Zulu's, some more of them

I recently had the pleasure of being introduced to the new(ish) Osprey ruleset, The Men Who Would Be Kings by a few local gaming compatriots the Gentleman Historic Wargamers.

Our host for the evenings events (Herman and his lovely wife) kicked things off with a selection of homemade South African food (mmm.... pickled fish!) and a few beverages, then we adjourned to Herman's gaming room where we got to select from his extensive collection and play a few turns of a British Redcoats caravan being ambushed by a rather annoyed Zulu impi.

A much better write up is available at Roly's blog - https://arteis.wordpress.com/2021/07/24/a-zulu-war-game-and-a-south-african-feast/

However the game did prompt me to paint up some more Zulu (and a few Natal Native allies). 

These are a kit bash of the now defunct Wargames Factory Zulu and the Perry Natal kit. I quite like the shield style that I did this time,  although I'm not sure how many black and white Holstein-Friesian there were in Africa in this period. I still have a fair few more to get through but they'll suffice for some darkest Africa skirmish gaming using In Her Majestys Name at some point.  

I Made a Tree

What do you do when your getting a bit tired of painting the same thing over and over (I'm painting napoleonic British at the moment). That's right,  you guessed it,  you make a tree!

I started off with some jewellers wire and just started twisting,  and let me tell you wearing gloves or something to protect your fingers is a must as I ended with l up with a lot of puncture wounds. 

Once I had an armature I was happy with I hot glued it to a card base and started applying polyfilla (other brands of wall filler are available). As it started to dry I carefully scored grooves into it to look like bark which I think turned out quite nicely. 

Gray undercoat, burnt umber wash and multiple brown and get dry brushes and then I could glue on some foliage.  

Not a bad tree,  it'll be a nice feature in my western town (Malice), somewhere for those high noon showdowns to happen!