2mm Colonial: More preparations for Ginnis

Now some more preparatory thoughts concerning re-fighting the Battle of Ginnis, with simplified Orders of Battle culled from the Savage and Soldier article quoted in a previous post.

General Grenfell, on his approach to Kosha and its besieged fort divided the Anglo-Egyptian forces into two mixed Brigades, with a further Cavalry/Mounted Brigade in attendance.

The First Brigade, under General Butler, consists of the 1st Berkshire, the Royal West Kents and the 2nd Battalion Durham Light Infantry; these were backed up by a Camel Battery and 11th company Royal Engineers, the artillery having a small guard of sixty men from the 3rd Egyptian Regiment.

For Wargaming purposes, this boils down to the three Infantry Battalion stands we see below, as well as two guns (I'm imagining the camels of the battery to be somewhere else - these are rather tricky to model in 2mm - though I'm still working on it....)

Very sharp eyes will note that the stand on the right is still in Khaki - I felt that the 2DLI, in their 'light' role might have retained this - the others of course in the red tunic as ordered historically:

The Second Brigade under Colonel Huyshe consists of the Yorkshires, six companies of the Cameron Highlanders, a mixed unit from the IX Sudanese and the 1st Egyptians, three companies of the Egyptian Camel Corps, with a small detachment of their British counterpart, a Mule battery of 2/1 South Irish Division Royal Artillery, and two further Gardener Guns.

In the front, then, we have the two British battalions or their equivalents, followed by the Sudanese and Egyptians, then the Gardeners and the artillery:

The Mounted Brigade under Colonel Blake consists of the 20th Hussars, and a mixture of Egyptian Camel Corps and Cavalry, as well as a small group described as British Mounted Infantry of the Royal Highlanders; again, this will probably be simplified to the two stands below, 20th Hussars on the right, Camel Corps to the left:

As so often in the Colonial period, it is rather hard to pin down the exact nature of the Mahdist force - the Savage and Soldier article has some interesting information regarding the likely commanders and also posits the number of guns in their artillery, but it seems to boil down to between four and six thousand men 'under 40 flags' - I'll just be using them mob handed, you can be assured, unless I can track down some more detail.

Finally, we see Ginnis village itself, with the Mahdist camp beyond:

The tents are the BG158 group of Arab Tents from Irregular's 2mm Scenery range, and the village buildings are just made up of the usual flotsam and jetsam mounted on card bases - I've more of these for the village of Kosha itself, but am undecided as to whether or not to make a model of the fort there, that was held by the balance of the Cameron Highlanders and the IX Sudanese.

This is principally because I can find no images or descriptions of it, and moreover it played a limited role in the actual battle itself, merely being the jumping-off point, as it were.

So, things are firming up now on this little sideshow, with hopefully the battle itself to come in the near future.....

2mm Colonial: The Battle of Ginnis 1885

I've been looking around for a while now for a suitable battle to make use of the fledgling Colonial forces in 2mm that have so far left the workbench. It doesn't seem fair to have them just sitting waiting for some VSF themed vehicles or some such to appear, so in the meantime I am thinking about using them in a small-scale battle set in the Egyptian Sudan.

Given that I haven't quite achieved the hordes of units originally envisaged, the Omdurmans, El-Tebs and Tel-El Kebirs of this world are a little out of range as yet, so I've settled on the more diminutive Ginnis, circa 1885.

This took place in the aftermath of the fall of Khartoum and the loss of Gordon, when the River and Desert Relief Columns had withdrawn over the border, leaving some small garrisoned outposts in the Northern Sudan.

These forts had increasingly come under harassing attacks by local Emirs loyal to the Mahdi, in particular the one located between Kosh and Wadi Halfa on the Nile at Ginnis, held by a detachment of the Cameron Highlanders and the Ninth Sudanese Battalion. General Sir Evelyn Wood therefore despatched a force of two infantry brigades and a cavalry brigade to push back the Dervishes.

This battle is interesting in that the force under Grenfell was a combination of Egyptian, Sudanese and British forces, including mule batteries and Camel Corps, and was one of the last outings for the scarlet tunic for British troops - certainly, anyway, the OOB seems to roughly match with what I have happened to have painted up, so it fits the bill!

