The Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders WiP, Part One

Ok, I've finally made some progress with my Sudan project toward actually getting models on the table!

Almost one section (half a unit in The Sword and the Flame) of 1st Company, A Platoon. These Sons of Mars at led by the very keen Lieutenant Henry Hatwaver and kept on the hop by the relentless Sergeant Charger. These are 28mm Perry Miniatures (a beautiful range and one of the reasons I started the project in the first place) painted with Games Workshop paints - I'll have a full list of colors up at some point if anyone wants the recipes.

These have taken slightly longer than they should have to get on because I created extra work for myself. Originally I was planning on painting the Black Watch rather than Cameron's and my initial figure order was for those. The main difference between the two sculpts was the pattern of five tassels on the Black Watch sporran verse two on the Queen's Own. Two days after placing the order, I stumbled on the orbat from Kosha, fell in love with the idea of setting my campaign there, made the change, and placed a second order.

But I already had forty Black Watch on the way.

Sigh.. well, eventually I DO want a whole company of the kilted gentlemen and the charging figures do look splendid (there are no charging two-tassel sculpts.. tsk, tsk). So I've been trimming away the detail from sporrans and sculpting a pair of tassels in their place. They've gotten better with each attempt and the paint hides some of the poor work, but I think they'll do nicely.

I've decided to add a musician (a piper in the case of the Highlanders) to each platoon. There were optional rules for these in TSATF Scenario folder that was published in 2000. Basically the presence of a musician adds +1 to any rolls to rally shaken figures. There are rules for standard bearers as well, though only one per company is allowed. A standard bearer adds +1 to close combat rolls for the unit to which he is attached. Both types of figures are treated as 'special characters' and may be wounded or killed on a face card like other officers.

I'm hoping to have the whole 20-model unit finished by NEXT weekend and I'll try to set up some pics on terrain.

Kosha, 1885

Major General Francis W. Grenfell

After the fall of Khartoum, the future of British operations in the Sudan was uncertain for several months. A frontier force under the command of Major General Grenfell was posted to guard against further invasion by the Mahdist forces. This force was strung out at various strategic points along the Nile from Asuan to Akasha and consisted of a mix of British and Egyptian units. There were a tense couple of months at the end of 1885 leading up to the Battle of Ginnis. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, the tip of the spear fell to the Cameron Highlanders, supported by the IXth Sudanese and the 20th Hussars, at the small town of Kosha.

This struck me as the perfect setting for my Sudan project. My campaign will be fictional based on the premise that the argument to avenge General Gordon (slain during the siege of Khartoum) or abandon further military adventures into the region rages on far longer than the winter of 1885.

Rumors of a Mahdist invasion will still send elements of the Anglo-Egyptian army south in force, but the Cameron Highlanders of my campaign will find themselves resident in Kosha far longer than their historical counterparts. Indeed there will be missions beyond garrisoning the fort that will take them beyond the town as there will be a strong push by one wily and influential minister for the army to re-establish power as far south as Dongola. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I LOVE maps and I don't think you can really have a campaign without one. Even if you don't plan on plotting the location of every unit (I don't) it's good to know the important features of the area and how far apart said features might be. Imagine my delight when I discovered a treasure trove of high resolution 1:250,000 scale survey maps only a few years beyond my date of interest tucked away on the Library of Congress website! I've only downloaded a few (Wadi Halfa, Kosha, and Dongola), but as far as I can tell most of Egypt and the Sudan are covered in these beautiful maps. Most regions have three sets, produced in different years, the oldest of which is dated 1911. Besides rivers, settlements, and wadis, the maps have wonderful details like palm groves, wells, and ruins. I've spent a huge amount of time scouring the internet, cross referencing locations (Sai Island) with modern tourist attractions and ongoing excavations to see what sort of terrain I might build to represent a few of these on the table.

This map (drawn by me using several of the survey maps as a guide) represents the core of my campaign. It's only about one quarter of the Kosha map, but trying to fit more on one sheet of paper was making the text too small to read. I can always add more sheets if the campaign warrants, but I think this will do for now!

My initial British force will be a company of Cameron Highlanders. In The Sword and the Flame rules, this will be 42 models (1 captain, 2 lieutenants, 3 NCOs, and 36 privates). All of the officers and NCOs will be given names and personalities. Even though I have extensive records on the men of the 79th Regiment of Foot, I've decided on creating fictional characters to populate my campaign so as not to sully any reputations. Major General Grenfell will be the only historical figure and will interact with the tiny garrison through inspirational letters.

In the next post, I'll have the first examples of painted highlanders and wax poetical about the joys of painting tartans!

Mahdist Horde

That's about as far as I've gotten with planning for the Madhists... I need a pile of them!

