The last of the Beja and Medical Staff Corps stretcher bearers vignette

Life has crashed across my hobby time these past weeks, in a good way for the most part, but totally derailed my painting effort.

Anyhow, here are the last of the Hadendowa, which will finish the enlargement of my bands of warriors … for now, and the Medical Staff Corps vignette.

I will return to the screw gun battery mules once the dust has settled on my life and home – the latter quite literally.

The last eight Hadendowa warriors, which will bring each band up to a strength of 18 figures, and the Medical Staff Corps vignette.

Medical Staff Corps stretcher bearer

I wasn’t really happy with the standing stretcher bearer, because I felt that in the circumstances suggested by the medic assisting a wounded soldier he should be crouching.

I had a spare figure from the screw gun battery, holdng a ramrod/sponge. I cut away the shaft, carefully reinstating the profile of the webbing beneath, and added trousers over the puttees with ProCreate. Add a right arm and left hand from the plastic sets spares box, and the result is not too shabby.

I abandoned the standing stretcher bearer in favour of this fellow.

More Beja and a couple of medics

Well, it had to be done. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I have 16 finished Hadendowa warriors, based, but without a band of their own.

I decided to increase the strength of each existing band by two figures. This required that I order six riflemen and six crouching figures. I’ll employ two of the latter immediately, but I am sure to come up with something for the remaining four to do.

I ordered some Perry Miniatures’ dead and wounded British figures too (SB20), with a plan to deploy the medic aiding a wounded infantryman straight away. I’ve prepared a stretcher bearer from one of the Sudan/Afghanistan plastic figures to accompany them, substituting an Oliver pattern water bottle and using ProCreate to shape trousers over puttees. I also added shoulder patches to the right upper sleeves. The stretcher is made from aluminium foil and wire spears, cut to length.

Six Hadendowa riflemen. I swapped the pointing arm of the second figure for a plastic one so that this fellow would look less like a leader. The Medical Staff Corps vignette should turn out alright.

Reporting for duty

As I mentioned in a previous post, The Men Who Would be Kings ruleset requires that each unit has a leader figure, so I have now added three more personalities to lead the Empire units.

Lieutenant-Colonel Alfred George Huyshe CB commands 1bn Princess Charlotte of Wales’s (Berkshire) Regiment, Colonel Sir Cromer Ashburnham KCB commands 3bn King’s Royal Rifle Corps, and Lieutenant-Colonel Albert Henry Ozzard commands the Royal Marine Light Infantry contingent in HMS Tyne.

Left-to-right: Lieutenant-Colonel Alfred George Huyshe CB, Lieutenant-Colonel Albert Henry Ozzard, and Colonel Sir Cromer Ashburnham KCB.

Three more leaders and some game markers

The Men Who Would be Kings ruleset requires that each unit has an identified leader. To this end I needed three more personalities to lead the Empire units.

Lieutenant-Colonel Alfred George Huyshe CB commands 1bn Princess Charlotte of Wales’s (Berkshire) Regiment, Colonel Sir Cromer Ashburnham KCB commands 3bn King’s Royal Rifle Corps, and Lieutenant-Colonel Albert Henry Ozzard commands the Royal Marine Light Infantry contingent in HMS Tyne.

The main additions are lanyards for the drawn pistols and characteristic moustache and sideburns for Ashburnham.

My Hadendowa are lead at rub level, with these leadership characteristics also applied to each band. Each band has an individual leader figure, so that an individual band can become leaderless.

Once I have completed the three British leaders all my units will have an individual leader figure. This makes leaderless units easy to mark. I am making some ‘pinned’ and ‘gone to ground’ markers; the former will be a shield on a small scenic base, with a tuft added for the latter.

Lieutenant-Colonel Albert Henry Ozzard, Colonel Sir Cromer Ashburnham KCB, Lieutenant-Colonel Alfred George Huyshe CB, and the first of the game markers.

