Copplestone Christmas!

That really nice Mr Copplestone has a  slightly premature but very welcome 10% off Xmas Sale this weekend. I have had my eye on his re-released Zanzibari regulars for quite a while, so have ordered a couple of packs of the marching figures, as I think they look particularly splendid. I've also ordered two packs of the superbly sculpted Watuta warriors as the core of an Ngoni inspired army, alongside a small selection of brazen Tuta women archers. Superb!

AK47 Presidential Guard [2]

I've  added a couple of clanky old T55's to the Mbote Presidential Guard in order to give the unit a bit more punch. The MTLB APC's the troops will be transported around in are unarmed, in order to squeeze in four bases per vehicle, so the tanks will be used as much needed fire support. I've also spray undercoated the small arms bases, along with the heavy weapons, so will be able to start on them this evening.

AK47 Presidential Guard [1]

I found this unpainted professional unit in the box of unfinished AK47 bits yesterday and have decided to give them a quick paint up for the game in a couple of weeks time. They were originally based up two years ago, so have been gathering dust since then!

http://jimswargamesworkbench.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/ak47-summer-offensive-21.html

This means that the Bolt Action bits and bobs will go back in the box for the meantime. I will, however, crack on with cleaning up and basing the final units for the In the Heart of Africa tribal villagers, ready for painting once the AK47 Mbote presidential guard are finished.

AK47 Game Plan

I've set up a game of AK47 for a couple of weeks time, with my Dictatorship army up against my old Colonial Settlers army, now commanded by it's new owner, Colin. This will probably be a two-a-side multiplayer game, which are usually good fun and very enjoyable. I'll try to knock together something new for the game, either a unit or a terrain feature of some sort, but time is definately not on my side at the moment!

Return to Darkest Africa

I've un-boxed the figures for the In the Heart of Africa tribal villager army this evening and have had a bit of re-think about the make up of the force. I was originally going to go for units of sixteen for the spearmen, musketeers and archers but instead have decided to scale down to twelve as the smallest unit size.

This means that I have two musketeers, four extra spearmen, eight extra archers but only twelve bodyguard spearmen to clean up and base to complete the army for painting, along with half a dozen casualty figures as morale markers. I have the extra archers on order but the rest are ready for basing up and undercoating.

The basic army without any stratagems or extra bits, will now look like this:

1 x Tribal Chief @ 4 = 4                                              

1 x Witchdoctor @ 25 = 25                                          

1 x Scout @ 50 = 50                                                    

1 x Bodyguard Spearman Unit  (12) @ 6  = 72           

3 x Spearman Units (12) or 2 x Spearman Units (18) @ 4  =144                          

2 x Archer Units (12) @ 4  or 1 x Musketeer Unit (18) @ 4  = 96 / 72                            

Total = 367 / 391 points 

This is pretty small as a force, at least in terms of points if not figures, so I'll be adding 140 points of pitfall traps for ambush scenarios or 140 points (24'') of field fortifications, in the form of a 'boma' for the villager to defend. This will bring the total points up to around 500, which is probably about right for a decent game. I can also add some extra musketeers of a unit of spearmen at a later date if required.

Bolt Action Yanks [32]

The Smer 1/48th scale Piper Cub turned up today and very neat it is too. It's a simple but well detailed kit with some superb decals, so I'm very pleased and looking forward to putting it together. I'm not sure if the invasion stripes were retained until the end of 1944 and into 1945 but I suspect they probably were, in order to avoid any friendly fire incidents. I think this will be a really enjoyable adjunct to the project and will look very cool once I've glued it together and painted it up.

Bolt Action Yanks [31]

I've spent most of the day marking endless exercise books and tests, as I'm back at work tomorrow. I have, however, managed to assemble the odds and sods for the Bolt Action project, including the FOO and his radioman, the anti tank gun and crew and the extra riflemen, NCO and officer. I'm pretty busy this week but hope to get at least some way with these few remaining figures. I have a game lined up for a week on Tuesday, so it would be handy to have at least some of these extra bits done my then.

Return to Darkest Africa Re-visited

I've been catching up on the blogs this morning and, as usual, stopped off to find out what Steve Blease is up to. There's always something worth reading about on his blog, so well worth a visit. Anyway, his latest project has helped me to make up my mind, and I've decided to finish off my generic tribal villagers army for In the Heart of Africa. 

http://jimswargamesworkbench.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/packing-up.html 

I based most of this up over a year ago during my Summer holidays but it's been sitting in a box since then as I've been doing 'other things'. After my relative success with the Halfords camouflage brown spray and Army Painter dip approach on the Bolt Action project, I reckon I can get the tribal warriors painted up even faster, especially as they're wearing next to nothing.

I need to finish basing up a unit of bodyguard spearmen, sort out some casualty markers and scratch build some pitfall traps before the army as a whole is complete. I'd also like to base up and paint the resin round houses and huts that I bought from Grand Manner so that they have something to defend, along with some additional jungle terrain pieces that they can runaway to hide in.

However, the bulk of the army is ready to paint, so I'll be making a trip to Halfords for some more brown spray paint this afternoon. The army was originally intended to represent the Nkonde from the north of what was then Nyasaland but they'll probably be a generic tribal force that I can use as a base for all sorts of different armies, so they'll be pretty flexible and ideal as enemies for arab slavers, expeditions and rival tribes.

Bolt Action Yanks [30]

I know I put a full stop to the Bolt Action late war US project last week but, after reading through this book on the Kindle over the last couple of days, I realized that I really should have a FOO for the reinforced platoon so that I can bring down some artillery fire support. This seems to have been a standard attachment at company and even platoon level during the Battle of the Bulge, so I'm sure I can justify a FOO team for my force.

I have a couple of spare figures that I can base up, with both of them mounted on a single 40mm mdf circle, but I also decided to add a light spotter aircraft as a superfluous extra. I've found a Smer 1/48th scale Piper L4 Grasshopper kit on Ebay, which will do the job nicely even if aerial spotting doesn't actually feature in the rules. It'll look good and being a Smer kit, will stand up to a few wargaming knocks without bits falling off.

On the Radar

We got back home this afternoon after a very enjoyable holiday in the wilds of Northumberland. It's a stunning part of the country and made even more so by the extensive remains of Hadrian's Wall, not to mention some very interesting medieval castles. I'll post more photos tomorrow, once I've downloaded them from the camera but here's a taster, albeit from across the border.