Sudan Game Countdown - 5 Days to Go

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The game room and table get ready for this weekend's action. (CLICK TO ENLARGE ALL PIX)

 I have been busy tweaking the game table and terrain these past few days and pretty much have things set up and ready to go for Saturday July 23rd game.

The light khaki Steadfast brand of toy soldiers have gone back to their barracks and their place in the camp has been taken by various Trophy of Wales miniature: Lincolnshire Regt (khaki), the Camel Corps ( grey-blue) , the Berkshire Regt. (Grey serge ), the Sussex Regt. (Red coats) and the 1st Madras Sihks. There are approximately 100 infantry soldiers plus supporting artillery crew and machine gun crew and a few vignettes to dress up the table. That lot forms the 1st Brigade commanded by Colonel Archibald Sinclair, of the 72nd Seaforth Highlanders. Bill P. will be bringing his collection of New Britains and John Jenkins Designs Marines, RN Sailors, and Gordon & Black Watch Highlanders.

The Dervish seem to be growing in strength on a daily basis. Our young scout, Lt. Harry Faversham, has been behind the lines and in the Dervish camp and he informs us that there are close to 450 foot and mounted figures in the Khalifa's army. Rumor has it that Osman Digna has travelled in from the Suakin region of Sudan, bringing a large banner of fierce Beja and Haddendoa tribesmen to reinforce the Khalifa's army and to destroy the invaders and nonbelievers.

I plan on posting more pictures and updates every day this week, so come back and visit the blog again ( and be sure to post some comments, we really enjoy reading your comments). In the meantime, enjoy today's pictures, including some newly arrived dismounted Camel Corps, and be sure to click or double click each picture to enlarge the view.

I have to say that these large 54mm toy soldiers are quite photogenic and make it easy for me to take and post good pictures. I would also encourage a visit to Major General Pettygree's blog for more background on this epic game that we are about to have.

View of the new camp, with new troops deployed.

View from the front of the camp showing the artillery position, general and staff, and other troops.

The right flank of the camp. Note the second line of reserves that are ready to plug any break throughs.

Newly arrived Steadfast (?) dismounted Camel Corps.

xxx

British Encampment at Dongala

The British Encampment at Dongala is Established

Colonel Archibald Sinclair of the Seaforth Highlanders regiment, stationed in Egypt circa 1884, has been assigned the task of taking his brigade up the Nile to Dongala, where he is to establish a beach head or base camp for the the rest of Major General Pettygree's army. Pettygree is part of the Khartoum Relief Force under the command of Garnet Wolsey.

Colonel Sinclair brought a brigade of 100 figures (about 1,000 men at 1:10 ratio), traveling to Dongala via Nile river gunboat and quickly set to work to create a zariba of thorn bushes to protect the men from a possible Dervish attack.

The first square and zariba are establish at the Dongala beachhead. A band of Haddendoa and Ansar make a feint attack on the square to assess its strength.

Several times the Dervish mounted feint attacks on the square in order to assess the quality of the defenders (would they break or stand fast?), but never brought the attack home. The zariba also had the support of the Nile River Gunboat with its Krupp cannon.

Nile River Gunboat supports the zariba. A squadron of British lancers also disembark to provide scouting and support for Sinclair's brigade.

Colonel Sinclair (on the left without his sun helmet) holds a staff meeting to assess the progress of the base camp.

Work party details unload supplies while other soldiers try out the new water wagon to slake their thirst.

Next to arrive is the artillery, which brings a sense of comfort to the British. Note that the zariba has grown in size and now abuts the Nile River.

British 7 pound guns face to the front while Gatling Guns watch the flanks. The Camel Corps detachment provides a back stop to the artillery position, just in case the Dervish break through.

Camel Corps Gatling Gun

Overhead view showing how the camp has grown in size.

More cavalry arrives: detachments from the 21st Lancers and several regiments from India.

Sinclair holds another staff meeting to check on the progress of the camp. The assessment: everything is ready for General Pettygree's arrival next week.

Colonel Sinclair rides around the camp to inspect the progress. At his side (wearing fez) is young Brevet-Major Herbert Kitchener.

The table set up is coming along nicely now. We have approximately 430 Dervish foot and cavalry and we will probably place 200 foot and 36 cavalry on the British side of the table.

Old Britain's Arabs of the Desert Grow In Numbers

 

A hoard of some 80+ Britain's Arabs will pose quite a challenge for our intrepid General Pettygree.

