In the Heart of Africa Revisited

I finished reading Chris Peer's The African Wars yesterday and jolly good it was too. It has certainly given me a far better appreciation of the historical background of the whole Darkest Africa gaming thing, which I had some ideas about before but of a fairly sketchy nature. What I particularly liked about the book was its focus on the military tactics and strategies used by the various factions, tribes and societies in their wars with each other and the European colonialists.

Anyway, it's got me thinking (again) about my long planned 28mm In the Heart of Africa project, which has been nagging at me for the last four or five years, during which time I have amassed a considerable collection of figures, resin terrain and other such stuff. I have boxes and boxes of really nice Copplestone, Dixon and Foundry figures, with enough manpower to fully equip a British naval landing party, seperate British, German and French expeditionary forces, a column of Arab slavers and at least two 'native' armies with musketeers, bowmen, ruga ruga, spearmen, warriors and various hangers on.

I'd like to do all of these but that's a bit over the top, so I have top start somewhere sensible. I had planned to do a German DOAG force but everyone seems to have one of these, so something a little different has greater appeal. A small number of figures would be good to get me off the ground fast but, equally, the large tribal units that I have would be very quick to paint up anyway, given their minimalist clothing and simple paint work. I'd also really like to make a gunboat so some sort of colonial expedition seems to be the way forward. I have a stack of Foundry Belgians that I could use as French, not being too keen on the whole Force Publique thing, so that might be the best option along with some tribal allies of some sort.

I'll have to dig out the boxes and have a rummage....