Boers and Mounted Rifles

Quick update.

At present I am entirely unable to upload pictures to the blog, no idea why, probably user error, so until I do I have a last couple of painting updates then that's it until I an organised. Hopefully sorted soon.

So I managed to get a few more figures painted but have also been playing around with figures to try and organise Imperial Yeomanry

I decided that the lovely Great War British Cavalry would be a good fit for Imperial Yeomanry with a head swap. Closer inspection showed this might not be entirely as simple as hoped.

I realised I would need to replace the right arm with either an empty hand or a hand with a Lee Enfield. 

But then also the pack on the left hip is from the WW1 webbing and very different to the old fashioned knapsack they were carrying. Its pretty chunky too.

Invested in a mini mill, basicaly a sander, grinder for minis.

The original trooper at top and altered trooper at bottome with bush hat and rifle.

Here trooper with knapsack sanded down.

Here original with WW1 webbing pack. A shame but needs must I think.

I then cracked on with some more Boers, this time integrating some different colour palettes to add variety.

Despite my concerns the Old Glory Boer rider on a  Foundry horse looks very nice and will mix in. 

I have used a Grey blue palette for these 4 which I like a lot. All Empress. 

This chestnut red-brown also works well in moderation, again all Empress.

Lastly some Olive green mixed and grey brown trousers. Again I like the effect on these Empress figures.

Hoping to get some of the new 1st Corps figures finished next.

Watch this space, thanks for stopping by.

Boer War Mania

Well I have got a bit excited and started buying all sorts of stuff.

The haul includes 1st Corps, Great War, Artizan and a 3d printed 37mm pom pom.

The 1st Corps Boer pack is lovely, lots of character all skirmishing as you would expect. I am imagining my Boers in small units of 6 and maybe having 6 - 10 of these all with mounted options and all with horse holder units.

I have purposely gone for the 1st Corps British advancing with bayonets, 3 different packs which match this and with the command figures give me 2 x 8 man units. Lovely figures these are my favourites of the British options so far.

My British and Commonwealth will probably be 2 x 8 man platoons to a company with leader figures. I am thinking one Generic British, one Highlander in kilts and one in bush hats with mounted infantry in support.

A comparison of ranges shows these will all fit really well together, left to right:

Perry, 1st Corp, Perry, Empress, First Corps, Artizan. I am quite comfortable mixing these in units. The Boers in particular I wanted a lot of variety.

I planned to use Early WW1 British Cavalry as Mounted Infantry by giving them head swaps for Bush hats. They have the right bandoliers rather than webbing.

My concern is the pack on the left hip, this is a definite WW1 webbing item and wont be coming off easily, can I live with that?

A little blurry sorry but this 1st Corps Boer is interesting, he has a broom handle Mauser Pistol but with the shoulder butt on. I have seen photos of this being used in this way in the Boer war so a nice characterful addition.

Last lot of metal figures, these are from Footsore. They have an inter war range with some useful figures.

One pack of IRA, men in civilian gear with modern rifles (Mausers of Lee Enfield's) and bandoliers. A very British Civil War pack of Brigands in civilian gear with Lee Enfield's and Bandoliers, these will all need head swaps but are again very nice, then 2 packs of Black and Tans for Ireland, very basic British uniforms and gear, with leather bandoliers rather than webbing make them ideal to convert to British dismounted Yeomanry or similar. Perfect size wise as they will of course match the Empress Boers also sculpted by the talented Mr Hicks.

This now pretty much covers the dismounted Boers I want but will need a whole bunch of mounted ones once they are available, I will want to add British Mounted infantry, Yeomanry/Commonwealth troops in bush hats and Highlanders but will probably wait for 1st Corps to release these rather than mess around with more conversions.

The Maxim 37mm Pom Pom looks very nice, I will hang on until the Boer gunners are released before painting it, I have seen an image of these.

The colourised photo gives a nice idea of this weapon.

Then the Osprey and two sprues of plastics, the 1880's Perrys British, the uniform is perfect but the weapon is the Martini Henry and they need Lee Enfield's so I got a WW1 British sprue. This has spare weapons for me to swop over and I can add the sun helmets to WW1 figures and mix these in with my WW1 Brits for Palestine and India if there are enough weapons. Well thats the plan.

I think the only film I have seen of the Boer war is "Breaker Morant" this book is a biography written by one of his co-charged which may be interesting and add some detail to the project.

I also picked up these dead mans hand wild west horses, hopefully perfect for the Boers, just frustrated they dont come with bases making them  much hard to handle when painting which is a shame.

Thats probably it for now. Plenty to keep me busy I reckon.

Not Another One! New Boer War Project

I know, I know, I have zero self control.

I have fancied a large skirmish game with Boers for some time, the Foundry figures are still nice but the range has become limited and is much smaller than most other stuff you can get. So when 1st Corps announced release of their range I got all excited and bought  a bunch of stuff to use and also to convert for The Second Anglo-Boer War. 

A quick stock take gave me 4 books and a 1920's school boy atlas. 9 Foundry Boer rider without horses, mainly the same figure and a couple of Old Glory mounted Boers. I also found a whole bunch of spare heads, Bush hats and bandaged heads from Woodbine WW1 alongside a number of ACW hats, picking through the best fits I have plenty to help with conversions but will need a whole lot more of the Aussie Bush hat with turned up sides to convert mounted infantry.

I picked up an Ebay lot of dismounted Zulu War Empress Boers who are very nice and have the advantage of separate heads with spare heads and then hunted through my figures for civilians in 20th century suits and bolt action rifles to convert. Three Partisans with Mausers worked.

I then had a look through existing ranges to support the 1st Corps release. Foundry have ACW horse holders that fit well and a pack or two from their Mafeking range that fits, I bought another book at the same time.

Northstar have few figures and some WW1 British cavalry that should convert well to Commonwealth mounted rifles.

Footsore Irish Civil War figures look ripe for conversion so a few packs of those ordered.

I picked up some more Boers from Empress Zulu Wars range and some 1920's civilian revolutionaries to convert. 

And of course 1st Corp released their first packs this week so they have been ordered too.

Perrys first to arrive along with a book, unfortunately black and white but lots of useful photos to peruse over breakfast.

So first few painted and coming off the table. I wont base them until I have all the other stuff painted and can mix them up.

This horseman is one of the original Foundry riders, I have 8 of the same figure with a pretty generic head so did head swaps on all but one and dug out appropriate horses to use, I think these are Ebob that I got from Mutineer miniatures mostly.

The foot are mainly Empress, lovely figures so I am ignoring the rifle being a bit early. 2nd from left is a Warlord WW2 Partisan with a ACW head he fits quite nicely.

Another of the same Foundry rider with an Empress head on Mutineer horse, like this one.

A bunch more completed.

Although there are only 5 different figures all 21 of these will look individual with the separate heads and different colour schemes.

All rich earthy colours, I have some colour pictures with salmon pink and sky blue jackets for Boers, whilst I may not go that far some less earthy colours may find their way in.

Again the same Foundry rider this time with a Redoubt ACW head and Empress Indian Mutiny horse.

The British officer was already pained in my WW1 East Africa Box, I have pulled him off the smaller base so he can be a command figure and lightened the Khaki. A later version sun helmet, these were used by Officers only so I am happy that I can still use him for East Africa as well.

There you go, another distraction, bare with me, a bunch of these to work on now and the butterfly is strong at the moment.

Thanks for stopping by.