The always excellent Savage and Soldier website has a brilliant article by Doug Johnson that sets out the background and narrative to the action, as well as providing details on the units involved and the aftermath of the engagement:

http://www.savageandsoldier.com/sudan/Ginnis.html

Johnson makes the important point that it was ironically the fear on both sides that the armed presence in the Northern Sudan border areas was a prelude to invasion that lead to the engagement and in spite of the success of the Anglo-Egyptian force, the Mahdists were eventually left in possession of a longer stretch of the Nile than they had previously occupied once the isolated garrisons were withdrawn to Wadi Halfa.

In any event, I think the battle is interesting in that it should allow the use of separate brigades of an all-arms force to engage the Mahdists, who in contrast to perhaps the conventional Wargamer's idea of a headlong charge, carefully deployed around the besieged fort.

Indeed, they had pre-placed captured Artillery pieces in batteries along the Nile, had taken command of the dominant feature with riflemen, and once the battle had begun, were able to mount a credible flanking manoeuvre into the Anglo-Egyptian flank.

I've got to do some more work and put together some scratch-built scenery, principally village buildings, before this battle can become a table top reality, and of course could also do with lots more Mahdist infantry, but it should be fun, particularly as it also gives me an excuse to deploy the Nile River Steamer, here in the guise of the HMS Lotus - Huzzah!

Stay tuned for more on this in the coming weeks.......

2mm Colonial: Nile Gunboat launched!

So, the SS Bordein has had a final lick of paint, as well as a couple of guns added at stern and bow, and is now ready for duty on the Nile. A few single 2mm figures act as crew, and hopefully she can now serve as gun support for whichever protagonist, whether Mahdist, Egyptian or British.

I decided on a white scheme to reflect her original peacetime role as passenger ship, and then liberally 'dirtied' it up over the added wooden baulking and various other protuberances. The scale had got slightly out of hand, and a sharp eye might detect that she is a little on the large side for 1/900th, but not too bad, I think, overall.

The base mounting card is now backed with some magnetic tape - and okay, the water colour is not exactly Nile like - less muddy Limpopo and more clear Mediterranean, but you get the general idea!

So, as Mahdist forces mass in the distance, the last penny steamer out of Khartoum tries to break the blockade:

How will she fare as she approaches the narrows - and what is lurking beyond the palm trees?

I couldn't resist emulating the ship's whistle by saying 'poop-poop!' whilst taking these shots - so why not view one of her companions in action:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDkcG5whNQo

From the movie Khartoum, of course. :-)

2mm Colonial: Nile Gunboat Update

The heaping of flotsam and jetsam continues, with some progress on making an already ramshackle craft look even more of a mess. What had once been a proud member of the Khedival River Fleet, scorched by the sun, damaged by innumerable collisions and runnings aground, has now been further sullied by the addition of wooden baulking to provide some kind of 'armoured' protection for the crew.

Or to put it another way, I've used every small scrap of card off-cuts and junk I could find to festoon my version of the 'Bordein' with. Pretty she ain't, but neither would you be after floating up and down the Nile under fire......

Mounted on a 65 x 25mm piece of Artists' card smeared with a bit of filler, and an odd mast culled from Brigade Model's Aeronef spares, a quick grey undercoat hopefully gives a slightly better impression:

Lots to do, yet, but I think if I slow down a little and pay a bit more attention to detail from now on, then hopefully she won't turn out too badly -don't think I'll go as far as depicting any 1/900th scale Maxim Guns on board, but hopefully can at least add in some sailors cut from the Irregular RBG11 Dismounted Dragoon strip - their broad brim headgear should make good Sennet hats.

It turns out the original was built on the Thames at the Samuda works, amongst some distinguished company as it happens:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuda_Brothers

Apparently Heihachiro Togo of Tsushima fame even did work experience there in later years - an historic area all long disappeared under the 1960s Housing Estates of the Isle of Dogs now, of course....

2mm Colonial: Messing about in a Nile Gun Boat

So, what's this heap of flotsam and jetsam, then? Well, hopefully, it is the small beginnings of a Nile steamer to support the 2mm sized troops of the Queen Empress in her Colonial campaigns!

Having had a good rootle around in the fascinating Melik website I linked in a previous post, I decided to follow through with having a go at scratch-building a suitable vessel, and as a model, went with one of General Gordon's 'penny steamers', the Bordein.

She has the distinction of having served for Khedival Egypt, The Mahdists, General Gordon, and later under Kitchener - so pretty much the full set of protagonists!

http://www.melik.org.uk/articles/nile-steamers/bordein/

A rummage in the bits box produced the usual assortment of odds and sods of plastic and foamcore, and I embarked on an ambitious plan of drawing accurate 1/900th sized scale plans for a prototype vessel.