Abdul Adab and Muhammad Mussa

I’ve reconsidered the organisation of my Beja force ever so slightly: Osman Digna was to command the black rub, but I have decided to pass command to one of his cousins. Consequently Digna needs his own standard bearer, so I decided buy a set of Perry Miniatures’ Mahdist mounted Command (SA2) and convert one of the figures.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I have very few usable parts left on sprues, so I had to cannibalise a surplus painted figure for a sword hilt (the original has the sword over its shoulder).

Muhammad Mussa, Osman Digna’s cousin, and Abdul Adab, Osman Digna’s standard bearer.

Last of the Beja. Yeah! Right!

I’ve scavenged the remaining bodies from the sprues and assembled another fifteen figures, augmented by a single metal sword-armed fellow.

For now this really is the last of the Beja … as I think I mentioned in an earlier post, I am considering expanding all the bands by adding two figures to each … one can never have enough of these fearsome fellows.

A lone band of warriors … perhaps they’re off to reinforce their kinsmen.

9th Bengal Cavalry and Beja reinforcements

Today I finished basing the Indian cavalry, and very smart they look too. 

I have 16 Hadendowa to finish basing, the last of the plastic figures. There’s a handful of metal command types in boxes, so I am undecided whether to establish a fifth rub or expand the existing force, probably by adding two figures to each band. The latter would be the expedient, only requiring two crouching figures and six rifle-armed figures in addition to the 16.

Top-to bottom: One can never have enough Beja; Brigadier-General Herbert Stewart and his Brigade Major, Lieutenant-Colonel Taylor; Lieutenant-Colonel Arthur Palmer and 9th Bengal Cavalry.

Mount-up for a Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to my followers and visitors. Remarkably the page views have passed 17,000 … which seems pretty amazing to me. I am pleased my musings seem to have some reach, and I hope I have inspired some of you to venture into the Sudan for an adventure like mine. Thank you everyone.

Today I glued the Bengal Cavalry riders to their mounts and attached half of the pennons to lances … and now I am quite excited about getting this unit based.

I trimmed the Empress Miniatures’ pennons to half their height, coloured the edges of the red swallow tail section, and gently curled them around my smallest painting brush. After checking each lance for fit to a rider’s hand, I super-glued the pennons to the shafts. The double thickness folded paper of the pennon results in an edge with enough area to give adequate adhesion. I think these will prove to be robust, especially since I avoid touching my figures directly – instead handling them by the bases they are attached to.

9th Bengal Cavalry and the first six lances with pennons.

9th Bengal Cavalry lance pennons

I have been thinking about how to go about the lance pennons since buying the miniatures and a set of Empress Miniatures’ pennons. 

It seems that the wargamer’s conventional approach is to wrap the pennon around the lance, which, while giving a sound fixing, isn’t really authentic. Today I made a search on The Miniatures Page, and found thisthread.

I then made an internet search and found this auction lot, which shows a metal strip attached to the side of a bamboo lance, with the pennon attached to that. While there is also evidence that pennons were tied to lances, this seems more practical from a modelling perspective, so I have decided to attempt this, probably by painting the metal strip on to the lance first. Let’s see …

Top: a Victorian era pennon attached to a metal strip on a bamboo lance. Above: a Perry Miniatures Bengal Cavalry sowar, lances, and the Empress Minniature’s pennons, which are clearly way too large.

Varnishing the 9th Bengal Cavalry

I have had a bit of time this week so focused on finishing the Bengal Cavalry.

The horses have had their final coat of matt varnish and the riders have had two coats of gloss; the matt will go on tomorrow. I anticipate the task of adding the pennons to the bamboo lances will be a bit tricky … wait to see.

Gloss and matt … nearly ready for basing.

The Black Watch: the next twelve

The first twelve figures and the detachment’s CO and piper are now glued to bases, ready for scenic enhancement.

The next twelve are ready for varnishing.

Slow going … but somewhat faster than I had anticipated.

The Black Watch: the first twelve

The first twelve figures and the detachment’s CO and piper are almost ready for varnishing.

Just a little retouching and highlighting to do, then three coats of varnish – the last a matt coat.

Not too shabby – definitely beginning to look the part. The mounted officer has a sword armed arm from the plastic British Infantry in Afghanistan and Sudan 1877–85 set.

At last! The Black Watch kilts are finished!

