Reinforcements for 24th and 91st Foot

Finished a few more 28mm Zulu Wars British infantry over the summer - Black Tree Design miniatures - from the 91st Highlanders and 24th Foot (South Wales Borderers).

Highlanders of the 91st Foot

24th Foot

91st Highlanders

Finally got round to finishing the other 8 figures for the 91st Highlanders company having painted up the command figures some time ago.  The figures are Black Tree, painted in acrylics and gloss varnished.

Darkest Africa game

Got the jungle scenery out of its boxes for a game on Monday - a whimsical card-driven exploration and skirmish game: 5 teams of explorers are seeking immortality at the lost Temple of Obi-Thumpi.  They search for artefacts, activate keystones through ancient rituals, and fight off the hostile natives.  Although it was touch and go the Italians were just pipped to first place by the British.

The French explorers in the foreground set off into the jungle towards the lost Temple of Obi-Thumpi in the distance...

Fearsome natives emerge from the Temple...

The Italians, Germans and French explore the Altar (and experience the poison gas trap)...

The final turn - British and Germans (and an Italian) complete the rituals at the top of the Temple.

Azande Warriors

Finally got around to finishing a batch of Foundry Azande Warriors that I've had in the drawer for many months.

Zulu Wars Mission Station Part II

Finished off the other Mission Station building - a storeroom - some dry stone walls (ably made by my 10 year old daughter from air-dry modelling clay and aquarium gravel), and some scratchbuilt barricade sections.

The defenders make ready by the storeroom...

The back of the storeroom

Storeroom on the left, hospital on the right and barricades (sculpted from modelling clay) in front.

Zulu Wars Mission Station

My main Easter project was finishing the first of two 28mm buildings for a colonial skirmish siege game based on the Rorke's Drift experience - in essence replacing my existing scenery with something that looks the part.  In this I was inspired by the building plans at Paul's site here. 

The Hospital building with officer Michael Caine of the 24th Foot...

Loosely based on the hospital building at Rorke's Drift, I've made this one smaller but still big enough to fit figures inside.  The base is a sheet of 80mm plasticard.  Walls are foamcard, with balsa for the veranda supports, cardstock doors and shutters and matchsticks for the window detailing.  The foamcard was sealed with a 50/50 mixture of ready-mixed filler and PVA glue before painting in emulsion and acrylics and gloss varnished.  The roof was also foamcard and cardstock, the thatch once again made from cheap brown towelling, soaked in diluted PVA glue, drybrushed and then gloss-varnished (not so much to make it glossy as to make it rigid).

I plan to make another small storeroom and then turn my hand to sections of barricade and dry stone wall.

Although I added multiple doors, I went for just 4 internal rooms

The floor is plasticard, sealed in PVA/filler, painted and varnished

The building before sealing with glue/filler

I laid robust cardboard formers across the foamcard as the base for the towelling thatch

Zulu huts

With a bit more time over Easter for hobby activities I've turned my hand again to scenery building.  My aim is to build both a Zulu Kraal (fortified village) and a couple of buildings more suitable for Rorke's Drift-type siege games.  Taking inspiration from various 'how to' articles on the web about building African thatched huts, I put these together using cheap brown towelling layered over polystyrene hemispheres (purchased from Hobbycraft) with an entrance modelled from air-drying clay.  Cost per hut was around £3.  These are the first two of six - should have the others finished this week.  The next challenge will be to make the thorn 'boma' (protective palisade).  My two year old daughter is delighted that I'm making hedgehogs.  <sighs>

I've opted for a design that would not be too out of place in other African settings (hence I've left off the distinctive ropework over the thatching).

Seen here for scale with a Copplestone Castings 28mm Ngoni Chieftain and a couple of Black Tree Design Zulu warriors 

Side elevation with more Zulus...

A Zulu Kraal near Umlazi painted by George Angas

The basic polystyrene hemisphere, glued to a cardstock base, textured with filler.  I build the entrance on next with air drying clay, then attach brown towelling soaked in PVA glue for the thatch.  The hut is then painted in acrylics and gloss varnished.