The Zulu umCijo regiment in 10mm for Black Powder (& How to paint them)

So it took me a while to get around to my Zulu's... but get around to them I did!

A far more fascinating army than most people give them credit for. They were highly organised, highly militarised and highly trained. On the one hand you could just write them off as being a militia army where everybody had to serve... but if you look below the surface there can be found more than a few similarities to the old Spartan agoge system.

Its these similarities that I believe allowed the Zulu war machine to dominate South East Africa and crush the British army three times in as many months with a fourth catastrophe the size of Isandlwana only being avoided by a single lucky decision.

Having bought the Warlord rule set Black Powder with its expansion I was in somewhat of a quandary over how to base them given the huge regimental force disparity between the Colonials and the Zulu forces that were fielded.

Eventually I have settled on a base size of 1 1/2 inches by 1 inch to a base.

This size enabled me to make my Zulu regiments pretty packed with manpower giving a great impression of strength on the field and allowed me also make my British companies look well represented as well whilst all of the skirmish troops could also be put onto bases of these sizes and look suitable as well.

A full 15 base view of the umCijo (The Sharpeners) regiment (ibutho)

The first thing to be addressed was how to mix up all of the figures that I had so that a noticeable difference between married and unmarried regiments could be maintained whilst still giving a look of extreme variety.

This in itself wasn't such an issue. Where things become problematic however is that Zulu regimental uniforms were as rigid as those in the British army and there is such a variety of personal dress on the zulu miniatures that it became necessary to concede ground on how rigid one is willing to be with their uniforms.

Ultimately I had to resolve on a course of action that allowed me to field regiments with a good level of variety in their troops but which also at least flirted with uniformity. I took the plunge and decided to do my regiments based primarily on shield colours but to pay lip service to the uniformity of the regiment as far as the miniatures allowed and incurring as little cost to the aesthetic as possible.

The umCijo ibutho's Induna with his two wing commanders... 

With this in mind I separated the unmarried Zulus into ones that were sporting heavy ceremonial dress and those that were dressed in a somewhat more Spartan fashion and formed my unmarried regiments from these two piles.

As with many other wargamers out there I decided that the regiments in my army would be identified by their shields alone... thus allowing myself the luxury of grouping variously attired Zulu's into the same ibutho.

The Induna stands out because of his black Sakabuli bird headdress
and his white Crane feather, which the two wing officers also sport

If there is something that the guys at Warlord Games do really REALLY well, it is present books with exceptionally well painted miniatures in. Drooling over the Zulu War supplement one of the things that particularly stood out to me was the Zulu skin colour and the fact that neither their blacks nor their whites were pure colours but rather these areas were built up from Black to Dark Greys in the case of the blacks and from a selection of beiges to matt whites in the whites.

A more frontal view of the umCijo with their black izihlangu (war shields) decorated on the lower half with white spots

I, true to form, decided that I would accept no substitute and put myself through an artistic mincer whilst I worked out which colours worked...

But, fortunately I think I almost nailed it!

A look at one of the umCijo bases showing one of the rifle armed Zulus wearing a 24th Regiment of Foot soldiers jacket...
obviously looted from the field of Isandlwana, 22nd January 1879

That 'nailing of the colours' however does have one caveat; these were a LOT more time consuming to paint than I ever expected!

This one group of 90 zulus took me an entire week to paint when I estimated a total time of 3 days

It turns out that my estimations of time to paint this year have been wrong...so wrong that the gulf between estimates would be the difference between turning up to a nuclear missile fight with a sharp stick!

A view of the rear of one of the umCijo bases showing the monkey tails and the
leopard skins and headbands that were so popular amongst the Zulu warrior culture. 

Anyway, on the whole I'm happy with the way the paint scheme has turned out with these so I will take you through the process now. 

The basing scheme,as of yet, I am undecided about due to the fact that South Africa can be an exceptionally vibrant area festooned with rich and intense greens, however nobody who was brought up on a diet of Zulu Dawn and Zulu can deny the attractiveness of the burnt out summer grasses of the Drakenfeld range of mountains in South Africa where Zulu was actually filmed so I'm trying to work out a scheme that will satisfy that aesthetic urge as well.

A frontal view of the base shown above

Ok so lets crack on with this.

