British Camel Corps Arrives, And HOW!

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Yesterday I finished 12 more 54mm Armies In Plastic British Camel Corps figures. I now have 40 mounted Camel Corps ("CC") figures and 4 pack camels. My goal is to paint 60 CC and 8 pack camels for my Historicon 2023 war game. The idea is to have one mounted CC figure for each dismounted CC figure that I have.

So what does one do when one suddenly has 40 large 54mm Camel Corps figures? Why we have a parade!

I added two Trophy of Wales metal Camel Corps command figures: the officer in the blue tunic and the gentleman carrying the colors. I have them formed up seven across in six rows.

CC command group. The two figures in the center are metal figures
from Trophy of Wales.

A wider view of the desert table top. The column of Camel Corps are
venturing out into the desert where Dervish cavalry await them.

This photo kind of reminds me of the famous painting of the Camel Corps that seemingly had an endless frontage.

Here's the Director's Cut photograph, showing some of the behind the scenes set up:

I think that I need more blue sky felt to extend the back drop.

More to come within a few weeks. I have reordered another dozen or so CC figures from AIP this week. I wonder if I should dress some of the figures in red coats?

Big Train Has Arrived in the Sudan Project

 

Bachmann G Scale locomotive and coal tender. 
This is G Scale size.

My Bachmann locomotive and coal tender arrived yesterday. They are in G Scale which is the largest train scale, with the trains typically used outdoors in gardens. All G Scale brands seem to be compatible with track made by LGB. The different cars are supposed to be compatible, except for one little thing: they all have different coupling attachments. This means that for now, I can't hook my LGB flat car up with my Bachmann coal tender. Apparently one can buy a kit that allows one to change out the coupling knuckle for one that is compatible with another brand. So I will have to make a trip to the local model train shop to get some help on this. However, for now, this is not a big problem.

I think that next week might be devoted to making terrain and one of the projects will be to imbed the sleeper ties into a terrain base which should help with the visual look of the train and help to lower its profile relative to the size of the 54mm figures.

Here are some pictures that I took yesterday:

The engine looks like I can use "as is", but I plan to do a little bit of conversion work on the coal tender, such as covering over the "Vanderbilt" name and replacing the coal with dark ballast material. That might have to wait another week because I went to focus more on ground terrain pieces.

52 Weeks To Historicon - the Sudan Project

 

NEW PAGE ADDED TO THIS BLOG - CHECK IT OUT!

Here is just a quick note to let everyone know that I have added a new page to this blog. If you look at the top of the page, underneath the headline picture of Frederick the Great, you will see a "Home" button and a "52 Weeks to Historicon 2023" button that takes you to page two of this blog.

My regular posts will continue to be on the Home Page so that part doesn't change. The "52 Weeks, etc." button will have a weekly update on my Historicon 2023 game preparation. My Historicon game will be "Khartoum!" in case you haven't figured that out yet.

So every Friday or Saturday I will post a summary of what I did or accomplished for the Khartoum game. Blogger does not seem to allow me to post more than one post on the second page so the weekly summary is one very long post. You will have to scroll down to the end of the post each week to read about the progress. I will likely add some additional pages as the weeks pass by because 52 updates in one post is going to be difficult to follow. I may divide the 52 week period into quarters or thirds, which will allow me to shorten the overall length of the post

CAMEL CORPS WEEK UPDATE

Camel Corps week is going very well as of today, Friday. I have painted 12 camels and 6 riders are completed and glossed. I have 6 more riders to finish and hopefully they should be finished by this evening.

I did an inventory of the number of dismounted Camel Corps figures that I have and the number has grown to a staggering 64 figures! My plan is for each soldier to have a corresponding soldier riding a camel. When the Camel Corps reaches a destination or is forced to dismount for the purpose of fighting, then I will remove the mounted camels from the table and lay out the dismounted figures on the table. I will place maybe 6 camels laying down in the center of the Camel Corps square to represent the camels of the regiment.

