Dwarves, Zulus, and Great War Canadians (of course!)

A few odds and ends I finished up over the last few weeks and didn’t post pictures of because… well.. they didn’t fit in with any of the untis I was hastily trying to finish up.

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version):

These Dwarves I found while rummaging through all the old junk they have at the Sentry Box when I was in Calgary in August. One was in a pack from one manufacturer and three were in a pack from another… I forget which was which… I have no particular need for them, but they all looked fun, though, so I grabbed them.

They’ve been hovering on the edges of the paint desk since I got back and I’ve been working on them a bit here and there over the last month or so. I’m sure I’ll find space for them in one Dragon Rampant unit or another… or join a party of Dwarf Adventurers for A Song of Blades and Heroes…

Zulus.

These ones are all from Black Tree Design.

The Men Who Would Be Kings arrived last week and I’ve been looking at that and wondering how to reorganize my forces to work with the rules. Most of my ‘units’ for larger games have 15 figures in them (for Infantry – Cavalry are generally about 10). In The Men Who Would Be Kings regular and irregular infantry has 12, tribal infantry has 16, cavalry 8. So one would think it would be easy for me to just leave out a couple infantry from existing units and find a spare one to add to the Tribal units… Oh, no… not me. I happened to notice that 15 and 10 for regular infantry and cavalry, respectively, were precisely 25% more than the suggested numbers. For Tribal infantry 25% more would be 20. The whole (admittedly, rather arbitrary) reason I have units organized in 15 is because the drawers I have to store them in 10 guys make one nice neat complete row and 10 seemed to small and 20 seemed to big for units so 3 rows (30 guys) would neatly make two units… but if I added 5 to each unit of Tribal Infantry – that would make a nice even unit of two rows… 16…? That’s just crazy talk – where would the spare guy go…

(this is all starting to sound a little OCD, isn’t it…? I may actually have a problem… a buzzfeed quiz actually told me I was 100% OCD).

Anyway… I actually have four units of 15 unmarried Zulus painted – one would think I could just use those 60 to make THREE units, right? WRONG! Two of those units are from and the other two are from Black Tree Design, and the other two are from Wargames Foundry. One of the units from each manufacturer has all black shields, and the other has black with white spots… You don't just go MIXING manufacturers and shield patterns!? WHAT KIND OF A MONSTER WOULD DO SUCH A THING?!

(This is starting to seem like a cry for help. I may need an intervention here…).

(of course, given the audience I’m reaching with this blog, you’re probably all sitting there thinking “What does he mean by that…?”)

Luckily, it seems (when looking at ALL of the painted AND unpainted figures) I have a total of about 90 unmarried Zulus from Black Tree Design, and another 60 from Wargames Foundry - so I’ll just reorganized them into 3-4 units of 20 from each manufacturer.

Of course this means I have to paint up five for each of the units I already have…

So here are two complete 20-figure units of the Black Tree Design Zulus.

Yeah, those 20-figure units look a bit more menacing…

I'll have six of these, eventually, in a 24-point field force... I actually have enough for figures for about TWELVE such units (plus assorted odd and extra bits - Zulus with looted rifles, etc.) 

In the short term, however, I’ll paint up another 10 to bring the two Wargames Foundry  units I have up to strength and then I’ll just need two more units to complete a 24 point Zulu Impi (Field Force) for  The Men Who Would Be Kings. (actually I have two other units I COULD currently use – they’re all armed with looted rifles, though. I suppose could classify them as Irregular Infantry and downgrade them to “poor shots” - not having much actual training in their use...).

I already have enough stuff painted to field a 24 point Field Force of British – though it would be a rather boring force of three units of regulars and a gun of some sort  - I don’t really have much cavalry or irregulars or natal natives painted up… I think they’ll have to wait until after Vimy… I DO want to try out The Men Who Would Be Kings soon-ish, however, so I will take a little break from khaki and finish up a few Zulus.

And now, so Great War casualties…

This little vignette of a casualty on the stretcher being offered a smoke from the padre is

from Gripping Beast/Woodbine Designs.

This poor fellow is also from Gripping Beast/Woodbine Designs.

This stretcher-bearer party is from Wargames Foundry.

A German sniper (who, perhaps, CAUSED some of the above casualties…) from Great War Miniatures.

Staff for the 5th Canadian Infantry Brigade (from Gripping Beast/Woodbine Designs)

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Zulus…

Great War Canadians (and GERMANS!)…

More Trench Terrain Making…