Zulu Skin Colour
A base coat of Games Workshops Rhinox Hide
A 1st Highlight of Vallejo's Charred Brown (045)
A 2nd Highlight of Vallejo's Flat Brown (984) - and this one is the REALLY important colour as it provides the final tonality that general observation of the Zulus will give.

A good view showing the Zulu izihlangu war shields that were probably not actually that prolific in 1879

Zulu Weapons and Shields

Assegai (Ikwla) Shaft & Musket/ Rifle Body
A basecoat of Vallejo's German Camo Medium Brown (826)
A 1st highlight of Vallejo's Beige Brown (875) - This is used to paint the grain by painting streaks along the shaft of the Ikwla or Firearm

Ikwla Blade & Musket/ Rifle Barrel
A single coat of Molten Metals 'Steel'


Zulu Shield Colours
For Blacks:
A base coat of Games Workshops Abaddon Black
A 1st highlight of stippled Vallejo's German Grey (995)

For Whites:
A base coat of Vallejo's Iraqi Sand (819)
A 1st highlight of stippled Vallejo's Ivory (918)

A good shot showing one of Pendrakens rifle armed Zulu warriors running forwards with his izihlangu.
Rifles and muskets were actually VERY common amongst the Zulu soldiery by the time of the Anglo-Zulu War

Zulu Clothing

Leather Loincloth
A basecoat of Vallejo's Chocolate Brown (872)
A 1st Highlight of Vallejo's Flat Earth (983) - This can also be used to paint the leather thongs that line the top of the feather frills and that attach the front of the loincloth to the rear loincloth.

A good look at the skin tones aimed for with the paint scheme as described in the text.

Wardress and Decorations

Feather Frills

A basecoat of Vallejo's Chocolate Brown (872)

A 1st highlight of Vallejo's Ivory (918) - This needs to be applied lightly with a mix of drybrush and light paint strokes.

Leopard Skins

A single layer of Vallejo's Yellow Ochre (913)

The spots are painted using Vallejo's Black (950)

Monkey Tails

A single layer of Vallejo's Iraqi Sand (819)

The stripes are painted using Vallejo's Black (950)

A rear view of the umCijo ibutho in all its glory.

So there we have it. You can use whatever varnish you see fit, but for me I prefer to use Army Painters Anti Shine Varnish

These colours should stand your Zulu army in good stead...

Now; Eat Up the Red Soldiers!

The Post Human Republic get some more toys to bring the pain

Well, after what seems like serving a life sentence on the Polish Black Brigade I finally had the opportunity to consider knocking some lumps out of some of the mountainous list that I had set myself at the start of the year.

As my Dropzone Commander PHR are one of the most ball achingly protracted painting methods I have come up with so I figured that getting some of these out of the way can only serve to give me a peaceful retirement in the future...

I, naturally, have a predilection for dividing things into convenient blocks of 'stuff'' which allows me to set myself convenient targets to achieve and I figured that for my PHR this time around I would just try to knock out all of my tanks and land based troop carriers that I own in one go...

So here we are then:

Thor Bombards

I didnt really care how good these tanks, mobile payload delivery device, all round destroyer of armies and cities, looked... I just wanted an excuse to paint them!

As it happens the use of the Mjolnir artillery system is not to be underestimated... this is one vehicle where form and function achieve a happy medium.

If you need to destroy civilisations then look no further...

Thor Bombards... from the rear!

Thor Bombards from the nose...

Taranis MLRS Battery

 By happy coincidence when I purrrr-chased my Thor Bombards they were also supplied with the weapon system for the Taranis.

Not to be one to miss a trick I decided to mount a brass pin the back of the Thors bodies so that I could mount either weapon system when the thoughts took me.

In the final analysis I will probably just need to go by more as I am pretty enamoured with them anyway!

Taranis MLRS from the rear...

The Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) that these guys pack is quite an ordnance piece to have in your pocket as well...

Juno A1's

Already having a pair of these swanning around with my PHR I kind of look at these guys like the Magnolia of the Post Human Republic. Very vanilla and does exactly what it says on the tin.

Carrying a couple of infantry stands, it packs decent enough firepower to go toe to toe with the UCM and come out the other side... and in any case I needed at least one ground unit that is present in some numbers... so four should do!

