guys is the bind quality of the rules, I really don't expect to have several pages come loose from the binding and drop out after only one game, to the point where I am now considering having to put all the pages in a plastic ring binder, an expense I should not need to carry after only 3 hours of use.

I hope they choose a better printer for the forthcoming Western Version.

Until next time.

Fishmen and Troglodytes.

I should really be catching up on other projects but can't afford to put these back in the draw for another 10 years. So off to the paint table so they can join their Cold One counter parts in any future encounters.
Perfect timing as the Advanced Songs of Blades arrived this morning in the post.

Both the Fishman and Troglodytes from Black Tree are showing there age now, both sculpts are some what on the chunky side but the large lips and bulging eyes do have a certain character and make for an interesting warband.

Armed with Tridents and Shell shields they could be appearing from a swamp land near you shortly.

Napoleon in Egypt - Arab Cavalry and Civilians

These must have been sitting at the foot of Lead mountain for about 18 months, I had under coated the cavalry but something shiny came along and they fell down the painting queue, however having finished the last of the Russo Japanese in recent weeks, I thought I would catch up on a few of the other projects for this year.

The casting are by Black Tree Designs, larger than others on the market, they did contain rather a lot of flash on the horses and one of the horse molds appears to have lost an ear, but they paint up rather well and come with plenty of sculpted detail which is not lost when undercoated and base coated.

They will make a useful addition to my Egyptian/Ottoman forces.

Thanks to the likes of Phyllion over at Diary of a Gaming Magpie.

http://infrequentwargamer.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/pulp-building-arab-market-scene.html

And Frank over at Adventures in Lead.

http://adventuresinlead.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/genuine-indostani-rug-sale.html

I was inspired to dig out a bunch of Arab civilians to kick start my Arab market.... Thanks chaps another project.

I picked these up from Mega Mini's a few months back when I heard that Johnny was shutting up shop in December, These are from his Arabian range, but will serve to populate my market and Arab village. 

I have never purchased from him before, but he always had a range of off the beaten track figures, which always come in handy.

A little small in comparison to Perry and Brigade's offering, but they will serve a purpose to give the village a more lived in feel and give the French a challenge of knowing friend from foe.

The Napoleon in Egypt project has moved up the painting queue, so much so that I hit the button on several packs from Old Glory today, not my favourite manufacture but they can be relied upon to have a broad range of troops for the more obscure periods, more on these shortly.

Napoleonic Egyptian Supply Train

Real life has got in the way recently, but a bank holiday and the opportunity to take put some paint on lead, we have been playing a lot of Sharp Practice recently over at the Wyvern Wargamers and a number of event cards call for units to be resupplied, with this in mind I thought I would paint up a number of camels that have been on the to do list for several months....

 

 

The lead camel and handler is from Black Tree's Crusade range, but if you can get past the shield hidden amongst the various supplies it is a perfect addition to the French supply troop, if anyone asks the French have stolen it from the Mameluke's.

 

The second two come from Redoubts Sudan range, slightly larger than the Black Tree casting and the camel hide is a little smoother, but the packs are good and the casualty camel makes a useful change from the usual pack animals.

Next up a Ottoman Command element for the Janissary's.

Mamelukes & Ottoman Cavalry in Eygpt

As the Evesham Wargames Club, Age of Reason Campaign gathers pace, I thought it was time removed the covers off my Cavalry Arm. Based and painted for my up and coming collection for the French in Eygpt.

The Malmelukes are from Wargames Foundry from their  Napoleonic range - Imperial Guard Mamelukes not my first choice but I figured they would do for both sides.

It's been quite a while since I painted such rich colours and whilst they may have looked rather gordy when putting the paint on, I am really pleased with the results.

Second up Ottoman Cavlary from Brigade Games some great castings, the horses suffer from rather weak ankles but should be ok now based.

I have also finished some Big Men for the the Ottoman Command technically several houndred years to late as they are from Black Tree Design Crusades range, but with a few Victrix Hands and PIstol add on's they seem to fit the bill.

The question is can they fight?????

Anglo - Zulu War - Frontier Horse

With the Evesham All Dayer a few weeks away, the Colonial Forces need a few extra's to protect them from the Zulu hordes... Looking over the paint table over the last few days and I seem to have very little left that needs completing until of course some thing new comes out (Warlord Plastic Zulu's anyone?)

Recent new recruits for the Crown include the following.

Frontier Horse

I completed the mounted figures several months ago, but Foundry did not produce a dismounted version, as we are going for the concept that less is more. I thought I would produce some foot versions, the figures are made up of Empress Boers with Zulu Heads and a couple of figures from Northstar and their Africa Range.





British Characters

As we are using the Too Fat Lardies Rules where the use of officers or Big Men become important, I have painted up the lead character Ferguson, however in the most recent game he was "killed" - I say killed more likely left for dead in true Hollywood fashion I may have to use the wounded officer from Black Tree Designs.



Zulu Dead.

You can never have enough dead Zulu's so the British commanders tell me, I had a bunch of dead figures from Black Tree so I thought I would paint them up as they are almost the last of Lead Zulu Mountain.
I also finished off a couple of the Foundry characters that were left over.

Mounted Zulu's

Whilst stuck in a motorway services yesterday, I managed to catch up on some light reading - In particular Ian Knight's series on the Zulu War a number of passages struck me in particular a number of small encounters with the British and Boers where the Zulu's were mounted Prince Dabulamanzi commander at Rorkes Drift as an example was a notable horseman.

Having a spare evening and only having a few remaining pieces to complete my current Zulu War collection. I thought I would dig out a couple of mounted Zulu's which form part of lead mountain.

The figure on the circular base is from Empress and the three on the left are Black Tree Design Limited although the horse are spares from various 28mm collections.

I plan to use them as scouts, pickets or commanders, they will certainky make a change from the usual head long charge into the British firing lines......