In typical fashion, however, these were soon abandoned and I went with something that would at least look the part, rather than being feet and inches accurate. If anything, I think a scale boat would actually look too large against 2mm troops, particularly as I am hoping to post a few on deck where possible.

So, we have progressed thus far, the hull measuring around 60mm:

There will obviously have to be quite a bit of work to get her properly 'ship-shape', but hopefully will be ready to serve whilst remaining as ramshackle as the original.

More updates soon, Mahdist uprisings permitting........ :-)

2mm Colonial: Mini Mahdists!

"Our orders was to break you, an' of course we went an' did.

We sloshed you with Martinis, an' it wasn't 'ardly fair;

But for all the odds agin' you, Fuzzy-Wuz, you broke the square...."

[Rudyard Kipling.]

In typical fashion, perhaps, the VSF-based Colonial forces I had planned working on have turned into something more traditional, and the chief architects of this temptation have been the few bases that I had originally intended as native levies. These have become the basis of a growing Mahdist Army, some shots of which you can see throughout this post.

Below we have some Camelry, which are an easy job with Irregular's ABG23 from the Ancients range - the detail on the riders is perhaps none too clever, although the camels themselves are nice and chunky, which divides them visually from the horses on the cavalry stands. Five blocks to a 40x30mm base here:

Next some Ansar Cavalry - I went for a mix of strips here, mainly to use up some spares I had floating around. The first line on each base is formed from two blocks of I think Horse and Musket era sabre cavalry, whilst the rearmost are Ancients ABG9 Light Horse Archers. I thought this would represent the better armed, and more motivated richer warriors to the front, followed by their retainers to the rear, six blocks on a 40x30mm base:

As seen in a previous post, the ever-useful BG23 blocks stand in as irregular types, here as Ansar, six placed randomly on a 40x30mm once more:

Lacking discernible weapons or standards, these blocks can stand in as many different types, but are sometimes a little bit ill-defined:

The Hadendowah make it even harder to be seen with their brown palette, so the palm trees mark the rear of each base - I was kicking myself when I realised, however, that I had placed these in the same place on each base, making the irregular seem much too 'samey' - at least this motivates me to produce more bases, if only in order to randomise the placement!

I think some flags and banners would also lift these bases somewhat, although I don't know if my printer will be up to reducing stuff to a size that will be feasible...

I'm keen to expand on the bases done so far, with some captured artillery pieces for the Mahdists , and maybe the odd dhow or felucca to sail down the Nile - this will of course mean scratch-building a 1/900th British gunboat in reply, of course!

Details of a fascinating project to restore an original Nile Gunboat can be seen here:

http://www.melik.org.uk/

and there are some characterful Wargaming versions on view at this always useful site:

http://www.wfhgs.com/gunboat.html

2mm Colonial: Adding some VSF back into the mix...

Some readers might remember that my 'dipping of the toe becomes large splash' entry into 2mm Colonial began with the initial idea of doing Infantry-based forces that would support some Land Ironclads models that I have, but soon morphed into messing about with Mahdists.

In the spirit of a return to the original idea, I've been tinkering with which of Brigade Models' excellent minis would do duty alongside my late Victorian soldiery, and as you can see in the photo above, have plumped for the ostensibly un-British VLI-203 Lafayette Ironclad.

Oh the ignominy! Not only is it a contraption built by those pesky Yankees, but is named after a Frenchie who fought with them against us during their unfortunate Revolution....tsk, tsk, whatever will the Memsahib say?

Putting aside these objections in typically arbitrary fashion, I'm going to stick with this as I felt for a Colonial-type force anchored from around 1875 to 1890, something that had a nice 'Land -Train' appearance would best fit the bill, rather than some of the more Dreadnought-like offerings available in the British range.

Apart from the paint-scheme, of course, I'm going to Anglicise the appearance by the subterfuge of exchanging the turrets included, which to my eye, are a bit too modern in profile, with some spares available from the always useful Aeronef VAN-7011 British gun turrets accessory pack:

This should hopefully render a more suitable appearance, as well as effectively up-gunning the resulting vehicle:

If I really wanted to go the whole hog, I suppose I could further internationalise the whole with the VAN-7053 Heavy Russian turret, but I think this will probably be overkill; all three turret options can be seen below:

Brigade, of course offers real 'Land-Tain' types in the German range, but these are a bit too overpowering for the context in which I want to use them, and besides, the Lafayette is considerably cheaper!

