Notalot Weekend

Well, I was not able to get much painting done this weekend, about an hour or so on the Darkest Africa Askaris and Musketeers. This has put me a bit behind schedule, I was hoping to have them finished by Saturday night at the latest then get a game in on sunday with Mors Junior which would allow me to finish off the Japanese during this week and play a game of  G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T  next weekend or the weekend after. However it was Mors Minors birthday party today so obviously that had to take preference!!
I did manage to watch Kordas 1938 The Drum on telly though this afternoon , its a bit of North West Passage foolishness but I quite enjoyed it  - Pathans, British troops in kahki and Wolseley helmets , loyal Sikhs  and a hero called Carruthers ,got to be good !

I also recorded a series about the American Civil War that was being shown on one of the satellite channels all four episode were braodcast back to back.  Not normally a period I am interested in but I have a hankering to do a couple of small VSF forces in the future.

A thread on TMP got me thinking again about West Africa, ever since I bought the African Knights book from Foundry I have had a small interest, not particularly piqued because I believed no miniature manufactuer did the armoured knights and I certainly am not up to converting them from anything. Much to my surprise I found out that Irregular do them , the figure on the right is light cavalry and on the left the famous quilted heavy cavalry

Here is the Foundry book cover

Castaway Arts down under do a range for the Western Sudan too , appareantly they mix ok with the Irregular miniatures so a small force is now feasible. The city states of the West Sudan were cavalry based , mainly light cavalry in flowng robes but  with some heavy cavalry as above. The composition of the forces varied from state to state but often allied under a dominate state as well, I need to do a lot more research before I start but at least I know that by combining the above two manufacturers and adding in a few mahdist sudanese that may be suitable I can do a force with sufficient variation of figures that I would find acceptable. Interestingly in 2002 Mark Copplestone was going to release a range, pity that never came off!