Taliban Fighters

[Dave C]

A few of us in my club are working towards putting on a modern game with FOF rules. I've got some Taliban to paint and I thought I'd experiement first with these few. The slimmer guys are from Empress and fuller figured ones are Mongrel. I think they were meant for a Russian v Afgan comflict from the 80's but seem to double up ok for the 21st century.

Hope you enjoy the pics and as ever constructive criticism always welcome.

Dave C

[Steve F]

I think they were meant for a Russian v Afgan comflict from the 80's but seem to double up ok for the 21st century.

The AK47 may be 65 this year, but it doesn't look likely to retire.

Nice paint.

[Smillie]

Lovely brush work. The ak is a perfect example of of it ain't broke don't fix it.

[oxiana]

Nice paint jobs.

Small detail in the colour scheme – the shalwar kameez (shirt and pants combination) should always match. They're made, sold and worn as a set. And you won't find many Afghan men wearing red either (except perhaps musicians and dancers) – culturally it's a woman's colour really. Google Taliban and you'll come up with plenty of colour schemes. 

[Brummie]

Very very nice! 

And they can be used pretty much for the Soviet invasion, Civil War and current conflict. The AK47, AKM etc they will be in use for decades and decades to come, perhaps even till the end of this century. A lot of countries still produce them with the original materials (though recently Russia started making them out of some plastic material, not sure what).

Put it this way, across the Third world, including Afghanistan, militias can often be found using bolt action Enfield's, Mausers etc from the Inter-war to WW2 period. Been quite a few insurgent snipers found using vintage bolt action rifles used during the world wars because accuracy/range wise they're still, almost, if not just as good as what we use today!

[CPT Shanks]

Excellent painting but they look more northern alliance/muj than taliban.One problem I see with most sculpts is that the afghans I saw were usually skinny and small, well as a rule they are. The eureka ones are pretty accurate physique wise. Still well painted.

[DoctorPete]

Nicely painted.   

[Dave C]

Small detail in the colour scheme – the shalwar kameez (shirt and pants combination) should always match. They're made, sold and worn as a set. And you won't find many Afghan men wearing red either (except perhaps musicians and dancers) – culturally it's a woman's colour really. Google Taliban and you'll come up with plenty of colour schemes. 

Thanks Oxiana for the advice. I'll not repeat these errors when I paint the rest of them. Despite downloading enough pics from Gogglesphere to have the security services interested in me I didn't realise shirt and trouser combo were always the same. A case of looking but seeing, eh? And also, no one wears red!

Thanks to everyone for their kind words.

Dave C

[Za Zjurman]

Dave,

very nice PJ on those Taliban. Thanx for sharing,

Regards,
Za

[6milPhil]

Looking good, I've all these too. Although they're for ultra-modern I've started looking at 80's Russians as it's a small addition for a new period. The Taliban/Muja are timeless of course.