An Indo-Persian hypothetical

[Firescale Whack]

Myself and a good friend of mine have with the current trend of Colonial mania been sucked into TMWWBK. The only problem being is our two chosen forces are not historical opponents, mine being Indian mutineers and the other being 19th Century Persians! We have therefore decided to play a series of linked games anywho as both forces are both so much fun to paint and not too far apart in terms of time and also geography. We will both try to update this log with game pics aswell as pictures of our forces as our collections expand, the first two games are below (excuse the poor quality photo's).

The Persians are coming to disturb the peace!



The Indians counter-attacking

[Christian]

Great idea! Just get stuck into it, I think This meant to be about having fun after all... and it looks like you got that part right!

[Andrei1975]

Great idea. Bravo.

[Romark]

Yep,nice idea,keep it up 

[Sunjester]

Excellent. I'm a great fan of What-ifs, Might-haves and Couldn't-happen-but-who-cares when it comes to the colonial period!

[Firescale Whack]

Thanks for for your feedback guys, I'm glad we all have the same idea about wargaming. I mean it really shouldn't be taken too seriously after all! 

Just finished this lot to help give more flavour to our battles or perhaps one day serve as participants in a smaller scale game that could also affect the campaign.


Figures are a mix of Eureka, Pulp and the two porters are Foundry. Not too sure about the darker skin tone however, I might go back to something lighter on the next
batch.

[winder]

Loving the civilians man!

Here are the Persians Firescale was talking about, all the figures are Westfalia. My plan is to bring the units up to 12 men each when the Aussie dollar gets stronger/Westfalia has a sale. we have been playing with 8ish man units so far.

In TMWWBK you roll for random leader traits which adds a lot to the game

The Afghan irregular infantry, the leader has the trait "Yellow-bellied" so they are not very keen to get stuck in
 

Some Sarbaz infantry (I have split it into 2 units in game) One of the leaders is a bumbling idiot!


Sarbaz infantry in a different uniform, still need to finish another 10 guys like this. The leader of this unit is a "keen shot" which is nice!


The artillery, the leader of this unit is a 'brilliant leader' (or something to that effect), a little wasted on a unit that will probably sit on the base line all game, but perhaps he is a young Persian Bonaparte in the making? (or perhaps Nadir Shah is a more fitting reference)


Apologies for the (very) average photos I will try and take some better ones when I get the camera out next

[Mad Guru]

Wow, those Persians are fantastic!  You guys should of course play whatever games pitting whichever forces against one another as you see fit and makes you happy... but I confess I would love to see one of you raise c.1855-1859 Brits who could face off against either your Mutineers or -- more spectacularly IMHO -- those amazing Persians!  Not sure if either of you have read Barbara English's, "John Company's Last War," but I certainly recommend it!  Again, I say this with the utmost respect, and in no way trying to rain on your Indian Mutineers-vs-Persians gaming, which I shall follow with keen interest!

[Firescale Whack]

Thanks Mad Guru, I will check that book out! I do acutally have some Iron Duke Brits that I was intending to paint up when I have finished with the Mutineers that could act as opponents for both, so you read my mind! 

[winder]

Thanks Guru! I'm happy with how the Persians came out, the figures are lovely and they have interesting uniforms too which helps keep the painting fun.

I have to admit I haven't read a lot about the period yet, I've been reading some of Kiplings short stories but that's about it. It's a shame the British fought the Persians so early as fire scale already has a nice British colonial army, just it's for 1870!

[winder]

Well until now 90% or more of the terrain has been supplied by Firescale. After being inspired by Silent Invader's work, in particular the watchtower he scratchbuilt, I am trying to ape his efforts and create my own tower for our games. I thought that a square shape would be a little easier than a round one so I started with a chocolate box stuck on some broken cork tiles



I managed to cover it in "bricks", I made mine out of modelling clay but in every other respect I copied the instruction on SI's blog. Unfortunately i think i cut them much too large and irregularly. Also, halfway through i ran out of bricks and had to make more, but when i went to buy clay for the second batch the store only had childrens modelling clay, which is a different colour and much less resilient than the proper artists stuff. I was a bit worried because it crumbles quite easily but here is the stones all stuck down



To add strength and also cover up the patchy brickwork/glaring holes I then took some gap filler and slopped it over the building as thinly as possible, here it is in its current state:



The next step will be to sand back the gap filler to be smooth i think, then putting torn up cork/sand on the base and detailing the door

To be honest I learned quite a lot on this build, (i only left 1 window, should be more careful with cutting brick sizes, use better modelling clay etc) so even though it is not all that accurate or even good I will be happy to use it and can hopefully make an improved version somewhere down the track.

[Firescale Whack]

Mate! That is really impressive, do you even need to sand back the gap filler? You are right, you learn so much when you scratch build things from scratch, maybe you will make an entire fortress next! 

[Silent Invader]

That's looking great  

Rather than sanding and risk losing some of the detail, you might want to gently scrape it with the back of a blade or with a metal ruler, just to break off any odd little lumps of excess filler. I sanded minebecause it's round, so I wanted to 'round' the blocks.

Btw, MadGuru is the man who knows but I suspect that square towers were actually more usual.  

[Mad Guru]

Thanks, SI, but despite my long-time interest I am no expert on Afghan and/or North-West Frontier architecture!

Still, my half-educated opinion is that you are correct, and "square" towers were far more common than "round" on both sides of the Afghan frontier.

Here's a couple of photos... I believe this first was taken inside the borders of Afghanistan in the 1950s, but the tower dates to the early 20th Century, if not earlier --



The second is from Waziristan, not sure when it was built but the photo is much more recent:



You guys have reminded me that I'm actually in the midst of building a similar frontier tower, have been at it for a while now, had to take a break over the Holidays but hope to finish it by the end of this month, if I'm lucky.  When I do I'll definitely put up a post about it here.

BTW, very nice work on your tower, Winder!  I look forward to seeing more pics as it nears completion!

EDIT: Here's one last, much earlier, image, which I believe dates from the First Afghan War (1839-42), showing an Afghan village in the Khyber Pass, complete with a square tower:

[winder]

Thanks for the advice both of you! I love the idea of the metal ruler silent, I think that will be a much safer option than the sand paper. Tganks for putting up the blog/posts on here, it gives a lot of knowledge to those of us just starting at terrain building.

And tganks for those pictures MG! I was trying to find some before building and really struggled. That lower picture is a definite 'one day'projrct, it looks beautiful. I understand now how people can fall down the terrain building hole!