Returning to painting Anglo-Zulu war units

Anglo-Zulu War Project

This past week, my Anglo-Zulu War project returned to the painting desk, and it is now slowly getting closer to completion. I think I have around five more units to finish, including some artillery, but this week’s focus was on building and painting some supply wagons.

Four wagons completed.

A close up. I am keeping my painting very simple and loose for this project.

The wagons themselves are made from blocks of wood which are shaped. The horses, oxen, wheels, and crew are taken from a wagon set. I found the soft plastic wagons that came with the wagon set had too many fiddly pieces that needed gluing together, and would probably be too fragile for my liking. So I opted for my usual approach of making the wagon bodies from wood and adding the other components.

The wagons are not glued to their bases, allowing them to be removed and used as defensives when required.

The wagons are not stuck to their bases - another reason for using a robust wooded approach in their construction.

The British forces seek protection behind the wagons.

I now have some more British units on the painting table, as I aim to complete this project by the end of the year.

All the completed British forces so far.

Napoleonic Artillery

Before I returned to painting units for the Anglo-Zulu War project, I was fortunate enough to pick up some second-hand Napoleonic artillery online at a good price, with the added bonus of low postage costs.

Artillery additions.

My rather rag-tag Napoleonic armies have been in need of some artillery for a long time. The infantry at the heart of these armies consist mainly of old 30mm Spencer-Smith plastic figures, which were kindly gifted to me by John of Wargame Hermit blog around a decade ago. Until now, I have been making do with artillery bases borrowed from the Spencer-Smith Seven Years' War armies.

The newly acquired artillery and crews are mainly 25mm Minifigs, along with one set of Hinchliffe figures (I believe). Although these figures are smaller than my 30mm Spencer-Smith infantry, the difference is not particularly noticeable once they are on the tabletop. I also help disguise height difference by giving them a slight boost in height by packing out their bases by a millimetre or two.

Spencer-Smith infantry unit beside the 25mm artillery (a wargamer's view).

Most of the figures were showing signs of wear and had clearly seen plenty of action on the tabletop over the years. Some needed only a few minor paint touch-ups here and there, while others required a more extensive repainting. Anyway, they are a useful addition to my rag-tag Napoleonic forces.

Making some dice trays to track unit strengths

I am currently playing around with some hex-based rules for my Sengoku period samurai armies, and one of the things I needed to do is keep track of each Sonae-sized unit's strength. I do this using three dice, with each die representing one of the three elements of the Sonae: arquebuses, Ashigaru armed with Yari and pikes and Samurai.

I have been using 12mm dice in different colours to track these strengths, and I soon found they were quite fiddly and easily knocked out of position when moving units around the tabletop.

Messing around with some Sendoku period rules.

There was definitely a need for some sort of dice tray. My initial thought was to make them from MDF, but I felt that they might end up being a little too bulky as well as fiddly to make. In the end I opted to make them from cardboard, the type you get from cereal packets, which proved to be to be a neat and tidy option.

The dice trays in use.

The base of each tray is cut from cardboard, measuring one and a half inches by half an inch, with an additional quarter of an inch on each side to form the walls. These dimensions work well for 12mm dice. Once cut out, the sides are bent upwards and strips of masking tape are used to hold the corners together.

The tray measurements are drawn on the cardboard and cut out.

The sides are bent upwards and strips of masking tape are used to hold the corners together. Masking tape proved to be easier than sticky tape as it can be repositioned if you attach it crooked.

All the trays prepared and tested with the dice.

Once all the trays have been assembled, they are glued to another piece of cardboard. This adds some strength to the tray base and also makes the remaining painting and flocking stages easier.

The trays are then given a coat of PVA glue. This does cause the cardboard sides to warp slightly, but once the glue has dried it is easy enough to bend them back into shape.

Once the glue is dry, the trays are painted green to match the bases of my armies, then a second coat of PVA glue is applied.

The trays are glued to another sheet of cardboard and given and overall coat of PVA glue.

The trays are given a coat of paint and once dry a second coat of PVA glue.

The final step is to glue flock to the sides of the trays. This serves two purposes. It ties the look of the trays in with the unit bases, while also adding some additional strength to the sides. Once the flock is in place and the glue dry, another coat of PVA glue is applied to seal it and hold everything securely in place.

After all the glue has dried, the individual trays can be carefully cut away from the cardboard they were mounted on.

Flock is added to the tray sides and sealed with a final coat of PVA glue.

The trays are cut away from the cardboard they are mounded on.

Having now used the trays in a couple of games, they have turned out to be a simple and cheap solution. The dice fit quite snugly inside the trays, but can still be easily lifted out, rotated to show a different face and placed back in position. On the occasions a tray gets knocked over, which has happened once, the dice remained in the tray.

The next post will likely be about one of the recent Samurai games.

