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!