I'm just going to collect forces along the lines of what's given in The Sword and the Flame. Brom recommends 2.25 Dervish units per British, with no more than one in four armed with rifles. For my first goal (two British Platoons would be four and a half native units), I'm going to collect the following force to get in some games ASAP:

One Unit of Dervish with Spears
Two Units of Dervish with Swords
One Unit of Dervish with Rifles
One Unit of Dervish Cavalry

The cavalry will be my 'half-sized' unit and will probably be camels rather than horses because I have NEVER owned nor painted camels. There will be five Sheikhs and a mounted Emir plus one standard bearer. I am planning on one flag per 'Tribe' (three units) and will use the optional rules presented in the 2000 Scenario Folio. Going forward, I will be buying two Dervish units per Imperial and split painting time between the two armies. I'll mix in some Nile Arabs along the way to add some variety to the horde, probably aiming for a tribe and supporting cavalry.

I'm going to make one change to TSATF in that my native units with be 18 models (rather than 19) plus a leader. This is purely for the practical reason that Perry miniatures come six models to a pack and I can place orders in groups of three. I may add musicians to some units (again from the 2000 Scenario Folio) which will bring some to the proper count. I don't expect this unit reduction will have any real effect on game play.

At this level, my leaders will be purely fictional, but I have a fairly detailed list of the historical tribes and chieftans in the area before the Battle of Ginnis and will incorporate some of those as the collection grows.

Up next, we'll look at the campaign map and explore some of the ideas I have for creating a narrative!

A Scrimmage in a Border Station

Colonial gamers are a freewheeling lot as you’ll find if you hang around dedicated forums. Questions about uniforms or orders of battle are often met with, “They are your toys! Paint them however you like!” Now this should be the case in ANY period, but the button counters and fashion police are much quicker to raise the hue and cry in other periods.

That said, when building an army I always try to find a brigade on which to model my collection. Not only does this establish a realistic force composition, it lets me point to at least one circumstance where my units served together. I also set out to find a brigade with a measure of variety (mixed coat colors, allied troops, or supported by an unusual detachment). I knew I wanted my first units for TSATF to be Highlanders, so that helped me narrow my choices (but not by much... there were four or five battalions of these kilted heroes scattered all over the Sudan).

Now, I’m not planning on ever recreating whole battles. My games will be raids, patrols, and other skirmishes. While orbats could be useful, I was more interested in remote garrisons and the like. I found EXACTLY what I was looking for when I stumbled on ‘A Scrimmage in a Border Station’ (taken from Historical Records of the 79th Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders by Captain T A. Mackenzie, which I now have in my possession).

Kosheh was a small brick fort 113 miles to the south of Wadi Halfa, and was the most advanced British post in the Sudan. The garrison of Kosheh now consisted of 1 troop of the 20th Hussars, 1 troop of Mounted Infantry, a few British and Egyptian Artillerymen, the Cameron Highlanders, and 100 men of the 9th Sudan battalion... 150 (men) from the same battalion occupied a zeriba (improvised stockade) on the west bank. Mograkeh (3 miles north of Kosheh) was held by the 3rd battalion of the Egyptian army and some of the Egyptian Camel Corps. The armed steamers Lotus and Shaban patrolled the river (stern wheel paddle steamers).

This garrison was involved in multiple skirmishes with the Madhists in the month leading up to the Battle of Ginnis (December 30th, 1885). They were part of a frontier force and the literally tip of the spear at this time. Not only is there a wonderfully diverse mix of units, the force is small enough to collect the entire detachment for TSATF:

1 Battalion of the Cameron Highlanders (4 units + command)
1 Company of IX Sudanese (2 units + command)
1 Troop of 20th Hussars (1 unit)
1 Troop of Mounted Infantry (1 unit)

Plus guns (although they would most likely stay with the fort for most of my games), a gunboat (only useful if the game is on the banks of the Nile, which turns out is pretty common), a battalion of Egyptians, and a unit of camels if I wanted further reinforcements. There are also three more battalions of British and the rest of the 20th Hussars nearby. My one deviation would be to field a detachment from the British Camel Corps rather than the Egyptian one, because Perry Miniatures only offers those at this time. I may make further alterations to my fictional force. For example, the British Camel Corps are essentially mounted infantry so I may replace the troop in the fort with these and substitute some regular Egyptian cavalry for support at Mograkeh.

I said one deviation, but there will be a second in that I will postpone events that led to the Battle of Ginnis. In the Quindia Studios timeline there will be a more substantial period of sniping and mayhem that serves as the backdrop for my campaign. It may be a year before gathering Madhists force the conflict at Ginnis. There will also be details added to the surrounding campaign that will be decidedly ahistorical.. a lost mine, a forgotten temple to dark powers, and other equally pulp style tropes.

My first order of Perry Miniatures (two platoons of Highlanders - a Captain, two Lieutenants, three Sergeants, and thirty-six Privates) just arrived and I hope to have painted examples soon. Wish me luck with the tartans!

Next time we’ll talk about Madhists...

The Sudan 1885

I know, I know.. what happened to the AWI? I’ll try to at least finish my Highland battalion, but I’ve been distracted... again.

I’ve been shuffling some of the clutter in my house from one room to another - hopefully organizing and streamlining collections in the process - and I stumbled on my copy of The Sword and the Flame (20th Anniversary edition). It’s been a while since I’ve read this book or even laid eyes on it, so I dropped it onto my ‘bedtime’ reading pile.

I’d forgotten how much I loved these rules.

