Isandlwana or Bust!

As next year is the 140th anniversary of the Anglo-Zulu War I have rashly decided that George and I (and hopefully Steve and maybe Matt) should try and play some AZW games using The Men Who Would Be Kings at BIG (having had great enjoyment playing Sudan games with them).

So today I thought I better get on with my horde of Zulus and have undercoated four units of 16 married Zulu tribal infantry (first black, then sepia brown over).

I also have done the same to two units of 16 unmarried Zulus as well. In game terms that gives me 24 points.

Over the festive period I want to make up another two units of unmarried Zulus and some rifle armed skirmishers and weather permitting get them to this stage.

Zulu Rising...

"This blog will record my progress painting them up and hopefully playing a few games sooner rather than later..." 

Four years later... :-)

Followers of my day to day blog Bleaseworld will have seen that over the last couple of months I have been playing Osprey's The Men Who Would Be Kings. As George suggested we try the rules at Bristol Independent Gaming, and because he had a lot of unpainted Perry Madhists we are currently battling up and down the Sudan (though just to be awkward my forces are technically North West Frontier though I am trying to raise units that are useable both in the Sudan and on the Frontier).

What has this to do with Zulus you ask? Well, as we are having such fun with the rules, even if I have lost all four battles to date(!), we have been discussing other Colonial conflicts that we have painted and unpainted lead and plastic sitting around for. The French in Dahomey is on the cards as some stuff painted for that (and a bit not) but the one that we were bound to end up discussing doing was, of course, the Zulu War!

As George is having to paint up lots of natives for the Sudan and as I had four years of dust gathering on my largely unpainted Zulu army I said I'd raise the side with the pointy stabby sticks this time.

So, over the weekend I have dug out the boxes of Warlord plastic and spent a few hours sticking them together. As I would still like to use them with Bickley's Washing The Spears rules at some stage I am creating 32 figure units that are then split into two for The Men Who Would Be Kings (16 figures being needed for a Tribal Infantry unit).

Here is the fruit of my endeavours, a 24 point The Men Who Would Be Kings force of six 16 figure units (also three 32 figure regiments for Washing The Spears)...

Now where did I put that can of brown spray paint?