MAIWAND DAY

Some costumes & props from Gunga Din

2012-02-27T22:28:00.010-08:00

There's been a lot of excitement lately in the Colonial miniature wargaming world, thanks to the first pics being posted online of Bob Murch's PULP FIGURES (CLICK HERE & JUMP TO HIS SITE) sculpts of the "Sergeants Three" from Gunga Din, as seen here --

-- and discussed at length on this topic page at TMP:

LINK

For anyone familiar with the movie, it's very easy to understand all the excitement.

Messages were flying fast and furious on the Colonial Wars Yahoo Group regarding the proper color for the Sergeants' uniforms, equipment, and headgear. I weighed in with the opinion that the movie takes place in the late 1880s or 1890s, after the conclusion of the Second Afghan War -- when khaki became standard issue for all arms -- but before the Maxim Gun replaced the Gatling. The most obscure reason I gave was that Victor McLaglen's character, McChesney, was obviously based on Kipling's Private Mulvaney, who had previously seen action during the Third Burma War, as detailed in "The Taking of Lungtungpen."

Truth is the film is obviously fictional, there was no major rebirth of Thugee in late 19th Century India, and anyone buying Bob Murch's gorgeous miniature versions of the Sergeants Three should feel free to paint them up however they like... but, historical wargamers being who they are, it's easy to understand a certain obsession for wanting to know just what color (a particular shade of khak...? pure white...? offwhite...?) their costume uniforms were, and the same for the imitation foreign service helmets... etc., etc., etc.

Turns out by a fluke of luck I have some handy info on this subject, since I accompanied my son's Boy Scout troop to the town of Lone Pine, California this past Fall, while camping in the nearby Inyo National forest, at the base of Mt. Whitney. We also visited Manzanar, the Japanese Relocation Center, drove through the incredible Alabama Hills, and -- a personal highlight for me -- stopped at the Beverly and Jim Rogers Lone Pine Museum of Film History. Most of the props, costumes, posters, and various other movie-making memorabilia & artifacts relate to the hundreds of Western movies and, later on, TV shows filmed in the area. But one corner of the museum is devoted to the far smaller but no less significant -- at least to me! -- sub-genre of Imperial British adventure movies. These films used the rugged hills, rocky cliffs and dusty scrub-covered prairie to double for the North-West Frontier of India and Afghanistan, and foremost amongst them was one of the greatest movies ever made...

GUNGA DIN.

Now, some of you reading this blog may have guessed long ago that the origin of my user-name "MAD GURU" had a connection to the movie version of Gunga Din, and if so, you were totally, completely, 100% absolutely right. I LOVE THE MOVIE. Have since I first saw if as a very young boy. And my favorite thing in it has always been the Mad Guru, who earns his sobriquet when one of his three British captives-turned captors, declares: "You're mad." The Guru's reply, committed to my memory decades ago, will forever remain etched in my brain:

"Mad? Mad?! Ceasar was mad... Alexander was mad... and surely Napoleon was the maddest of the lot. Since the beginning of time they've called 'mad' all the great soldiers of the world. You shall see what wisdom lies behind my madness."

Oh, man. I get chills just blindly reciting it in my head for the umpteenth-millionth time...

Anyhow, that's a very, very long preamble to a handful of pics of Gunga Din costumes and props I took with my iPhone while visiting the "Colonial Gallery" (my name, not theirs!) at the museum.

They show a WHITE helmet, a brown leather ammunition shoulder-belt, and a khaki tunic and matching helmet ued by an extra who was "shot" onscreen (the tunic has the red blood stain to prove it). If I remember correctly, the khaki tunic and helmet may have been used for another British-in-India movie as well...

The Muzeo VIDEO

2012-02-17T16:23:00.001-08:00

Can't believe I never posted a LINK to the excellent video my buddy Matthew created for the Maiwand game we ran down at the Muzeo museum in Anaheim, California! I believe I posted this link on TMP (The Miniatures Page) but seems to me it should be here on the Maiwand Day blog as well, so without further ado, if you'd like to enjoy about 10 minutes of Second-Afghan-War visual pageantry, both historical and miniature wargaming-ical, as well as some choice battle scenes from ZULU! and THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE (Director Tony Richardson's 1968 version), with accompanying British military and Afghan tribal music, please click on the link below:

MAIWAND DAY MUSEUM VIDEO

Colonial Barracks: NAMING NAMES...