So I will have 40 mounted Camel Corps by tomorrow, which means that I have another 20 to 24 mounted CC figures to paint. I may limit the CC to 60 figures (15 figures on each side of a square).

It’s Camel Corps Week!

 

This week’s fox is the painting of a dozen Armies In Plastic British Camel Corps figures. These will bring my mounted CC contingent to 40 figures. My goal is to eventually have 50 to 60 mounted Camel Corps figures to align with a similar number of dismounted CC figures. 

The idea is that my mounted Camel Corps will move across the wargame table. Stop and dismount. Then form square to fight the Dervish attack. Below are some pictures of the AIP Camel Corps that I painted back in 2020.

CC troops did not fight on their camels like horse cavalry, but rather, the camel served as a vehicle to quickly move from Point A to Point B. There the CC soldiers would dismount and fight on foot. By the way, the CC soldiers did force their camels to the ground to be used as protection from Dervish bullets. The camels were collected and held in the center of the battle square.

I am looking forward to painting more camels this week and adding them to my forces. I primed the figures last night so that I will have them ready to paint today.

BLOG UPDATE!

I have added a new page to my blog, titled "52 Weeks to Historicon '23". Click on the page tab at the top of this blog so that you can see a weekly summary of the progress that I am making on my Sudan Project and Khartoum game for Historicon next year.

Giving Old Britain's Figures A Make Over

 

The original Mountain gun crew figure is on the right

The other day I was in between painting projects, waiting for the primer to dry on some figures that I planned to paint, so instead, I started playing around with repainting some of the old Britain's British Mountain Artillery gun and crew. What caused this was the need to paint a "bat man" to accompany a personality figure (me) that I am sending off to Fort Rexford, which is under the command of the delightful Claude B. I have about 20 of the Mountain Gun crew figures so I selected a handful of the more beaten up ones and decided to give them new uniforms.

The figure on the left in each picture is a British Camel Corps uniform, the red coat is a Guards uniform, the khaki is a generic British khaki uniform, and the dark blue is a Royal Artillery uniform. The original Britain's figure is on the far right in each photo.

I am still trying to decide on whether to gloss coat the figures in the old Britain's style or leave them with a matte finish. I really like the matte finish, but using gloss on a Britain's figure makes sense and could be quite compelling. I might paint one more figure and give it a gloss coating to see what it looks like.

Next Week's Painting Schedule

I have another 16 plastic Sudanese soldiers to paint this week and this will build the regiment up to three companies of 16 figures for a total of 48 figures. These will likely be finished within the next two days.

I might experiment with painting the flat car for the Sudan Rail Road project and the sleepers (ties) could use a coat of paint over the plastic pieces.

Future Painting Schedule

I need more Beja warriors and I have enough figures to paint another unit of 50 figures. I need to clip off the swords and replace them with pin swords before I paint them, so this takes an extra bit of time in order to het them going.

I have 20 Ansar Riflemen ready to paint.

Also another dozen mounted Camel Corps figures. That reminds me, I need to buy more of the Armies In Plastic Camel Corps set that includes 2 pack camels and 2 troopers. The pack camels will come in handy for the scenario from the movie Khartoum where Gordon ventures out of the city to forage for food and other edible supplies.

54mm Republican Romans and Carthaginians are also in the painting queue.

Somewhere along the line I will probably take a break from painting 54mm figures and paint some more Minden Austrians and Prussians.

Bell Tents & Sudanese Regulars

 

A couple of Bell Tents arrived yesterday, made Britains for their Zulu War figure range, and I immediately sent them to the Egyptian outpost in these pictures. I was gobsmacked by the size of these tents whose diameter is 8-inches. They take up a lot of real estate to say the least, but they look good.

This past week I have been painting Sudanese regulars in the Egyptian army and I have two companies of 16 figures (32 figures total) completed as of this writing. I am using the same Armies In Plastic Egyptian figures, but give them dark skin, blue trousers, tan fezzes, and green collars and cuffs. I can't confirm whether or not the uniform colors that I've used are accurate. I went by the color scheme of some Trophy of Wales Sudanese troops.