Juno A1's... again

Angelos Jetskimmers

 I like the Angelos Jetskimmers. They can carry a few troops, which in the PHR arsenal is probably enough to win a battle on their own but they pack a serious punch with their RXs-120 smoothbore heavy cannon. That's the same piece that the Enyo destroyer of buildings totes!

Angelos Jetskimmers... again!

Yet more Angelos Jetskimmers

Angelos Jetskimmers...do I need to say it?

So there we have it. Thats pretty much all of the tank-y stuff that I have for my PHR... now I have to decide whether to crack on with the air mobile units or to address my walkers....

Choices choices...

Flames of War Polish - Something for the road? Like a C7P and some TKD's?

So, whilst I was modelling (and bleeding) my through the Black Brigade for Flames of War there were inevitably a few extra little pieces that slipped through the net with them which I charted the sculpting and making of in previous blogs but then I realised that nobody will have seen the finished articles... and thats because these vehicles were not actually fielded with the Brigade in September '39...

I am of course talking about the C7P Recovery Tractor and the TKD self propelled guns that the Warsaw Armoured Motorised Brigade took into battle with them.

Anyway these three little pieces are all done and dusted now as well so I thought I would just post some quick shots of them so you guys can have a peruse:

The C7P Recovery Tractor

So a quick word about this one. Other than the track sections which came off of an existing 7TP tank absolutely everything else on this was sculpted by yours truly.

I had to do the roof a couple of times in order to get the right angles on it but ultimately I got it.

I had the same problems casting this up as I did with everything else. There were pinholes all over it but painting over them with Vallejo's Plastic Putty diluted with nail varnish remover removed all of them... and yes I do mean ALL of them! :D

The larger holes all appeared on the wheels and track sections which is why the weathering and mud is heavier than expected here. It enables me to disguise any errors that were there

BUT there we have it: my brand spanking new C7P

Enjoy!

The TKD Self Propelled Guns

The second little show piece in this post is of course my two TKD's.

Other than the track sections which were cast copies of Battlefronts TKS' track sections and the guns absolutely everything else on these has been sculpted by yours truly, both inside the vehicle and out.

These were a little more complex than the average so were a royal pain in the ass to get done... but get them done I eventually did...

The crew were provided by Skytrex German Vehicle Crews with the obligatory Peter Pig head swaps...

I don't know about you guys but I'm quite pleased with the results.

So there we have it. A nice short post with some funky photos of some spunky vehicles!

Comments welcome as always guys

Flames of War: The Black Brigade 8: Modelling the bases

So I thought that to round off the mountainous volumes of modelling blogs covering Stanislaw Maczek and the Black Brigade I thought it would be good to take a closer look at how I did the bases on all of these Black Brigade miniatures to round off this series (The Black Brigade uniforms post is having all of its stuff translated from Polish sources at the moment and is coming up).

I know that by now the majority of you will either have square eyes, will have slipped into a military history related coma or else just have no interest in reading my voluminous posts so this time we are going to deal with the modelling only. The bases. A short post...

So lets crack on...

The Basing of the Brigade...

I've been modelling the Polish for a couple of years now and whilst I may have thought a couple of years ago that my stuff was good, now I am smacked in the face with the faults of the painting and modelling every time I sort through them to have a look.

Fortunately I've had more than enough items to paint in my Polish army that I've been able to adjust what I've done until I've reached a level that I'm genuinely happy with what I'm turning out now. I think I reached that point with my Polish cavalry... I just love looking at them... mostly.

The one thing that has always got my hackles up is my bases.

I've spent years searching around and buying in stupid varieties of static flock to find a shade that I'm happy with, never having succeeded. The flock that I've used on my Poles I am convinced actually glows in the dark! (obviously I've never tested this out :D )

Until this project...

Furniture and fittings to be used to dress the bases to be made



I made the decision early on that because this was going to be my signal project for 2017 that the bases needed to be done with considerably more care and attention than my usual 'just get 'em knocked out' strategy and so because of this I started looking around and as so frequently happens with my modelling I found myself reading some stuff that Ruben (Torregrosa for those of you that don't know who he is) had put out to the community as a whole on how to go about creating bases with a little more zing.