2012-02-17T07:44:00.004-08:00

Long ago, in the dim ages, I promised to list the exceptionally fine group of players who fought Maiwand Saturday out across the table in New Orleans. Recently, while unpacking books here in the new house, I found the list with their names on it, so without further ado, here goes:

BRITISH C-IN-C/INFANTRY C.O. - Jeff Baumal

BRITISH CAVALRY C.O. - Skylar Reiff

BRITISH BAGGAGE GUARD C.O. - Jim Flanagan

AFGHAN C-IN-C - Chick Lewis

AFGHAN SUB-COMMANDER #1 - Donna Reeves

AFGHAN SUB-COMMANDER #2 - James Zizo

AFGHAN SUB-COMMANDER #3 - Robert Clark

AFGHAN SUB-COMMANDER #4 - Bill Hamilton

AFGHAN SUB-COMMANDER #5 - Dean Emmerson

AFGHAN SUB-COMMANDER #6 - Henry Coll

AFGHAN SUB-COMMANDER #7 - Chris Penney

ADDITIONAL AFGHAN SUB-COMMANDER - Nick Zizo

Jeff and the Zizos (father & son) came out from Florida, while Jim, Chris, and a couple of the other Afghan commanders flew down together from Maine. IMHO a finer collection of miniature wargamers would be impossible to find. They all tried hard to win, while simulaneously exhibiting honorable conduct, good-natured comraderie, and a generous spirit. Collectively they made all the effort to get the terrain and troops from LA to New Orleans worth while. My son and I really had a blast. Thanks guys -- and thank you, Donna!

Maiwand Saturday @ COLONIAL BARRACKS (7 of 7)

2012-01-22T12:26:00.000-08:00

THE FINAL ACT:

Fresh Ghazis appear from Maiwand and advance to north edge of Mundabad Ravine, in preparation for charging the 66th Berkshires on the lip of the ravine above...

66th are arrayed in open order, to lessen damage from artillery and regular infantry volleys advancing towards them from the north...

Unfortunately for the Berkshires, a BLACK JOKER is pulled, enabling the Afghans to give a BONUS MOVE to any of their units on the table. The card was assigned to the newly-arrived Ghazis, who then managed to charge into contact with the 66th. After passing a morale check, the 66th were allowed to reform into close order. But they were still under attack by 61 Ghazi fanatics - led by Malalai of Khig - and even with their "+1" for defending in close order, to balance out the Ghazis' own "+1" for charging fanatics, the odds were not in their favor. They managed to win the melee, but emerged with only 6 fighting effectives out of their starting strength of 20...

The British artillery continued to retire south, across the Ravine, under cover of the baggage guard, all of which had now taken up positions in the buildings and walled gardens of Khig, including the cavalry, which had dismounted in order to add their carbines to the firing line. Baggage train itself and medical camp kept falling back to the South as well...

With multiple batteries of Afghan artillery and brigades of regular infantry closing in as the rest of the British force headed south towards the Ravine, the game was called, and a narrow victory awarded to the Afghans.

The British had managed to get all but one of their guns (Hector Maclaine's, which - just as in the real battle - was overrun by the Afghans) safely out of reach of the enemy, and with the baggage guard well-ensconced in the built-up area of Khig, had a good base around which to arrange defensive positions, from which their guns could do damage to the advancing enemy...

But with the 66th Regiment having taken such steep losses, there were probably not enough troops left to sustain such a defense for long, especially considering how little damage the British had managed to inflict on the Afghan artillery...

The British had engaged and destroyed almost all of the Afghan Tribal and Ghazi fanatic forces, but this still left twice their own number of regular infantry and cavalry, as well as near all the Afghan artillery, intact -- including the deadly battery of Armstrong Rifled Breech Loaders, which outranged their own guns.

The British fared better than they did on the original Maiwand Day, but were not able to "overthrow history" and pull out a surprise victory.

Maiwand Saturday @ COLONIAL BARRACKS (6 of 7)

2012-01-22T12:25:00.000-08:00

Further Cavalry charge drives off tribal infantry...

Jacob's Rifles square drives off continued attack by tribal cavalry...

British fall back across the line...

Afghans advance as fast as they can...

Retreating Smoothbore Battery reaches North edge of Mundabad Ravine...

CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE TO THE FINALE AT PART 7...

Maiwand Saturday @ COLONIAL BARRACKS (5 of 7)

2012-01-22T12:13:00.000-08:00

British Cavalry vs. Tribal Infantry melee to the North-West...

Ghazis vs. element of Baggage Guard melee to the South-East...

Other element of Baggage Guard move to occupy walled gardens behind village of Khig...

Afghan Regular Infantry advances South across center of Maiwand Plain...

Smoothbore Battery fires at approaching Afghans...

On the plain to East of center Nullah, Jacob's Rifles form square, under attack by Tribal Cavalry...

