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Started my first forays into 19th century Colonial Africa Wargaming, and rather than go down the popular Sudan or Zulu war side of things I started to cobble together a force of Somali tribesmen as well as a Colonial British force to oppose them.

Just finished painting up my first unit, some Copplestone Castings Somali archers. My cameras a bit rubbish so not the greatest photo.



And theres this chap I converted up from the Perrys plastic Sudanese Tribesmen. I cut away the Fuzzy Wuzzy fro and replaced it with a greenstuff Somali fro, also added a greenstuff Somali Hippo skin shield. Only 39 more afros to go



Some Riflemen and a scout up next on the painting table.

I love your work on all of those warm browns and smooth shading. It's always a treat to see something unique like this, especially when done in a simple and clean way.

Thanks

It is quite a refreshing change to paint figures that aren't festooned in equipment and intricate detail. One of the things that attracted me to build a Somali force was there simple yet striking visual style.

Very nicely painted

Cheers

Painted this fella up today an exotically equipped (well for somalis) wise old veteran warrior to act as a scout for my force.

Good to see something a tad different!
The converting and painting look well!
Well done Cpt keep up the good work

Thanks! its always nice to have a bit of variety

Though I wish I could stop being attracted by "horde" armys, first goblins then empire and now Somalis
Oh my aching paint table.

Understand entirely. How many unpainted gobbo do I have?
Think it is why I prefer skirmish games so much more!

Fortunately these blokes are a horde skirmish army
probably max out around 60 figures thats barely 1 unit in a gobbo army. So I have hopes I will be able to maintain my sanity at the end of this project

Looks like a nice start! Great to see lesser popular armies being made. How are the perry plastic africans? Havent seen too many myself

There really quite brilliant, very easy and quick to assemble. Also probably the best poses I have seen on multi part plastics, very dynamic and realistic.

Just realised:
Hippo skin shields!

Did Somalian warriors have to play Angry Hippos to prove their manhood or were they just plain crazy?

My apologies, when I saw the titles I was expecting a bunch of guys in a beat-up toyota truck with AK-47's and RPG's. However, these figs look very well done. What game are they for?

Chibi Bodge-Battle wrote:Just realised:
Hippo skin shields!

Did Somalian warriors have to play Angry Hippos to prove their manhood or were they just plain crazy?

Not sure how they whent about getting the Hippo skin, but I imagine it resulted in one unhappy Hippo

warpcrafter wrote:My apologies, when I saw the titles I was expecting a bunch of guys in a beat-up toyota truck with AK-47's and RPG's. However, these figs look very well done. What game are they for?

The rules I am using are "In the heart of Africa" 2nd edition

Its comparable to 40K in scale with armys ranging from 20 to 100 or so models depending on what army your using.
You can field a variety native African tribes and kingdoms, as well as Arab slavers, white explorers and European Colonial expeditions (the space marines of the game essentially)
Troop types range from various native warrior types up to professional soldiers, machineguns and river gunboats.

They look great. It's always nice to see something completely different.
I really like the bases, they are simple and add a very African feeling to the models.

Great models, really like the shading on the cloth!

Looked in thinking you were recreating Black Hawk down............not an RPG in sight!!!!

None the less, they look very good chap.

Well I am making a scenario called "the Black Hawk down" as an intro game for my mates

It involves a ship going down rather than a Helicopter and a mission to rescue the passengers who are being held for ransom by a Somali warlord.

So you were not far off

Ship passengers held to ransom by Somali warlords? Pshaw ... what kind of bizarre fantasy game are you playing?

Nice job, and great to see some historicals over here on Dakka. What colors did you use for the skintone?

Thanks

For the skin I used a base coat of Dark Flesh over a black undercoat, then did 2 or 3 highlights by mixing in some Vallejo Elf Skintone. And to finish it off a wash of Devlin Mud.