First DA Battle

As usual I did not achieve what I wanted to during the week ,I am just too tired to get the enthusiasm up to paint when I get home from work. Both orders of Abyssinians are here now and I have based them today , hopefully will start painting them soon but I need to do a few things to my Japanese VSF force first , this will take priority for the next couple of weeks.
This afternoon I finished the 3 white men each for my FP and for the Karl Peters expedition -

Karl Peters

German Officer?

FP

Belgian Sergeant

This afternoon I had a quick game of HoDA with Mors Junior using my lightweight movable board , I controlled the German force and Mors Jun the FP, Mors Minor was involved with a randomly moving lion and helping with the dice throws!

We only had the time for three turns  and simplified the rules as it was our first time although the rules are fairly simple anyway.Here is the table with all my figures that are  painted on it.

There are too many figures for for our first game and the size of the board (4'x4') , so we cut them down to

this-

The FP consisted of two 9 man soldier units , 2 white man units , standard bearer , scout and c-in-c.

The german expedition was a 9 man soldier unit , a 10 man heavily armed askari unit , 15 man musketeer unit, 2 white man units  , standard bearer scout and c-in-c. Roughly about 640 points each, as HoDA has a reccomendation of 720 points as a max it was a bit ambitious, especially starting the game at about 7pm on a sunday night!The soldier units are very very expensive points wise.

Here is a picture of Mors Minors lion getting his din din during turn 2-

Thats it for now, hopefully more to report next week!!

A good couple of months.

I am pretty pleased with myself, with the exception of three German explorers and three Belgian officers which are only half done, I have managed to complete the Darkest Africa figures that I wanted to finish by the end of this month. Thats 39 figures finished off which I had started painting a year or more back , mainly the bases needed completing , and 81 figures finished from scratch since the begining of December. I know a lot people paint far quicker but by my standards its positively lightening , the Christmas break and a few snow days certainly helped.

Some Foundry tribal musketeers , the images have come out quite shiny due to the flash.... I hope.

Close up of  the musketeers.

The other group.

These tribal musketeers will probably be some of the most useful miniatures I have got. They appear in the majority of the army lists for Chris Peers Heart of Darkest Africa , henceforth on this blog to be known HoDA.

Bearers , 14 Foundry and 4 Dixon Dahomey range. These were painted some time ago.

DOAG askaris by Copplestone Castings being attacked by a Foundry Lion , also painted some time ago. I will use these 10 askaris as the basis for my Carl Peters expedition.

A group of Askaris including a lone FP who missed the previous photo shoot.

A few more askaris and gun bearers,  all by Foundry. The guy in the middle is my favourite miniature I have painted for Africa so far.

So there we have it, if I can get the 6 white guys done next week I have now got enough for a game , in fact more than enough to play HoDA , the Belgians in particular are very expensive points wise.

I will probably have a break from painting Africa miniatures for a bit, once I have got the 6 mentioned above done. I have 80 odd Azande , about 60 Masai the Dixon Dahomey range and a few bits and pieces including animals in a unpainted state , but I will be going back to VSF for a short while.

Force Publique Based

After much less time painting yesterday than I had hoped for I had a good day today , managed to finish the FP native forces bases and get them varnished and got quite a lot done on various other Darkest Africa miniatures , including a couple of coats on all the bases which I always find a bit of a drag! I have taken some photos but they are not brilliant, I cannot seem to get the settings right on my camera when taking pictures indoors.

Group picture

Musicians , standard bearer and scout.

First unit

Second (straw hat) unit

Third unit

So now I have to get some officers finished off. I have three very close to being finished and as this is the maximum you are allowed in the Heart of Darkest Africa rules I will probably leave the others in an undercoated state until I feel the urge to finish them....sometime in 2012 I expect.

I recieved an order from Foundry this week of Azande which will be the normal opposition for  the FP (and sometimes allies) , although historically you can use the FP against Zanzibaris , Pygmies,other tribes of the Congo including jungle cannibals and even late  Mahdists. As the Congo Free State  bordered territories of Britain France and Germany there are plentiful 'what if' scenarios also available. At a pinch they could also be used as early WW1 up against the Germans in East Africa.

Force Publique

Although I have not posted anything recently , I have been quite active on the miniatures front. Early December was taken up with tidying my games room.....still not finished. I started painting my Force Publique in mid December , here is a pic of them all finished bar the bases. I currently have about 30 tribal musketeers and some Belgian officers at various levels of paintng. Hope to post some more pics next week.