Under cover of the Eastern Nullah, Tribal Infantry advance South towards Mundabad Ravine...

Atop South edge of Ravine, Baggage Guard wins melee, suffers modest casualties in process...

CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE AT PART 6...

Maiwand Saturday @ COLONIAL BARRACKS (4 of 7)

2012-01-22T12:12:00.001-08:00

First bands of Ghazi fanatics arrive from Maiwand, just to the North of Mundabad Ravine...

Afghan Artillery unlimbers and comes on-line to fire...

Near the North-West corner of the table, 3rd bombay Light Cavalry CHARGE Tribal Infantry...

CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE AT PART 5...

Maiwand Saturday @ COLONIAL BARRACKS (3 of 7)

2012-01-22T12:03:00.000-08:00

Hector Maclaine fights his gun against oncoming cavalry...

3rd Scinde Horse continues out of West nullah and charges Tribal Infantry...

On East side of field, Tribal cavalry and Regular Infantry advance towards Mundabad Ravine...

CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE AT PART 4...

Maiwand Saturday @ COLONIAL BARRACKS (2 of 7)

2012-01-22T12:01:00.000-08:00

THESE 50 PICS SHOW:

Major John Ready marches his Baggage Guard, consisting of a combined unit of British and Indian Infantry made up of troops from all three Infantry battalions, and unit of Indian cavalry, East, towards the village of Khig...

Afghans move their Tribal Cavalry onto the table...

3rd Scinde Horse use the Western-most nullah to advance North towards the approaching Afghan army under cover...

Afghan Regular Cavalry moves onto the table...

The rest of the RHA battery comes online behind that of Lt. Hector Maclaine, whose own gun already "dropped trail" and is in firing position (Maclaine got the battle rolling by galloping his section of guns North and opening fire on the passing Afghan army, not knowing quite how big it was at the time)...

Afghan regular infantry move onto the table...

66th Regt. advance in the center nullah...

Jacob's Rifles advance on the center of the Maiwand plain, just to the left of the 66th...

1st Bombay Grenadiers advance in the Western nullah, covering the British left flank...

Half-size unit of elite Bombay Sappers & Miners take farthest-most position in the center nullah, just ahead and to the North of the 66th Regt...

3rd Bombay Light Cavalry follow 3rd Scinde Horse into the Western nullah, advancing North behind them...

66th Regt. moves out of the center nullah Eastwards, forms 2-rank open order firing line covering the center of the plain...

Jacob's Rifles take up the 66th Regt.'s position in the center nullah, forming a long single-rank firing line, with Half-size unit of elite Bombay Sappers & Miners to their left...

3rd Scinde Horse advance out of the North end of the Western nullah and CHARGE the Tribal Infantry to their front...

NOTE:

DUST-COLORED SMOKE is used to mark units that have MOVED.

WHITE SMOKE is used to mark units that have FIRED.

CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE AT PART 3...

Maiwand Saturday @ COLONIAL BARRACKS (1 of 7)

2012-01-22T02:10:00.000-08:00

After a couple months' delay, I'm happy to finally post approximately 350 good pics of the "Maiwand Saturday" game I ran at Colonial Barracks, on Saturday, November 5th, 2011, from 10:00am 'til 5:00, with about 2 hours spent on a pair of breaks, one for lunch, the other for a group photo of convention attendees gathered on the lobby staircase of the hotel.

Rules used were my own informal combo of "800 Fighting Englishmen" and 20th Anniversary TSATF, with the "big battle" version of the rules for movement, command-&-control, casualties, and morale, enabling the rather large game to move quickly, while we retained "old school" rules for fire and melee combat.

The group of gamers who played was really terrific, and made the entire experience a true pleasure for me, and I believe for each other as well. I think we all had a great time - the 9 Afghan players who cycled through the 8 Afghan commands, and the 4 British players who cycled through the 3 British commands.

I believe the photos do a good job of telling the story of how the battle developed without need of much written elaboration. I've added bullet-point highlights at the top of most of the 7 photo-sets, filled with approximately 50 pics each, briefly outlining the important game events covered by that particular set of pics.

Somewhere here in my new house is a name-list of all the players involved in the game, which I diligently kept in preparation for making this post -- but moving to a new house a couple of weeks ago somewhat turned my hobby life upside down, so I must apologize to the players involved, most if not all of whom can be seen in at least a handful of the pictures, and promise that at some point (hopefully in the not-too-distant-future!), I shall return and add their names, each with an honorable mention in dispatches!

(NOTE: If you ARE one of said players, and can spare the time, please feel free -- and encouraged -- to leave a COMMENT identifying yourself!)