Now his stuff is intensely insane, the amount of hours that he must put into it is a terrifying prospect to some of us out there and I just quite simply am not that patient a person. I need to see things finished if I am to stay interested in them, and so I decided that I would follow him in some areas but not in others!

I knew that I wanted my 10th Mounted Rifles based as if some of them would be fighting in Lancut and so I bought some furniture items off of Peter Pig and then sent abroad for bags of 'n scale' bricks...

These were all duly painted up in a day and made ready to apply to a certain number of bases. I should say now that even though I painted up everything I ordered I had no illusion that all of them would get used because of the extra work that those types of bases would involve.

Instead I just decided to plough on with the basing itself...

Plain old MDF bases with scored tops

So the first thing I should point out is that I immediately bin ALL Battlefront plastic bases. I much prefer working with wood. Materials grip SOOOO much better on wood AND the deeper straighter cut of the sides looks more attractive when presented properly I believe.

So the first thing to do is to take your bases, ensure they are the right way up (because these MDF bases from Tony at East Riding Miniatures generally have a slightly bevelled edge) and then score the top surface prodigiously to help provide some contouring for any of the materials you are intending sticking to the surface.

Magic Sculpt and Garden twigs used to provide some contrast and contouring on the bases

So, once the bases are all cleaned of rogue wood shavings (I just use an old stiff toothbrush to do this) the next thing to do is to provide some contouring to the bases so they don't just look like those sketchy old flat Napoleonic bases that you can see in '70's photographs of the Wargames Research Group and other such dinosaurs.

I used Magic Sculpt (one of my favourite sculptors epoxy resin) to sculpt some banks along the sides of the bases and then pushed a couple of garden twigs that I had prepared into the resin before it was set.

This was all then left to set for a couple of hours...

A layer of Tile Grout is applied.

Whilst waiting for the bases that have topographical contours to set I went to town on all the others.

My weapon of choice for basing is Tile Grout because its as cheap as chips and because of the environment that Tile Grout is designed to work in I have an unexplained belief that it can withstand more punishment than other materials you may use for basing, including being damp resistant, which in my abode is of no mean importance.

A thin layer is spread  across the base being pushed into the scores as you go, once completed the edge of the bases are tidied up by just running a wet finger along each edge to clean any excess off!

These are then left to set for a short period of maybe 10 minutes, maybe less, depending on how quickly your grout sets.

Wet brush strokes are applied to the grout

The next step to complete is the approximation of dirt road surfaces which were so prevalent across Poland in 1939. As I am modelling a Motorised Brigade I decided that these types of bases were an absolute must.

So with that in mind I decided that the best way to create this kind of surface would be to use a large old flat head brush and gently brush in the same general direction across the grouts surface to create an indication of the traffics direction of travel.

It is important to be careful about timing when you do this part. If the grout is freshly layed then the wet brush will lift most of the grout off as it goes across because grout sticks to itself REALLY well. On the other hand if you leave it too long then you may as well throw your wet brush away and dig out your chisels!

If you get it just right however you can continue to work the grout until you have a series of gentle undulations that give a good indication of general direction of travel of vehicles.

Make sure that when you finish this step that there is still some working time left in the grout as there is another step still to do.

The imprints of vehicle tires is added

Now, before we plunge in with preparing these bases there is something that you should do. I took a selection of wheels from the various vehicles that my Polish motorised troops used and put an example wheel of each pushed right into the middle of a cocktail stick.

With the grout still partially soft I was able to press the wheel into the grout and roll it along the base giving the impression of old tracks that have been left.

These bases are then left to totally dry.

Once dry the parts of the base where I want to replicate undisturbed dirt have fine sand applied to them using PVA glue and are then left overnight to dry completely.

A layer of brown is painted across the whole of the bases

The base coat of paint is now added across the whole base. This colour is REALLY important because it sets the tone for the whole base and I haven't found anything better for mass use than Vallejo's German Camo Medium Brown. I use so much of this on bases that I think I'm on bottle number 6 at the moment! :D

Doesn't matter if its really dilute so long as the whole base is covered and the colour is uniform. The more dilute the more washed out the eventual look will be which, if you like the dry and dusty look may be exactly where you want to take it...

