14th Bengal Lancers

These have been in the lead pile for a while and finally made it to the top.

Lovely Artizan sculpts

I took advice from the fount of all NWF knowledge Mad Guru on the Lead Adventure forum. His Maiwand Day blog is *the* source of information for gaming in "the Grim" (as British soldiers referred to the NWF) - I heartily recommend a visit and a follow.

I had found an illustration of turban colours and the 14th "seemed" to be in red - which I think looks rather spiffing and he confirmed that was indeed the case. The yellow on the officers turban should apparently be "gold" but I decided actually using gold paint would be too "bling" so went with a bright yellow instead. It was suggested I could paint them in full "dress" uniform - a rich blue coat with gold and red trim - but I'd already blasted them with khaki spray, so went for the service uniform. 

Artizan Afghans and some Morale/Wound counters

Inspired by the Khazi I cracked on with this foursome of Afghan Command from Artizan Designs

I'm evidently pleased with them as I took rather more pictures than strictly necessary.

I also made some wound/morale trackers using 1p coin of the realm and mini dice frames from Warbases. Frames glued to Brenda's face, naturally.

Ideal for tracking pinning in games of TMWWBK

The Khazi of Kalabar and Bungit Din

From Artizan Designs their 28mm Afghan Characters  based on the characters in Carry on Up the Khyber played by Kenneth Williams and and Bernard Bresslaw.
I went for rough approximations of how they appear in the climactic siege of the film.

Good fun and easy to paint.

Americans for Chain of Command

In an attempt to escalate the arms race with General Ballroom I popped over to see nice Mr Nick at Northstar and got a few packs of Americans.
I wanted a sniper (after my Sergeant was on the receiving end in the Crete game) and an FOO team and I needed a few more riflemen to ensure I had enough crews for the support weapons (as they were originally intended for Bolt Action).

All were done in the same way as the previous ones basic block painting followed by an all over wash. This time, I used Army Painter Strong Tone wash, rather than the dip (mainly so they dried quicker and matt).

They need some static grass adding, but I rushed them in to battle before they got that treatment.

The riflemen are Crusader.
Sniper and FOO team are Artizan.

Artizan NWF Officer with a cup of tea

Another character for NWF gaming.
Very jolly model from Artizan - part of a range of Northstar models of folk doing that most British of activities - enjoying a brew.

He'll hopefully be deployed shortly in a game or two of TMWWBK.
Pip, pip!

Artizan NWF British Officers

These two plucky servants of her Majesty have been on the painting table half done for a loooooong time.
Finally got round to polishing them off now the kids are back at school but I'm still on leave.

Lovely Artizan models that I picked up from Northstar.

First game of The Men Who Would Be Kings

In the far flung reaches of the province of Ilkestaan the wily and unpredictable Mukhtar al Babbij has been stirring up the natives. The 99th Humberside regiment, together with elements of the Royal Dilshad Rifles has been dispatched to the province with orders to bring Babbij to justice...

I've been excited about The Men Who Would Be Kings since Dan Mersey first announced it. It gave me an excuse to buy the rather lovely Artizan 2nd Afghan War range, and probably to indulge in some Carry on Up the Khyber nonsense.

I've been dutifully cranking out the models on and off all year, and on Friday I'd finished enough to be able to play a game, so I popped down to Northstar and returned with a copy of the game.

After a bit of reading over the weekend, and some terrain fettling this week I finally had some time this evening to set up a game.

I persuaded the smallest child to give me a hand, but as the rules include "Mr Babbage", a programmed set of instructions for solo play I decided to give them a try so that the child could go to bed/wander off when bored as the mood took him.

I picked an 18 point force of 3 regular infantry units for the British.
The Afghans had three units of rifle armed troops (irregular infantry) and two of sword toting Tribal Infantry. Although the Babbage rules suggest not using a scenario I decided to give the British an objective of getting half or more of their force into the village at the other end of the table to win.

And so we began with the small boy ordering the British about and me interpreting Babbage until he was summoned off to bed, when I took over the forces of Her Majesty and Babbage did the rest.

 The 99th Humberside Regiment enter the Hookinal valley

 The peacful native settlement of Shaarwyd

 Pathans pour down into the valley

 The Humbersiders stand firm...

 ...before unleashing a volley

 The Royal Dilshad Rifles are surprised!

 More natives break cover

 The Royal Dilshads make it safe to the village

 The Humbersiders give fire to the onrushing horde

 Too late the Pathan rfiles arrive

 The British line the walls of Shaarwyd

...and the Pathans fade back into the hillside

The game played very smoothly - I'm familiar with both Lion and Dragon Rampant and this uses a lot of the same engine (though with tweaks that add considerably to the game).

I only used the basic rules, so ignored the character traits, which will add considerably to future games and didn't use any special rules or theatre specific stuff. It all played very quickly and felt familiar. The pinning rules gave me a bit of pause, but I think I wrapped my head around them.

Mr Babbage I think needs a bit of work for the forces I have. It seemed weighted towards Tribal Infantry, when my force was predominantly shooters. As a result I wasn't able to get most of my force onto the table, and we never experienced hand to hand. I think next time I'll probably replace the dice roll with cards - one for each unit and a couple of blanks. Though I suppose I could have just swapped the order of shooters and irregulars around. Not really a criticism of the rules, its great there's a solo option in there and Dan's clear the whole thing is a toolkit - so I shall just tweak Babbage until I get it the way I want it.

Really looking forward to playing this with the Sherwood Hucknall and Ilkeston Team.

Great work Dan!