My collection of forces fighting under the Mahdi's banner has grown substantially over the past month, due in large part to acquisitions of Britain's Arabs of the Desert toy soldier figures, via eBay and other sources. My count from last evening was 84 Arabs on foot, 8 on camels, and 38 on horse (these are just the old Britain's figures). I would like to grow the force to around 100  foot, 12 camels and 40-48 horse.

Britain's Arab Bedouin horsemen and camels and some of the large New Britain's on the camels in the background.

The most recent figure count indicates that the Dervish will have approximately 400 figures (318 foot and 82 horse and camel mounted figures) available to fight around half that amount of British troops.

Most of my eBay purchases arrive well packed and packaged, sometimes to an extreme. It can be a little bit annoying to cut through three layers of clear packing tape binding three layers of bubble wrap, which in turn, are placed inside a second or third box and smothered in plastic packing peanuts. On the other hand, it shows that the seller really cares about delivering an undamaged product so I appreciate that aspect of it.


Once in awhile, though, you see something that makes you shake your head in amazement. I offer you this photographic evidence depicting two lots of Britain's Arabs "as they arrived" as I opened up the box in which they were "packed":






I swear that this is how the figures arrived once I opened the red Britain's boxes.

What makes this even stranger is the fact that the seller went to great pains to protect the boxes in layers of plastic bubble wrap and peanuts. Note that I did not mention the word "figures" in the previous sentence. So while the boxes were wrapped in three layers of bubble wrapped, then placed in a huge shipping box that was filled with peanuts, guess what the seller forgot to do.

That's right, he left the figures loose INSIDE THE RED BOX and I could hear them rattling around inside the boxes as I gingerly removed said boxes from a deep pool of packing peanuts. So what good was it to carefully protect the boxes when the figures were left loose inside the boxes?????

As Bugs Bunny would say, "what a maroon!"

The seller should have either wrapped each individual figure in bubble wrap or tissue paper and then pack them inside the red Britain's boxes, and then maybe add a bit of foam or bubble wrap inside the box to ensure that nothing was going to be loose inside and rattling around. In fact, most eBay sellers would have wrapped the individual figures.

Miraculously, the figures did not seem worse for wear and nothing arrived broken. Admittedly the figures are well-worn from years of play, some with chipped paint and exposed metal, some with broken muskets, but on the whole they had the patina of age that I was looking for. It is kind of like the show "American Pickers" where they are searching for rusty gold and the more beat up an item is the better. These figures were purchased by me with the intent to use them on the table top so I do not require them to be in tip top mint condition. I like them sort of beat up and used - makes them look like the veterans that they are meant to depict.

The other day I also acquired 9  Trophy of Wales brand of mounted Dervish figures on eBay. If you were one of the other bidders on the lot, then my apologies go out to you, but rest assured, they are being put to good purpose. I wonder how many of the "collector quality" figures actually get to experience a table top battle.

We are now about 9 days away from our big toy soldier battle. There will be 8 players (maybe 9) with three on the British side and 5-6 on the Dervish side. Each player will command from 60 to 100 individual figures that are not mounted on sabots or stands or movement trays. It should be quite something to see once all of the forces are out on the table.

AWI Hessians Are Now Available for On-line Store Sales

Hessian grenadiers and musketeers marching.

I have added the AWI Hessian musketeers and grenadiers to the Fife & Drum Miniatures web site and on-line web store so they are now available for sale to everyone.


Click on the following link to the web site:


Fife & Drum Web Store Link




We now accept either Pay Pal or credit cards for payment.



Hessian firing line figures.

Nile River Gunboat & Naval Shore Party

Nile River Gunboat supports the British square

Things are getting serious in the Sudan, say what? (click all pix to enlarge the view)

Here are a couple new additions to the Sudan set up. I have to go to the July 4th Parade right now, so here are the pix, commentary to follow later today.

British ox drawn 4.7 inch naval gun and crew

The gunboat is from the Wm. Britain's War On The Nile Range and includes a crew of 12 figures, including a Krupp gun and Egyptian artillery crew. I bought some blue felt yesterday, and of course it looks too blue to be the Nile, but blue signifies water to everyone. I took a can of Krylon dark green paint and sprayed some random blotches of green on the felt to tone down the bright blue felt. I may give it another coating of paint as darker looks better.

Nile River gunboat - this is a really nifty model!

The gunboat supports a squadron of lancers ashore. Meanwhile, Spin and Marty seem a little bit lost. Where did that square go?

A 12-horse squadron of British/Indian converged lancers. I have another dozen on their way from various eBay purchases.