A liberal drybrushing brings out the undisturbed dirt

The next step is to start breathing a little bit of life into the bases by working on the contrasts and set the final tone as an addition to the dominant tone (i.e the German Camo Medium Brown). This is done by using a heavy drybrush across the whole base with Vallejo's Green Ochre. Make sure you aren't applying it so heavily that you end up with paint splotches but heavy enough that there is an appreciable lightening of the base overall (although this could very well depend on your personal tastes).

This lightening will enable you to pick out the areas that you want to turn into dried mud and create the textural contrasts across the base itself.

The beginnings of the muddy track ways on the bases.

So now that we are looking at a much improved base this could be a perfect place to stop the painting stages on the base and add the flock BUT as I had a particular vision in my mind for how I wanted these to turn out I decided to go the extra mile for these ones.

The next task is to start building on the impression of dried mud tracks and pathways and this is done by firstly painting a couple of layers of AK Interactive's Dried Mud straight onto the base wherever you want bare earth to show.

This is left to dry completely although there are numerous different ways of applying this dried mud wash and numerous ways to deal with it once it is applied. This is the way that I chose to employ.

After feathering the dried mud effect the bases look much more homogenous

Once the Dried Mud wash is dry I used tradesman White Spirits to feather the dried wash into its surrounding terrain. Why do I leave the wash to dry completely before doing this? and why do I use tradesman White Spirits instead of artists white spirits?

Simple really. I use tradesman White Spirits because its harsher than artists white spirits (and I KNOW there will be plenty who disagree with this but I've had projects damaged that went perfectly when I swapped to my Daler & Rowney odourless white spirits) and when combined with the non uniform effect of the feathering that I was looking for I felt that a harsher solvent applied heavily on some of the dried areas and less heavily on others would provide what I was looking for.

In fact the overall result that I attained was to tone the whole base down and provide an effect that I was actually very satisfied with and thus retained it for all of the bases that I completed.

Anyway, once the feathering was complete the bases were once again left to dry completely before a layer of anti shine varnish is applied to the bases to seal the oil based wash and allow painting over the top.

All of the stones picked out... the devil is clearly in the detail!

Something that I stumbled across when I first started to build my various collections of 15mm armies is that the devil really is in the detail. If you get the details wrong, or omit them completely then it detracts an incredible amount from your miniatures and what they serve to represent.

Where my bases are concerned because I changed the type of sand that I was using a little while ago I noticed that there were, what amounted to, little pebbles included in it. So I decided that it would provide a great opportunity to create more contrast on the overall basing scheme and as such I decided to paint as many of them as I thought I could cope with.

I would first of all paint them in Vallejo's German Grey and then go back and pick them out with Vallejo's Neutral Grey.

The very last stage to make sure you have done to polish your bases off is to make sure that you tidy up the edges of the bases to make them presentable. Paint them in whichever colours you wish, Brown, green , red, yellow, pink or blue!

Me; I use Games Workshops Chaos Black for the simple reasons that its a relatively thick paint that provides good coverage and a lack of transparency and has a somewhat satin feel to it once it is dry.

Another layer of varnish is applied to the bases in order to seal everything before the flock is applied.

The bases after the final stage of flocking

The final stage on my basing is the flocking and I have to admit that flocking has proven quite a problem to me for years.

I have never found a flock that I have been satisfied with, and by now I think I have bought in the region of 30 something different colours. The greens are always just a bit too intense with too much regularity of colour and the sun bleached colours are just tooooooooo bleached... and of course I could never find something in the middle!

Eventually something so unbelievably obvious struck me... why don't I mix my own from the widely varying shades and lengths that I have in my possession?

I mixed about 60% of my 4mm sun bleached fibres with about 40% of my spring 2mm fibres and I essentially just added different volumes until I was satisfied with the colour cast that I had achieved.

Once I had mixed up a batch large enough I found a container to store them in and then turned to the bases.

On each of the bases I applied PVA glue to the 'undisturbed' areas of dirt that I decided I wanted covered with grass and then using my static flock applicator I liberally poured the flock onto the bases.

Once I felt that there was enough on the bases I tapped the excess off and left them to one side to dry

Bosh! Job done.... and not a bayonet in sight!