The uniform distinctions that I have painted will make it easier to identify Egyptians from Sudanese on the table top. For now, I use movement trays that hold 8 figures in two ranks (4x2 =8) and two trays equal one "company" of 16 figures. I have three companies in a regiment (16 x 3 = 48 figures) for my Egyptian Army regiments. Eventually I might increase the size to a total of 62 figures (16 x 4 = 62). This compares to Mahdist war bands of 60 to 100 figures.

The next issue, to be discussed at a later date, is how many figures should comprise a "square" of Egypt

Oh Dear, What Have I Done Now?

 

Egyptian Krupp gun mounted on a G Scale railroad flatbed car.
Heritage Camerons provide some support.

Click on all images to enlarge

I was looking at one of Dave Docherty's pictures of his 28mm Sudan game (aren't those Perry figures wonderful?) and noticed that he had a train, tracks and various workers laying new railroad track in the Sudan. So naturally the thought of adding an electric train to my 54mm Sudan Project started whispering in my ear (do it! do it! you know you want to). Here is a link to Dave's fine blog One Man And His Brushes .

Carlo Pagano offers another outstanding Sudan blog:    With Pyjamas Through the Desert . Carlo is the author of the "Sands of the Sudan" rules, which have their origins from Peter Gilder's Wargames Holiday Centre.

Both of these blogs are a must see if you have an interest in the Sudan campaigns of the 1880s and 1890s. The modeling and creativity of both men are truly inspirational.

Dave Docherty's Sudan game at Partizan this year.
Dave is the source of much of my Sudan inspiration.
(Photo by Dave)

So I started an investigation of train scales and sizes that might be compatible with 54mm and 60mm toy soldier figures . It turns out that "G Scale" is a very close match to my Sudan figures. G Scale is the largest size of model/hobby trains and it is often used for outdoors track setups in one's garden.

Yesterday I visited a local railroad train hobby store to get the lowdown on G scale versus O scale (the next size smaller). I brought several wargame figures with me to see how they looked with the two different scales. G scale was the obvious winner, so I bought four sections of railroad track and one LGB flatcar so that I can put them on my game table and see how they look with my 54mm figures.

Take a look for yourself:

And these:

The Egyptian artillery crew and Krupp gun are from the Britains "War Along The Nile" range of 54/60mm figures for the campaign to rescue Charles Gordon at Khartoum. The Cameron Highlanders are from a company called Heritage, if I recall correctly. Another company called Little Legion also makes suitably sized figures that are similar to the old Trophy of Wales figures. It looks to my eye that all of my metal toy soldiers look perfectly at home with the G scale railroad rolling stock. The 54mm Armies In Plastic figures look a little on the small size, in so far as the cars are high above ground, but I think that they will work as they look just fine standing on the train models.

Well, if I'm going to have an electric train set on my game table, then I certainly must have it in working order. Fortunately, track can be set up in a "point to point" arrangement so that I could have a straight line of track going down the length of my game table. It would look a bit silly to have an oval layout on the table and the extra track would take up too much space (as if the train models don't take up a lot of space). 

The rolling stock and engines are approximately 12-inches in length so I think that a maximum of 3 to 4 cars is more than enough. I would need the locomotive engine, a coal tender and a flat bed car to carry track and ties or armed with cannon or Gatling Guns to protect the train.

I would have to decide on a brand of rolling stock to use. LGB track can be used with nearly all G scale trains. I'm told that the problem is that one brand of cars may not be compatible with the other brand in terms of hooking up the cars together. I've kind of narrowed it down to either LGB or Piko trains, both of which are made in Germany.

So am I going to add a train to my Sudan campaign? What do you think?

Painting Update:

I finished 10 more Haddendowa warriors over the weekend and now I'm started on 16 Sudanese infantry in the service of the Egyptian Army during this period. Check the running total of new figures painted for this project in the upper righthand corner.