The trays in action. It can get quite congested in a hex when two units melee.

Scratch made WW1 wagons and the next wargaming project

I have continued with the WW1 Middle East theme from my last post by making some very simple supply wagons for both the Turkish and British forces. I often end up with spare cavalry figures after painting units, as the HaT 1:72 scale figure boxes usually contain 16 figures while my cavalry units are made up of 12 figures. Rather than leaving the spare figures unused, I decided to put them to use as wagon teams.

The British wagons on the move.

Turkish wagons guarded by cavalry.

The wagons themselves are simple scratch-builds. They made from off-cuts of wood, with balsa-wood shaped to form the canopy. The wheels are made from washers and card glued together. Each wagon is drawn by one of the spare cavalry figures and a horse with the saddle removed. Like much of my WW1 armies, they are very basic models with any detail painted on so they look the part when viewed on the tabletop.

The almost completed wagon. The toothpick axles just have to be trimmed.

The wheels begin as washers glued to card. Once the glue is dry, they are cut out. This approach provides a nice round wheel with a good thickness.

A toothpick acts as the axle.

Any remaining wagon detail is painted on. I will often use a combination of a dark colour and lighter colour when painting details such as the wheel spokes.

Alongside the wagons I also completed a couple of howitzers crewed with some spare Indian figures that were converted and an officer. These will provide the British forces with some more artillery support. Again all the figures and models are HaT 1:72 scale (although the officers may be ESCI - not sure as the come from my spares box).

Indian crewed Howitzers

My next project arrived a couple of weeks ago. A large box with a selection of HaT 1/72 plastic figures for the Anglo-Zulu War. Prior to doing much with these kits, I have been waiting for a couple of second-hand books to arrive. This project was not planned, it was opportunistic, and came about when I saw Hannants.co.uk had a good number of boxes of HaT Zulus boxes available in stock.

The next project arrives.

Some reading.

Possible rules.

More on this project in the coming weeks (and months) as it progresses... 

WW1 Middle East adding landing boats and Royal Marines

While painting the Indian units for my WW1 Middle East games (see the previous post) I decided to continue with the WW1 theme by adding a few landing boats and a unit of Royal Marines. This will give more options and variety when setting up scenarios, as British naval forces supported a number of land operations during the war, eg, the Dardanelles, Mesopotamia, the defence of the Suez Canal, and Red Sea operations supporting the Arab Revolt.

A unit of Royal Marines are landed ashore.

The Royal Marines are HaT 20mm WW1 British Infantry (Early) simply painted in a dark blue. Although this uniform was replaced by khaki fairly early in the war, but I chose to keep the blue help them stand out from the other British units on the tabletop.

The Marines advance.

After they were painted, I decided to have a go at making some simple landing boats. They were cut from 19mm MDF board into basic boat shapes. For their crews, I used spare HaT WW1 cavalry figures that had previously lost their horses to making some supply units. These figures were cut in half at the waist and glued into the boats. After initially painting them grey, I thought they would look better if I added a second crewman to each boat along with a rudder made from a cut down matchstick.

You can see how simple the models are. Along with an additional crewman I did attach a cut down match stick to the stern to represent a rudder.

The models are very simple, but they are robust and quick to make. Rather than modelling detail, I rely on the overall shape and paint to give the impression of landing boat. I use a rather loose painting style and try to give the impression of detail, rather than painting details themselves. Sometimes this approach works, while other times it does not and the models will get undercoated again until I get the look I want. For models that will not get a great deal of use, and are viewed at three feet, I am quite happy with the results.

A closer view of the model boats shows the loose strokes of paint to give the impression of detail.

A wargamer's view from three feet.

I have a small ship made from wood off-cuts to represent the Campbeltown from when I setup a St.Nazaire game which I can re-use to support the amphibious scenarios.

A basic block ship from which troops are ferried ashore.

The next post will either about adding some more supply wagons to the WW1 collection, or a post about my next planned project which has been recently delivered, and was not on my planned list of things to do in 2026.

Waste not, want not, terrain and a Starfighter

In my last post I made some alien-looking plants using seed pods from a Banksia tree which I found on a walk on Christmas day. While making the terrain (see previous post for details), I cut the bottom off each of the seed pods. These offcuts still looked interesting, so I decided not to throw them away.

More alien plants added as scatter terrain.

A day or so later, while sorting through my stash of various plastic plants I have collected over the years, but never fully used. I found some sprouting flower pieces that looked like they could be attached to the Banksia offcuts to create a few more alien-looking plants. With that in mind, I drilled holes to attach the flowers and then painted the pieces.

The following is a quick overview of the steps involved in making the plants.

The off cuts of the Banksia seed pods.

Some unused plastic pieces of plant not used with sprouting flowers.

Holes were drilled into the off cuts to hold the flowers.

