Afghans!

"...When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,

An' the women come out to cut up what remains,

Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains,

An' go to your Gawd like a soldier...'.

Extract from 'Young British Soldier', written by Rudyard Kipling, circa 1886.

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One book, which influenced my wargaming is ‘Solo Wargaming’, written by the late Donald Featherstone and published in 1973.

I think I bought it in 1974.  Through its pages, I became entranced by Mr Featherstone’s approach to gaming.  The black and white grainy photographs, showing his table set up with figures depicting actions on the North West Frontier: the relief column being formed up and then the punitive attack on the hilltop village captured my imagination.  I wanted to create my own wargames journal, just as he had done!

Well that was the objective – unfortunately the reality was that I did a lot of planning and very little gaming!

I did manage, in the mid 1990s, to purchase a quantity of painted 15mm Pathan or Pashtun warriors from the now closed Tin Soldier store in Sydney’s CBD.  The talented Peter Callan professionally painted the figures to a very high standard.  There are two different manufacturers of the figures, half the cavalry were made by Minifigs, the other half of the cavalry and the infantry were by an unknown manufacturer, however given the style of the sculpts, these could have been made by Mike’s Models.

These figures remained on unrealistic, green flocked balsa wood bases, the infantry in groups of three, the cavalry singularly based since purchase.

I came against this group in a box last week and my mind went back to all those unrealised plans I had made forty years ago!

Perhaps, it was the memory of Mr Featherstone’s recent death in September 2013, but I decided that these warriors would be fielded in a wargame, depicting various actions, both real and imaginary, during the British involvement in Afghanistan in 1897!

These two photographs, to the left and below, depict a test base I did for the Pathan infantry.  The warrior is armed with a jezail and is hiding in anticipation of the approaching British forces.  The stones are painted unused kitty litter and fine sand was glued to the 20mm base with PVA glue.

The next photograph depicts a test base for a mounted

warrior, armed with a tulwar.  He also has a jezail slung

across his back.  The same basing technique was used here

as for the infantry, but the base size was increased to 25mm.

The final photograph depicts the tribe's Mullah or leader. 

The opposing British force, the organisation of which will be based upon the Malakand Field Force will be sourced most likely from Blue Moon Miniatures, due to its extensive range of figures, and the quality of the sculpts.  Additionally, I will be sourcing some Woodland Indian villagers, settlers and British regulars for the French and Indian Wars project from this supplier, so I will make it one large order to reduce the cost of postage from the US. 

As for rules, based upon the interest it has maintained since first being published in 1979, it is difficult to go past the timeless ‘The Sword and the Flame’ written by Larry V Brom for Colonial encounters. I already own the 20^th Anniversary set, published in 1999. 

Based on these rules, I can field a Pathan tribe, when based, consisting of a mounted Mullah and his staff of two mounted figures, 61 infantry figures, all to be individually based on 20mm circles, a clan of 20 cavalry figures, individually based on 25mm bases (now complete) and one muzzle loading artillery piece, together logistic support comprising of three camels.

I also have an unassembled Airfix Fort Sahara, referred to by Mr Featherstone in his book, as being prefect, with slight modification for use as a hill fort.  It will get assembled and painted in the interim ready for a garrison.

Another project back on track and being progressed!