16th C. Darkest Africa

[Kingscarbine]

Gentlemen,

I'm working on a new project and need some help with East Africa. Does anyone have and idea of what 16th C. Swahilis looked like? I want to build a small army for coastal towns like Mombasa, Malindi or Zanzibar but can't find much iconographic information apart from this: http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/id?814675

I have some written descriptions of local tribes but not many details. Young Segeju warriors, for example, are described as having clay covered hair like a helmet until they killed a man in battle; The Zimbas are described has having shields made of light wood and animal skins; most only use the assegai, bows and arrows and small swords with no defensive weapons. I'm trying to find similar tribes on 17th-19th centuries iconography to have an idea of what figures to use.

Cheers

[Kingscarbine]

Hi,

I'm adapting DiTDC rules for the 16th-17th centuries and need some advice on
firearms ranges.

In the rules bows, throwing spears, crossbows, etc have a range of 3", muskets
have a range of 4" and Elephant guns a max. range of 8". I suspect arquebuses
and bad 18th-19th c. muskets had an equivalent range and an Elephant gun can be
compared to a 16th-17th c. musket. Would you keep or reduce ranges for
this period?

Cheers

[fastolfrus]

I'm not familiar with the rules, but would suspect that bows and crossbows could have slightly longer ranges, I would certainly expect them to have longer range than spears.

[Lowtardog]

Hi,

I'm adapting DiTDC rules for the 16th-17th centuries and need some advice on
firearms ranges.

In the rules bows, throwing spears, crossbows, etc have a range of 3", muskets
have a range of 4" and Elephant guns a max. range of 8". I suspect arquebuses
and bad 18th-19th c. muskets had an equivalent range and an Elephant gun can be
compared to a 16th-17th c. musket. Would you keep or reduce ranges for
this period?

Is this for 15mm as the ranges for Bow and Musket seems rather low at 28mm

Cheers

[Kingscarbine]

I'm having a bit of a problem working with DiTDC as they aren't my first choice. The rules are for 28mm figures and the measurements are supposed to simplify the effective ranges of weapons but don't give much space for tweaking. The xbows in the rules are the small African hunting types and not the European military hardware so I guess their range is for close combat. If European xbows have a 4" range then arquebuses should have 5" or so.

[Lowtardog]

I'm having a bit of a problem working with DiTDC as they aren't my first choice. The rules are for 28mm figures and the measurements are supposed to simplify the effective ranges of weapons but don't give much space for tweaking. The xbows in the rules are the small African hunting types and not the European military hardware so I guess their range is for close combat. If European xbows have a 4" range then arquebuses should have 5" or so.

I would check whether arquebus have the same range of xbow or not from rules (rather than history) I would suspect the same or less especially if you start to throw in the effectiveness and quality of powder etc.