Too Much Lead

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Oh hey there, did you miss me? No.... Cool.

If you don't visit Instagram, here's some of what I have been up to.  The intention was to keep the blog for things that require a bit more depth, but to be honest, I never sit down and write those things up at the minute anyway!

So here's the round up of Historical/quasi-historical miniatures from the last few months:

Two more 15mm Bavarian Battalions; IIRC 3rd & 4th fusiliers

Col. Adam Muir of the 41st; Upper Canada 1812

Imagi-Nations Gebrovian Regiment.  15mm Warrior Miniatures

US infantry platoon.  Italy 1943-44.  mixed 20mm.

The Stuart is a rescue of one of a pair I've owned since childhood!

Stug III G.  PSC kit in 1/72 with full treatment of techniques!

However, I am intent on starting a new front for WW2 in 2022, and going down a different early war route.  In a somewhat related regard, I produced a little diorama for an online painting challenge; which gives a clear indication what I have in mind:

Figures are proving a little hard to source, but things are progressing.  This aside I have a couple of historical ideas to start in 2022, and no end of projects to try and finish!

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I knocked out some additional forces for my WW2 Germans, after an actual game, in which it became apparent they were actually too well provisioned with anti-tank support, and needed something on roll that was weaker!  I also took the excuse to get a Horsch Car kit from PSC and have a play around with it.

Pak 36

MG42 and cobbled together crew

I think these are some of the last Valiant German Infantry in the old moulds that I have.  The new in scale models are probably better but their price-point isn't.  The Pak is one of the Zvezda Art of Tactic pieces, and although more early-mid war, its a nice crisp piece, that will sit well with my 2nd line infantry regiment.  Lastly the Car features my now standard weathering approaches, using oils, pigment powders and wet effects.

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 Just a quick post to show off this model.  Mainly so I can get the picture out into the accessible world and to spur me to give more details in due course!

Safe to say this is a substantial scratchbuild/conversion!

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Steady progress on the Malian project has been made, and I can now add two cavalry units to the roster, the first being one of the centerpieces for the army; Horon Cavalry:

The standard is the Banner of the Mali Empire as taken on Hajj by Emperor Mansa Musa in 1324.

It seems some form of Bamboo was used for lances, and it provides a nice look, so...

The padded armor and other parts are green-stuff applied directly to the largely terrible base models.  More on those below.  Hide Shields were made over plasticard formers with green-stuff, there are illustrations of shields this shape, which appear to be carried behind the rider on the saddle when not in use, suggesting a reason for the unique shape.

As alluded to, these are heavily converted.  I started with a set of the Gripping Beast Goth Heavy Cavalry, and I can't say I was a fan, apart from limited build options out the box, the detail was poor and the fit, terrible.  I wasn't sorry that I was going to cover 3/4 of each model up, I'd have needed to do a load of filling and trimming anyway.  That aside, I think I spent about 8 or 9 hours just on the kitbash elements:
Rather easier, and despite their simplicity much nicer basic models, were a second unit of Hat Industrie Almoravid Cavalry, painted as allied Taureg horse from Timbuktu.

There's only one small conversion here, but compared to the GB models, these still have more horse poses and don't require any filling either!

Kitbashing

WIP

As should be evident, this is on its way to being a general for the force, Nobility appear traditionally to use Palanquins extensively in Africa, and illustrations of the Mande and the Empire often feature them.  This will represent a Ton Tigi, or 'Quiver Master', essentially a Malian General.  There's a long way to go on this yet, converting the foot figures into an Iman and a tribal musician respectively, adding a lot more to the already converted seated leader - an Outpost Wargames Services Inca!  With a head swap so far - and adding a bunch of opulence to his 'carriage'.  But that's all for another day... 

So far, so good..

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I know I seldom post nowadays,  but I'm not Idle.  The Malian project has seen some attention with the first two units now being finished:

Mandinke Bowmen

Fulani Javelinmen

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Progress on the Malians' has yet to reach the paint stage, but I did finish a fairly heavy conversion of another twelve miniatures:

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Is not that easy.  Of course, if you want material on Western military history; or to a slightly lesser extent Arabic derived Muslim armies?  No problem.  Step south of the Sahara, and the material relating to before the colonial period is rather limited.

First off there are few good books on the subject, partly as there are few if any written histories or contemporary accounts out there.  It is possible there is more in French, but at this early stage in my project I've not been able to track that level of material down.  I've grabbed a couple of the limited English language material available; W.E Conton's West Africa in History Vol.1 and John Parker's African History: a Very Short Introduction; but beyond those there seems to be a split between material for the very casual reader and heavy academic volumes little concerned with military history.

At this point you have to give a nod to Wikipedia, who thanks to the enthusiasm of amateurs, and the inclusion of chunks of knowledge from other languages, can off a decent primer on many subjects.  It's generally reasonable material, as long as you check your sources!

No surprise, there are no ranges already available for the period and region, my intent now being to produce an army for the Manden Kurufaba, or Mali Empire, I have no obvious shortcuts to a fair amount of conversion work.  I did discover an article on the Mali Empire in Wargames Illustrated, issue 375, but the writer had done scarcely more research than I've managed in the past two weeks, and the mandatory pictures of figures were simply of Muslim warriors with vague 'I guess these would do with a different paint' statements attached.  Harrumph.

However, There are lots of models for 'Darkest Africa'  And some of these will work as a basis for some of the forces; also undeniably some Arab styled models will work as a good starting point, for cavalry especially.  However few if any of the plastic figures out there appear to meet my needs...

Image research was my next stage, to see what inspired, get some history together, and to work out how I could use the models out there. I'd direct the interested parties to my Pinterest board of West African Images:

I'm a big fan of Pinterest; it often beats Google for a general image search, as plenty of people are likely to already have curated what you are after, making is quicker to get a decent response.  And once you set up your own account, you can easily pin images straight from another site or search to you Pinterest board, from where you can always refer back to it.

I've managed to gather 40 or so images, and accompanying notes to give me some ideas, and from these, I've moved to my next stage in any project that 'breaks new ground'  Doing some of my own illustrations to get a feel for what I want to end up with:

Native Bowmen make up a large portion of the army

Heavy cavalry were some 10% of the army

Mali is an excellent basis for my purposes.  One of the Wealthiest Empires in History, having vast gold reserves; formally Muslim but with distinct African appearance and traits, and with many 'Pagan' troops fielded from the southern tribes and nations.  The Empire lasted some four centuries, conquering vast swathes of Sub-Saharan Africa, and having a semi-professional field army of around 100,000 men.  Plenty to get to grips with.  But as stated the source material for design is limited; hence the need for the working sketches above.  The Bowmen is easy, and as a basis for these I've opted to start with Foundry Africans:

DA084

These will need some added detail, but being pretty clean of anything that doesn't work, they are and Ideal start.

The cavalry and Spearmen are a mix of Tuareg and African influences, and so will be more of a challenge  No one range seems to be a perfect match - not least as the region only tends to get covered once the French Foreign Legion is involved - but I think the real fun will come from making something unique, so I'm okay with that.

Then there is the opportunity to add real oddball units like Knights in Full Padded Armour and masked forest tribesmen with poisoned javelins.  Even potentially a leader on a Litter. 

Aside from pushing some representation into my collection, and learning a lot of new, fascinating history, these are the sort of elements that get me excited for a project like this.

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