isAngqu

 The fourth (and for the time being final) Zulu regiment of my current The Men Who Would Be Kings project (giving me 128 warriors in total) is a second married regiment, the isAngqu (the White Tails).

Again a mix of Perry and Warlord plastics, the isAngqu having white shields with some red spots.

Next up should be a couple of supporting groups of Zulus armed with firearms. Whilst some figures in the main regiments have firearms I have a handful of points left to get me up to the planned 36 points so some Irregular Infantry with poor muskets will use them up.

After that I need to crack on with the Imperial forces...

inDlondlo

 Having painted two unmarried Zulu regiments for The Men Who Would Be Kings, next up were a married regiment (with their distinctive head bands), the inDlondlo - the Black Mambas!

Whereas (most of) the unmarried troops had predominately black shields, the married guys had more white cow skin ones, the inDlondlo shields being a pleasing red and white design.

I am pleased with the look of the figures on the Warbases sabots which, even for big games with Washing The Spears or Black Powder, avoid the straight lines of regular bases which always looks a bit odd for "natives", "barbarians" and the like...

uNokhenke

My next Zulu War regiment for The Men Who Would Be Kings is another unmarried unit the uNokhenke (which may mean Trotters or Skirmishers). They have plain black shields...

Again I have gone with a 32 man regiment which splits into two units for TMWWBK...

Although not historically accurate I have added some of the more ceremonial uniform items to one figure from each regiment to identify them as the leader.

Next up some married regiments.

umCijo

It has been some time since my base coated Zulus have seen daylight (almost three years) since we refought Isandhlwana and Rorke's Drift using The Men Who Would Be Kings but with Ellen at Bristol Independent Gaming asking for some regulars to become 'BIG Champions', promoting rules and/or periods for local gamers looking to try something new I thought that getting some of my Zulu War plastic mountain finished would be a good idea.

As stated back in 2019 my idea is to create some 32 figure Zulu regiments that can be used for larger game rules like Black Powder or The Washing of the Spears, and split into two groups for TMWWBK. Over the last couple of weeks I've been beavering away so expect a tranche of Zulu posts over the next few days!

First up are the umCijo, The Sharp Point, an unmarried regiment with black shields with some white dots. The figures are a mixture of Perry and Warlord. If I was starting from scratch I would only buy Perry Zulus but with 'Plastic Mountain' having over a hundred Warlord ones (curse you eBay habit of yore) I found they mixed ok.

Panting wise you may be surprised that I did not 'dip' the figures. These were undercoated with a dark Sepia Brown spray, drybrushed Flat Brown and then with loin cloths, spears etc painted, washed with Agrax. The white money tails were then based painted white and then white Contrast painted on which gives a nice shading and (IMHO) looks better than drybrushing white over black.

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?

iNdluyengwe

Being a wargaming butterfly I sometimes lose track of projects and sadly my Anglo-Zulu War has been one of these. However thirteen months on(!) I have finished my second Zulu regiment - the iNdluyengwe!

The iNdluyengwe were raised in 1866 and fought at Isandlwana (22nd January 1879), Rorke's Drift (22nd-23rd January), Kambala (29th March), Gingidlovo (2nd April) and Ulundi (4th July).

As with the uMbonambi, the miniatures are all Warlord Games plastics which come with a white metal inDuna (from Empress Miniatures).

The models are painted using an Army Painter brown basecoat spray, some added details then painted over with Army Painter Strong Tone dip.

The thirty figure regiment has been based for use with the Washing the Spears rules.

uMbonambi

I managed to complete my first regiment of unmarried Zulus yesterday, the uMbonambi.

The miniatures are all Warlord Games plastics which come with a white metal inDuna (from Empress Miniatures). Some of the details on the miniatures are of doubtful historic accuracy (such as the leather bands on the upper arms) but they are well detailed, go together well, look good en masse and (a good point with Zulus) are excellent value for money!

I painted them up using an Army Painter brown basecoat spray, added some details then painted over with Army Painter Strong Tone dip. Unfortunately my tin had gone a bit gammy and the end effect is not as good as normal.

The models have been based up with the Bickley Washing The Spears rules in mind on 80x40mm bases, although one I split into two 40x40mm elements for flexibility.

The uMbonambi (also known as the iNkonyanebomvo) were formed in 1863 and were on of the main regiments of the war being involved at at Isandlwana (22nd January 1879), Kambala (29th March 1879), Gingindlovo (2nd April 1879) and Ulundi (4th July 1879).

Organising the Zulus...

I've decided to start proceedings that I will try David Bickley's Washing The Spears rules as they seem appropriately old school but also contain mechanisms for the Zulus to be run by reaction tables with the player(s) commanding the Imperial troops. Accordingly all miniatures will be based in elements rather than individually.

For the Zulus I have decided to base the majority on 80x40mm bases with probably two elements per regiment on 40x40's. Having played around with the base sizes and some unpainted miniatures, five per 80x40 base seems the ideal, although I anticipate there may be some flexibility in odd instances.

So having purchased 144 married Zulus and 144 unmarried ones, this gives 4.8 regiments of each! A quick bit of maths showed that I could actually raise eight 30 figure regiments and two 24 figure regiments so I am going to work along those lines to start with...

Next I've done some research as to what Zulu regiments fought where during the Anglo-Zulu War. As I am not particularly interested in re-fighting the two big battles (Isandlwana and Rorke's Drift) wanting a more generic approach inspired by some of the smaller actions I have decided to raise the following:

Married: IsAngqu (30). uThulwana (30), iMbube (30), inDlondlo (30) and uDhloko (24)

Unmarried: uMbonambi (30), uNokhenke (30), iNdluyengwe (30), umCijo (30) and InGobamakhosi (24).

Arguably some regiments should be larger and some smaller, but I am trying to be practical from a tabletop point of view, with a thirty figure regiment having a 48cm width when in line.

Zulus charging (The Graphic, 2nd August 1879)