The off cuts were given a green wash, dry-brushed with a light green, and finally dabs of yellow added. 

The finished plants on the tabletop.

I think I have now done my dash with creating alien-looking plants for the moment. Keeping with the Sci-Fi theme, a recent addition to my Star Wars Legion collection is a 1/72 scale X-Wing Starfighter for the Rebel forces. I already have a TIE Fighter for the Imperial forces. Although the 1/72 scale models are smaller than Star Wars Legion figures, which stand at around 30 mm tall, the fighters do not look out of place and appear suitably proportioned when mounted on sticks so they stand about 12 inches above the tabletop. With this addition, both forces now have access to air support, and the X-Wing will be used in the same way as the TIE Fighter, providing scenario-driven air support.

The latest addition to my Star Wars collection.

The X-Wing and TIE fighter.

That’s all for 2025…

Kit-bashing a couple of Star Wars Legion models

This week I was rummaging through my Star Wars Legion spares box, filled with all those leftover and unused bits from past kits, to see if I could find enough pieces to kit-bash a couple of new models. I managed to come up with two, the first model was a Mandalorian riding a dinosaur. The model began with a child’s plastic dinosaur that I had picked up from a local discount shop. The rider uses the spare body of a seated Clone Trooper combined with an unused Mandalorian head and jet-pack. The figure fitted neatly on the dinosaur, and I sculpted a saddle and straps using Green Stuff epoxy putty, while the reins were made from thin wire.

A kit-bashed model for my Star Wars Legion collection.

The hardest part of this model turned out to be painting the dinosaur. In my first attempt I used a grey base with a blue wash. It did not look right at all. So, after a bit of research into dinosaur colours and patterns, I tried again with a clay tone and yellow shading. This gave the creature a far more natural and interesting appearance, well suited to a desert environment.

The unpainted model with the plastic toy dinosaur.

The dinosaur colour and. patterning took a while to get right.

 The Mandalorian rider will be able to serve with either Imperial or Rebel forces. 

The reason I decided to make the rider a Mandalorian, was so the model could serve with either Imperial or Rebel forces. The idea of using a dinosaur came from my existing Imperial Dewback Rider, and the scale of the model fits perfectly alongside it.

A comparison to the "Official" Dewback Rider.

The second kit-bashed model I put together was a repair droid. Its body comes from the centre console of another model. I always paint in the windows so I can skip building the interiors. The head and tracks were taken from an unused variant of a different droid kit, while the spare arms came from a more humanoid-style of droid. With all these mismatched parts combined, the finished model definitely has a bit of a Frankenstein vibe to it.

The kit-bashed droid.

he droid seems to be waving his arms around saying "Danger! Danger!"

I plan to use the droid to undertake repairs to any damaged vehicles in my Star Wars games.

Preparing for a cheap and cheerful Naval Wargame

While sorting through and tidying up various free rule sets I have downloaded over the years to my computer, I came across a set of Napoleonic naval wargame rules. With the anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar (21 October 1805) next week, it seemed like a good idea to get my scratch built semi-flat Napoleonic ships out of their storage box and onto the tabletop for a game.

I made these ships back in 2018 using 3mm MDF and card. However, they have rarely seen any action since. For those interested, the original post with details on how I built them can be found here.

My scratch built ships in action.

One thing I never finished at the time was adding flags to distinguish the ships of each side. So this weekend I set about remedying that by making some simple flags using nails and masking tape. The flags will slot into small holes drilled into the stern of each model ship. That way it gives me flexibility to use the ships for other nationalities.

Masking tape is attached to the small nails.

 

Holes are drilled into the stern of the model ships.

The flags are painted and await a coat of PVA to seal them.

The flags added to the French fleet.

With the ships now flying their flags, I set up the tabletop using a blue felt cloth which on one side is marked out in hexes. Each hex corner (or vertex - I had to look that up) has a small dab of whitish paint to suggest waves, and the entire cloth is covered with a clear plastic sheet, which helps give a wet and watery look.

The dabs of paint mark out the hexes. I have drawn out a hex to give an idea of a hex.

Another missing element was a way to track hits. In my first test game, I used dice, but they looked rather out of place on the table trailing behind the ships. To improve on this, I cut some small square counters from 3mm MDF to record damage. Each counter has its sides numbered and is placed beside the ship to show the hits it has taken. Originally, the tokens were simply painted blue, but before adding the numbers with a marker I added a couple of washes and dabbed the surface to create a dappled effect. This helps to break up the flat colour.

The square counters. One counter as 1-4 on one side and 5-8 on the other. The second counter has 9-12 on one side and 13-16 on the other. This way I can if needs be track up to 16 hits.

The ship in the foreground has taken 7 hits and the one in the background has 3 hits.

All being well my next post will cover the game and rules for a small Napoleonic Naval engagement.