Russian Company finished

 

They've been sitting since my Admins distraction - 20 minutes work and they're done!

 

Still got some Jacklex Arabs to paint, then it's wait for the Chinese to come out!

Jacklex Chinese

 Been sitting on this for a couple of days as it was embargoed until today...

'Rob,

Here is the full range of the Jacklex Chinese Army. I thought you might like to see them. I hope to have these on the site in a couple of weeks. The new Japanese and Russians will take a little longer.'

Regular infantry

Irregular infantry

Cavalry

Artillery (mine will, of course, use completely wrong Rose guns!)

Needless to say, I've got an initial order on pre order...

1 1x general

2 1x Chinese cavalry

4 20 x regular infantry advancing

7  4 x officers with sword

8  1 x drummer

9  23 x advancing militia

11 12 x peasant

12 12 x peasant

13  2 x gunners

14  2 x gunners

15  2 x gunners

16  1 x flag and pole.

Jacklex again. This time Arabs.

Firstly, function. Although these are from the 'Fuzzy Wuzzy' part of the Arab world, I'm looking for generic Arabs. Actually, I would have preferred long flowing robes, but these will do. Likewise, they are wearing a turban rather than the desert Arab Gutrah . Yes, I did have to look up the name!

I suppose a lot of the time I would use these as separate Warband and firearms groups, Wearing the same headress seems to be the norm for different groups/nationalities so I decided all mine would wear red turbans. I very much doubt there is a real red turban tribe out there but you never know! As I'm not bothered about total accuracy I'll be getting some North West Frontier as a bit of variety. Plus I need a couple of distinct chieftains and standard bearers.

The rifle component will possibly be used as a separate 'unit' but that's not a given. I'm not sure how many I will need on single bases - possibly another 20-40 total infantry and ?? cavalry and camels? Or restrict this to very minor skirmishes and use element based for bigger battles. Plenty of combat opportunites against the British or French.

 

For rules I'll give the 'Magdala to Mafeking' rules by Andy Callan a try as they are on the Jacklex website! These don't have rules for attacking an actual fort - I'll probaby do something like roll a die th see if a particular figure is carrying a grappling iron (or ladder!) then roll again to see if it works, then he has to climb the thing and engage in melee at the top. I'll make something up!

Jacklex Naval Brigade

 

Not so much a Brigade, more a Detachment,

Probably all I'll do on single bases, thoughmight do a 24 strong batallion for DBX.

I've given the Gardner gun brass barrels to give a bit of relief from the assembly being all black.

At some stage I'll have to decide what to do about ship borne machine guns - what to make, what to buy!

Jacklex sailors

Having lots of ships I need lots of sailors. Didn't have many 20mm sailors so bought two lots from Jacklex.

They wear Sennit hats so not as realistic they could be... but I'm not going to worry about that.

Two 'mistakes' I've made - probably shouldn't have painted the bases grey and should have just left them with their original bases instead of putting them on new bases.

The second batch have been undercoated ready for painting. This should give me enough figures for the 20mm 'at sea' contingent.

 My view of the figures? Like them - totally compatible with Rose 20mm and look good.

French battalion finished

Should be enough of the single based French line colonial infantry for pulp uses.

Figures are a mix of Rose infantry with Jacklex officer and standard bearer. Flag just a basic paper tricolour from the internet - download flag, copy, reverse copy, put them together so that I finish up with both sides. Again, nothing fancy on this lot, just basic wargames standard. Future figures will be for the element based army.

 

Rose not Zulu War

 And Jacklex officers!

It's pretty much experiment/play time again. Or still experiment/play time. This time I'm looking at how to fit the Rose 20mm Zulu Wars range into the alternate pulp world with an extended/totally anachronistic timeline - you know, a world where 1879 fit quite nicely with 1930?

I've already made a start looking at Rose figures for pulp actions...

Now I'm trying some painted as more-or-less Zulu War but with black painted helmets. Question was, do they stand up as Home Service helmets in that scale. Plus query do I use Prussian Blue or Dark Prussian Blue for trousers? And why did I do 10 figure sections instead of 16? OK, 16 takes longer...

I did facings in 3 different colours. Reason? Can then call them as different regiments if I treat a 10 figure unit as a battalion. Of course, I didn't think that if I made them 16 figure units then it would fit in with a 4 element DBX unit! On the other hand,use them as 8 figure sections, then 3 sections would fit for a 24 figure/6 element battalion.

So units are 1 officer (Jacklex, no need to do head swaps!), 8 riflemen and loading figure as an NCO. Can't claim credit for that basic idea - pinched it (thanks Charles - and yours are painted a lot better than mine!)

So the idea is to see if  these figures will do as alternate universe/pulp marines or infantry for a number of nations, including French and Germans. Key words are 'will do'. The pith helmet is not really a good home services help except at a distance and with poor eyesight - but 'will do'. Alternat universe, alternate design. Hopefully, I can also 'integrate' them (with support from Jacklex figures) into my 1897 universe as well!

'Colour' is another issue. Every picture I look at has a different colour blue for British and French infantry! Some are very dark, almost black like French Napoleonic tunics. Others are more of a mid blue. OK, 20mm different to real life, the French especially were trying out different uniforms at that time anyway. I've never really been happy with British trouser colours - again, feel I should do them darker rather than lighter! So eventually I'll go with what I think looks better!