Darkest Africa Nkonde [8]

I spent the good part of an hour today cleaning up and assembling two cattle for the baggage element of the Nkonde army, before I realised that they looked a bit funny. I bought a job lot of livestock bits from a seller on ebay a couple of years ago and happily stashed them in the In the Heart of Africa box, ready for a rainy day.

Unfortunately, I didn't look too closely at the contents, which turned out to be eleven assorted cow heads of indefinate origin, one cow body with three legs and three potential cows, two of which I think are American longhorns? They don't look much like African cattle to me but then I'm no expert. Never mind, I'm sure they'll be useful for Legends of the Old West. 

The result is a distinct absence of bovine baggage, although I did manage to assemble one cow and a somewhat irate cow herd. I might get a (very expensive) pack of the Foundry African cattle to make up the difference or try to fit some spare heads to the bodies that I do have. In the meantime, the Nkonde will be goat powered, using a selection of the aforementioned animals to make up two of the four baggage bases.

The older but equally irate goat herd is a foundry witchdoctor figure with a cut down staff and a hand held pointy magic bone chopped down into a nasty pointy stick. I'll think about converting this into a horsehair fly swatter type thing with some greenstuff when I get back to the workbench. In the meantime he's the shock element of the Nkonde...who said the native villlagers weren't scary!

I have one more base to assemble tomorrow, featuring a selection of Nkonde ladies. The bases are, by the way, from the most excellent East Riding Miniatures range which includes several different sizes of irregular laser cut bases. They only cost £2.50 for six small bases, which I think is excellent value for money, especially as they invariably arrive on your doorstep the next day!

(Incidentally, I've just spotted some new(ish) Zanzibari regulars over on the Copplestone site, which I had completely missed. This opens up all sorts of cool new options for a Zanzibari army, along with my existing mountain of figures....oh dear!)