Fort Kandahar

Fort Kandahar
(Armies In Plastic)

I found a nifty looking 54mm toy soldier sized desert fort on eBay recently, and bought it, of course. It is now in transit and should be arriving this week, so I am really excited by this acquisition.

Major General Pettygree and I were planning on running a huge 54mm toy soldier Sudan game at this year's Little Wars convention, which was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. My original plan called for the construction of a scratch-built desert fort, to be called Fort Kefir. I bought all of the construction materials: foam core board, bass wood, balsa wood, coffee stir sticks from Starbucks and some pieces of very thick corrugated card board that I had saved from a shipment of various household items.

The fort construction is going to take a lot of time and I've been torn between spending my time building the fort or painting Ansar and Dervish foot figures. My discovery of the Fort Kandahar toy set from Armies In Plastic rather solved this dilemna for me.

While the model is ostensibly made as an Afghan Hill Fort of the British Colonial period in the 19th Century, there is no reason why the model can't be used in the Sudan. Case in point, AIP also sells the same model as a French Foreign Legion Desert Fort:

French Foreign Legion fort from AIP

The pictures above and below indicate that the fort model is the same for Afghanistan and the Sahara Desert, so why not make it a fort in the Sudan as well?

The packaging indicates that the model has a footprint of 18-inches square, which is about half the size of my intended Fort Kefir idea. However, this will be more than adequate for use on my 12ft by 6ft game table in my basement. I will prime and paint the model and trick it out with various bits and bobs, and then affix it to a wood base.

The set includes 20 British army figures, 20 Indian army figures, and 20 Afghan tribesmen. Initially, I probably won't paint any of the soldier figures because I won't need them for my Sudan games.

Rear side of the box that shows all of the pieces in the set.

Front view of the box.

The bottom line: Fort Kandahar will save me a lot of time that I can use on painting hoards of Dervish figures.