Moreover, they should scale well alongside my existing Land Dreadnought, originally acquired for the 'Weird' WWI project, the 2mm IKSF26 from Irregular Miniatures:

As you may remember, the HMLD indefatigable had a few bits of work done to the basic model, including the addition of funnel and mast, so I would be looking to do the same with the new recruits; all we need now is a name..... perhaps the Burgoyne Land Locomotive Ironclad.....?

2mm Colonial: More support arrives.....

Rather little progress on the wargaming/modelling front to report here, I'm afraid, with, quite frankly, too many irons in the fire to have anything ready enough to be worth posting.....that'll teach me to keep jumping from one project to the other!

However, Colonial wise, there have been some re-inforcements completed recently, as you can see above, with the debut of some khaki-coated infantry.

These troops are also lucky enough to have an encampment to shield them from the harsh conditions of the desert wastes; here formed from BG133/134, small and large tents, adorned with the addition of the useful BG142, clump of palm trees:

You can also make out a command stand, with BG24 Army command group. The palm trees are very nicely modelled, but unfortunately are very fragile and prone to bending and snapping - this is exacerbated by the amount of flash on the bottom of the base which means that it needs to be filed down - I managed to ruin a couple of stands whilst trying to remove this too vigorously - so be warned!

A British square awaits the onslaught of the enemy.... but luckily they are not alone:

A single BG14, coupled with a line of RBG11 and BG3 go to form a company of the Naval Brigade, jolly jack tars ready to support the khaki-clad line.

They are in turn augmented by that weapon of the age, the Maxim gun:

A battery of two, made with a clipping from an RBG11 strip, and the BG20 Mitrailleuse.

Meanwhile, the enemy closes:

The Egyptian auxiliaries-turned Ansar seen in an earlier post on this subject, made me think of having a go at some Hadendowa 'Fuzzy-Wuzzy' types, so above you see the splashes of various shades of brown over a black undercoat that go to suggest these units - I was not going to actually look at the Sudan campaigns, but the lure of the Mahdists was too much to resist!

The BG23 blocks seem to do the job adequately, although given the lack of definition, I was forced to add in the palm trees to identify which way around the base is facing...perhaps a few scratch-built flags or banners might lift the otherwise monotone look...

Below we see an Elephant battery moving up to support the line; and unfortunately, try as I might, I could not get any sense of the drag rope chains/limber attachments to work on these bases.

Cotton or silk thread just looked too bulky, and an experiment with thin fuse wire just made it look silly; so I have resorted to leaving them as they were; you just have to imagine the traces, chains and tack connecting it all together..... :-(

Finally we see the Naval Brigade taking their place in the line as the enemy approach; what started as a foray into a Colonial-themed VSF/land Ironclad army is in danger of slipping into full-on Omdurman territory; at least the simple paint-job of the Mahdists mean it will be easy to produce hordes of them, though....

2mm Colonial: More Work in progress...

Just to prove that I haven't been totally distracted by all things maritime and Nemo-related, here are a few quick pics of the beginnings of the based up 2mm Colonial units that are slowly coming together.

Nothing unusual to look at really, just the standard 1.6mm artist's card with magnetic backing available from Tiny Tin Troops, here cut to 40x20mm size, and mounting a British Battalion in square, with a squadron of Bengal Lancers in support:

A close up of one of the companies; the Macro does rather make the basing material look a bit scattered and messy, but to the naked eye luckily has more of a complete look:

The Egyptian Camel Corps has arrived in the shape of the Irregular Ancient's range ABG23 Camelry, with a deployed base with additional RBG11 Dismounted Dragoon figures behind the BG3 skirmishers to give a firing line:

The beauty of working in a scale as small as 1/900th is that you can often mix and match the ostensible periods to give the effect you require.

I realised that I had not done enough Egyptian command figures for the company bases, so will have to rectify that in the near future; I again make use of the RBG11 strip to give officers and NCOs on foot.

Next up, an Egyptian Field Artillery battery; I used a perhaps unhistorical very pale grey for the gun carriages and limbers, just to add to the visibility, although those red fezzes certainly help!

Is it just me, or do some of the Irregular 2mm blocks look better from behind?

It may be that the definition and detail of the individual figures is a little better than the front, and I suppose that as we send the tiny troops away from our commander's eye view and into battle, this is the side we most often see...

So, nothing too exciting going on here, but at least we march onward; and yes, before I'm met with a barrage of complaints, those Elephant guns will be the next priority! :-)