It's been a while since I've posted anything here on Maiwand Day, but with today being July 27th, I felt I had to! Not a bad -- obligatory -- "had to," but a good, enthusiastic one.
I've been extremely busy at work for the past half-year or more, which is a good thing. Somehow by the skin of my teeth I was able to pull off a big commemorative game on the 150th Anniversary of CAMERONE DAY this past April 30th -- thanks to a lot of help from Nick Stern and Phil Chiu, who provided the French Foreign Legion and Mexican armies that fought atop my terrain, but out on the 28mm frontier of Afghanistan and Imperial British India, things have been terribly quiet...
But not completely so, I'm happy to say.
In the middle of June my wife took our three children to China, without me. I just couldn't leave work. The one up side to this situation was it gave me some time to spend working on the terrain I need to finish for my long-gestating Charasiab lay-out. I had three more rocky woodchip hills to build, plus two more 6'x2' terrain boards, one with the Logar River, one with the Kabul River, plus some low sandy hills, a swamp, and a Mughal stone monument commemorating the construction of the road from the town of Charasiab North through a mountain gorge to the city of Kabul by order of the Emperor Shah Jahan, who is far better known for building the Taj Mahal.
That's a lot of stuff to build! But I got a headstart over those three weeks, and pretty much finished up two of the three hills, as seen here...
Now, while my family was away, I also moved my desk in my office, in order to extend my gaming table so it could accomodate 12' of terrain instead of just 10', and laid out a rough, unfinished facsimile of the terrain for Charasiab...
The West side of the table, with the Kabul River near the
Western edge, bordered by the Western spur of the South Hill,
with the Northern edge of the town of Charasiab itself below it
and the Southern edge of the village of Hinduki at the North
edge of the table...
The East side of the table, with the Logar River
the pair of conical hills on its Western edge and
the Central Hill a little further West, with the start
of the Sang-i-Nawishta Gorge forming between them,
and the small village of Khairabad midway between
the West Hill on the left and the conical hills on the right...
(NOTE: when this layout is done it will be crisscrossed by several
roads, including one into the Gorge, leading North to Kabul)
The pair of Conical Hills, with the entrance to the Sang-i-Nawishta Gorge just beyond them...
The Logar River, the Conical Hills, and the Central Hill...
(to be replaced by one of the rocky woodchip variety before I'm done)
Looking East from just beyond the Western Spur of the South Hill...
And finally, an actual reference photo, looking South down the
Logar River from the North side of the Northern conical hill...
Incredibly enough, the above pic was posted to Google Earth just a few days ago -- a very exciting find for me!
Here's a miniature version of the same view on my table...
Over the past couple of years I've spent a lot of time on Google Earth looking at this spot in Afghanistan, getting measurements for hills, open spaces, the swamp, the two Rivers, etc. There are some more great reference pics I will post sooner or later as the Charasiab terrain keeps coming.
Recently I also learned that after winning the battle, General Roberts had the Sang-i-Nawishta ("Written in Stone") stone transported with him to Kabul, where it was set up in front of his quarters at the Sherpur Cantonment! So when I get done building a 28m version, it will also be useful for gaming the Afghan attack on Sherpur in the Winter of 1879!
That's it for now, I think. Hope everyone who reads this is in the midst of enjoying a great Summer -- or Winter, for the antipodeans -- and hope I manage to get back here and post some more before the season's over...