I found a British naval gun and crew of sailors stashed away in a closet. It includes three pairs of oxen to pull the large cannon. I probably won't use it in my toy soldier game, but it looks cool and deserves to be displayed on the table for awhile. The set is made by Alymer of Spain and I think that the company is no longer in business.

Oxen-drawn naval gun behind the Yorks. & Lancs. Regiment.

Behind the oxen is a collection of the York & Lancaster Regiment from Wm. Britain's along with a few Camel Corps figures to pad out the firing line. These figures will not be in our game either, but will undoubtedly see action in the future. Bill Pr. has a collection of 54/60mm Britains British Marines, Gatling Gun and Sailors to we have the ability to combine our forces and use them as a separate British army. Maybe one army fights Osman Digna around Suakin and the other fights the Mahdi or the Khalifa along the Nile river.

I also made more Acacia trees, bringing my total up to nine trees and then I made some test strips of zariba glued onto craft sticks (think giant popsicle sticks). I really like the way that my Sudan terrain is developing, bit by bit as I add more terrain items. I really like the piles of large rocks with the 54mm figures - I found the rocks while walking my dog Tiberius.

Acacia trees, therein lurk the Hadendoa riflemen!

Happy July 4th (or the very first Brexit)

July 4th parade in Lake Bluff, Illinois

Today is the Fourth of July, our most important national holiday in the United States, in which we celebrate the signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. We also call it Independence Day, but maybe it was really the very first Brexit in history. Think about that for a minute.

Fourth of July is celebrated with parades in almost every town and city across the land, followed by cook outs (searing the meat of cows, pigs and sheep on an open charcoal grill), baseball games (The American Sport) and concluding with evening fireworks expositions.

Most important thing of all though is that it is a day when we are all Americans and we are all one people, no matter where we came from, no matter who we choose to worship, and no matter what we think about politics. It is a day when we remember what binds us together as Americans.

It is also a day when we can get silly and corny.

We like to mock our politicians on July 4th, especially when they deserve the mocking.

This year our family decided to be a part of the annual July 4th parade in Lake Bluff, Illinois. We belong to the Union Church of Lake Bluff, a non-denominational church, where things are informal and we just have a darned lot of fun. It is our 150th anniversary as a church this year, so we decided that we would enter a float in this year's parade.

So we decorated a flat bed truck, provided by one of our member, with flags and balloons to get in the spirit of the day. The children got to sit in the back of the truck, where they threw buckets of candy to parade observers along the parade rout. The adults got to carry a banner stating who we were and walk in front of the float.

Our humble UCLB parade float.

 There were over 100 different parade entries, and this steel band caught my attention as they were warming up across from our starting position on the parade rout.

A funky decorated school bus carries the steel band.

The steel band.

 Here are a couple of pictures of our group setting up the truck with balloons and then carrying our banner in front of the truck.

I have watched this parade for nearly 20 years, but this was the first time that I had been a part of the parade. I am so used to sitting on the street curb watching the parade go by and so little did I know how big the throng of parade watchers was. You get a different perspective when you are in the parade and walking past thousands of people dressed in red, white and blue. Everyone is having a party in front of their house along the parade rout. Some of the spreads are quite elaborate including tents with tables full of cakes, lemonade and other goodies to eat.

It is really a sight to behold. It is a little bit corny, but that is one of the things that make America what it is.

I don't have as many pictures as normal, since I was busy walking down the street and waving to the crowd.

We had Highland Pipe Band behind us and only occasionally could I hear them as the parade floats uncoiled from the starting point and started to stretch out onto the streets. I was too busy paying attention to what was going on in front of me so I was very unaware of what might have been going on behind me. It was all over in a flash - much too soon it seemed, but it took about an hour to walk the whole parade rout from start to finish.

JP

Making Acacia Trees for the Sudan

Sudan landscape north of Khartoum showing typical Acacia trees and some camels.

My home made Acacia trees with some John Jenkins Designs Beja riflemen in 54mm.

A little trip to Michael's Stores for craft materials always generates ideas for making terrain pieces. I wanted to dress up the game table for the 54mm toy soldier game that we are playing on July 23rd and after seeing the first picture above and the last picture at the end, I knew that I had to make some Acacia trees to dot the desert terrain.

I used plastic flowers from Michaels Stores to make the trees, clipping them off of the stem and then hot gluing them onto a round basswood disk, spray painted with a brown undercoat and then speckled and dipped in grit.

Another view, note the use of real rocks in the background.

Here is a close up of the real thing. I think that I did a good job of capturing the look of the Acacia tree. These were used to make the defensive zaribas by the British when they made camp.

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