Something of a relief – the Black Watch kilts and socks are now finished, as are their purses (sporrans). I’m now looking forward to the familiar territory of tunics, webbing, helmets and weapons.

I’m rather hoping to make rapid progress with these now, so that I can then crack on with the Bengal Cavalry. I really want to have both units finished before Christmas.

Overall, I am quite pleased with these. (I’ll straighten the bent bayonets before I paint them – just once to avoid stressing the metal too much.)

Slow going … Black Watch tartan

I am working on the Black Watch kilts and socks in batches of 12, and sub-batches of six. My plan is to finish the lower parts of all the miniatures before beginning the tunics etc.

This is a painstaking process … and for all the effort only an approximation of the real thing. From my experience of painting Private Thomas Edwards I know that once shaded the overall effect will be just fine.

Meanwhile, the Bengal Cavalry languish … and I gestate a new project in a new period, of which more soon.

Imperfect, but beginning to look the part.

On the painting desk: 9th Bengal Cavalry horses

This week’s accomplishment has been painting the Bengal Cavalry’s mounts, which are now ready for shading, highlighting, then varnishing.

These sculpts are the same as the 19th Hussars’ mounts, so I think it’s good that there is not a grey amongst them.

I have also made a start on the Black Watch kilts … which I predict will be a very slow process. In fact I am inclined to think that I will have the Bengal Cavalry and the 15th Sikhs finished first … and I haven’t even ordered the Indian infantry yet!

9th Bengal Cavalry beginning to look the part.

9th Bengal Cavalry on the painting desk … finally

I have had these miniatures since April last year, and have been looking forward to painting them since. They are destined to join the 19th Hussars.

The 9th began training with lances in February 1885, going into action for the first time at Hashin on 20 March. No mean feat given that the lance usually requires a protracted period of training to master.

An even complement of Muslims and Sikhs plus three command figures, they are accompanied by the detachment commander. They will join the Black Watch on the painting desk, the last of the Empire metal miniatures to be painted … tartan and turbans will be the challenges. 

9th Bengal Cavalry looking a bit pale.

Last of the Beja …

I have finished basing the last two bands of Hadendowa warriors, which will complete my black flagged rub, commanded by Osman Digna himself.

I finished the crouching miniatures’ bases with plenty of tufts for them to conceal themselves behind. I’m pretty pleased with the overall look of these fellows.

I added a wire spear to one of the crouching figures so that he could fly a black edged flag. The crouching drummer conversion looks the part too.

The rifle-armed band are similar to the previous ones, with some armed with rifles from the Zulu rifle frame.

Top–to–bottom: Hadendowa warriors crouching in ambush; the converted flag bearer; rifle-armed warriors.

Blog lock-out, a captured Krupp 75mm, and two more bands of warriors

Minor trauma – I was locked out of this blog for twenty days, and had begun to despair of ever having access again. It was my fault, of course, since I had failed to add recovery information to my Google account. Anyhow … an idle log-in attempt earlier today got me in, and allowed me to add the required recovery information. Lesson learned.

Meanwhile I made pretty rapid progress (by my standards), finishing the Krupp 75mm vignette of a captured Egyptian crew and their harsh overseers, and getting two more bands of Hadendowa ready for varnishing.

I have enough metal and plastic figures for one more band of 16 … but I will wait a bit before working out how to fit these into my planned army of four rubs, one camel mounted band, and three guns.

Back to the Black Watch next.

Top–to–bottom: The captured Egyptians, their Krupp 75mm, and the cruel overseers (I made the ammunition crate); the crouching in ambush and rifle bands ready for varnish.

Beja crouching drummer and captured Egyptian Krupp 75mm

The additional miniatures have arrived and I set to work with a minor conversion to add a drummer to the Hadendowa crouching band, and assemble a vignette around the captured Krupp 6pdr.

I know I should be cracking on with my scots, but just now I am finding the Beja easier to get on with – I’m not quite well enoiugh for the level of concentration that painting the tartan will demand.

Crouching drummer conversion, with parts from the plastic Mahdist Ansar set, and the Krupp 75mm with captured Egyptian crew and Beja overseers.