When I first got my copy (2000-2001?) I quickly despaired of ever painting the number of models required to play the game properly. I had yet to launch my Napoleonic project and had only painted RPG minis and small armies (40-60 models each) for Warhammer and Warhammer 40k games. While a modest British force might be in that range, the 200 natives I thought I would need for a balanced game was not! I did run some small skirmishes with The Sword in Africa supplement included in the 20th anniversary edition. That was fun, but lacked the grandeur of TSATF games I’d seen in photographs. This was also about the time I was developing the rules that became the basis for Donnybrook and they became my ‘go to’ set for skirmish games. TSATF was returned to the bookcase.

So after reading the book again and with more confidence in my ability to produce hordes of painted models (and afford to procure them), it wasn’t long before I found myself skimming through pages on the Perry Miniatures site. While images from the film Zulu (A prayer's as good as a bayonet on a day like this) are probably ingrained in the being of every wargamer, I settled on the Sudan theater for my collection.

As is usual for me upon entering a new period, I set out to collect a pile of books on the subject.. 

A few are still en route, but I discover more all the time and as the project grows, I’ll continue adding them to my library. If anyone has any suggestions for a 'must have' sourcebook, please let me know!

Up next, I’ll lay out my specific plans to get this on the game table.

Marlborough's Amphibious Operations

I'm happy to announce Barry Hilton and I have a new uniform guide available!

This one deals with the ambitious and extremely successful amphibious campaign undertaken by the Earl of Marlborough against Cork and Kinsale in the autumn of 1690. Involving thousands of troops fresh from England, sailors hauling guns across land, grenadier led assauts and desperate resistance from the garrisons, this is a detailed synthesis created by cross-referencing multiple sources and applying a knowledge of the troops involved and the campaign in general to produce a wargaming friendly guide to both armies.

It is by far our largest individual pdf with ten pages of full color plates (more than forty units) including details of the Jacobite garrisons of both towns.

It's available at the Warfare Miniatures USA store for instant download! Barry is planning on publishing several scenarios to accompany this release on the League of Augsburg blog! Stay tuned...

71st Regiment, WiP

Work has been a bit slow on this.. the Coronavirus hasn't seen me sequestered yet.

Hopefully, I can knock out a couple more bases this week. I really want to get a few battalions painted so I can start playing some (small-ish) games!

I have yet to decide on a rule set, and there's no reason I have to just stick to one. I have no less than eight or nine designed for the AWI or near enough that converting them will be a simple task. Piquet is near the top of my list at the moment because it is perfect for solo play and it's something I used extensively for 15mm Napoleonics, though it's been two decades (holy crap, I'm old) since I ventured there. There have been several editions now, but my favorite remains the original. I have a particular love of The Sword and the Flame as well and I've seen several homebrew mods for adapting this. Finally, I'm toying with the idea of adapting my own Victory Without Quarter set to the period as that too is great for running games by oneself.

But first I need to get some more of his Majesty's troops painted! Stay tuned...

Returning to the AWI!

It has been over five years (!) since I completed my initial goal for the American army in this project - Three Continental battalions, five militia battalions, three squadrons of cavalry, two units of skirmishers, and two guns. This small force was designed to give me everything I need for the Battle of Cowpens. The plan was always to continue along the same lines when I turned to the British collection.

I'm starting of the project with a battalion of the 71st Regiment of Foot. I dearly wanted to paint them in kilts, but that appears to have been out for the southern theater. However, I'm going to paint my officers in the traditional kit. Ultimately I want ten stands of Highlanders that I can combine in various combinations (unit strengths varied tremendously in the southern campaign) for two battalions, but my initial goal will be four stands plus a command stand.

7th Regiment of Foot (three infantry stands)*
71st Regiment of Foot (four infantry stands)
British Legion Infantry (four infantry stands)
Light Infantry (twelve single models from the 71st, 16th, and Prince of Wales)
17th Light Dragoons (two cavalry stands)
British Legion Dragoons (four cavalry stands)**
Tory Scouts/Guides (two cavalry stands)
Light Guns (1 artillery stand)

* I'm going to aim for a full unit of four stands while I'm at it, even though I only need three for the Battle of Cowpens.
**The entire British Legion Dragoon regiment was present at the Battle of Cowpens which would be comprised of eight cavalry stands at my chosen scale. However, only a fraction of them were actually engaged in the fighting. Unless you're playing skirmish games, there will be very little call for so many cavalry in any engagement in the southern theater. Though eight stands of horse would look magnificent, the cost in time and money can't be justified when I have so many more models to paint.

My default is five infantry models per stand, though I may have the occasional base with only four and some interesting bit of terrain or I might crowd in six models with the addition of an officer. The command stands will be separate, with an officer and two standard bearers mounted on a half hex in the same manner as my Americans.

Of course, the ultimate goal is a much larger collection, and I plan to add more infantry (two Guard battalions, a battalion of grenadiers, the 33rd, and von Bose) and cavalry (second squadrons for the 17th). The 23rd Foot is on my list as well, however they have the same facings as the 7th so I can field them with a quick flag swap!

Really excited to be wading back into this period! I'll have more as I get on and have a bit of a ramble on the rules I'm considering when I actually get around to throwing some dice in anger!