When I do that I may add a bit of a written battle report as well, maybe as a post-script to the 7 separate posts filled with approximately 50 pics each.

Without further ado, watch the action of "Maiwand Saturday" unfold...

-- WHOOPS!!! --

...almost forgot to say thank you to the man responsible for taking each and every one of these awesome photos: Matthew Rigdon. THANKS, MATTHEW!

HIGHLIGHTS OF CHAPTER ONE GAME ACTION:

Not much action, these pics show the table lay-out complete with:

- the barren and dry Maiwand plain, littered with scrub-brush (that provides no cover!)...

- Mundabad Ravine, a mid-sized river in the Fall and Winter, but near-bone-dry in late July of 1880...

- trio of inter-connected nullahs (hereafter referred to as "East", "center", and "West")...

- twin villages of Mundabad & Khig, along the road skirting the Ravine and then leading off-table towards the much larger town of Maiwand, approximately 4 miles to the East...

- the Mundabad karez - a narrow man-made water channel fed by an underground stream originating in the nearby mountains, used by the villages for drinking, cooking, cleaning, irrigation, etc...

- the Walled Gardens of Khig - located just to the South of Khig village, once picturesque, they have seen better days, but may still provide cover for a heroic last stand...

- the British Field Hospital and Baggage Train, set up in the cover of Mundabad Ravine...

- Brigadier Burrows' brigade was set out in its historic line of march, with RHA Lieutenant Hector Maclaine having spotted a dust-shrouded mass of Afghan cavalry heading East, towards Maiwand, across his front and deciding on his own to gallop his gun team North, unlimber and open fire, thereby getting the ball rolling, so to speak...

- for the game the British army consisted of 3 MANEUVER ELEMENTS (all infantry units comprised 20 figs, all cavalry units 12 figs):

(1) BRIGADIER GEORGE BURROWS - INFANTRY COMMAND / C-IN-C

66th Regt., 1st Bombay Grenadiers, 30 Bombay Native Infantry (Jacob's Rifles), Smoothbore Battery of 3 second-rate guns crewed mainly by men assigned from the 66th Regt.

(2) BRIGADIER NUTTALL - CAVALRY

3rd Bombay Light Cavalry, 3rd Scinde Horse

(3) MAJOR JOHN READY - BAGGAGE-GUARD

Combined infantry unit (half British Infantry from 66th, half Bombay Infantry from Grenadiers & Jacob's Rifles), combined Bombay Cavalry unit.

The afghan army commanded by AYUB KHAN comprised 9 MANEUVER ELEMENTS, plus attached artillery:

2 REGULAR INFANTRY BRIGADES (4 units each)

1 REGULAR CAVALRY BRIGADE (3 units)

2 TRIBAL INFANTRY ELEMENTS (3 units each)

2 TRIBAL CAVALRY ELEMENTS (2 units each)

4 ARTILLERY BATTERIES (3 guns each, attached to reg. Inf. or cav. Brigades)

2 GHAZI FANATIC ELEMENTS (these began off-table, en route from the town of Maiwand. Die-rolls determined their exact turn of arrival and arrival-point)

- and finally, to kick the visuals off, some local wildlife...

CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE AT PART 2...

EYE CANDY: 72nd Highlanders at Charasiab

2012-01-18T23:45:00.001-08:00

These are some of the first pictures of miniatures taken in my new house.

I took them in my office, using light from a small directable ceiling fixture meant to illuminate artwork that will one day (hopefully in the not-too-distant-future) hang on the wall below. The light came in quite handy for my purpose.

My favorite British army regiment of the Second Afghan War is the 72nd, Duke of Albany's Own Highlanders. More than a year ago, after some back-&-forth with me over his painting tests for their trademark plaid trews, a very talented painter in NYC painted a unit of them for me, and IMHO did a fantastic job. I posted some pics here, on the "figures" PAGE. But since most all of the pics on this blog focus in some way on the battle of Mawiand -- which the 72nd had no part in -- they never got the attention they deserved. Until now.

I placed them atop the new "vertical" rocky hill I finished up just before moving.

The 72nd were present at the battle of Charasiab, General Roberts' last major fight en route to Kabul, after the massacre of Major Cavagnari and his escort of Guides, late in 1879. Here I have posed them after driving the Afghans -- who were a mixture of regular and tribal forces -- off the heights to the West of the Sang i Nawishta defile, opening a path for the army to proceed North, to Kabul.

(CLICK a picture to enlarge it)

Afghan/NWF rocky hill goes VERTICAL

2012-01-02T22:49:00.000-08:00

A while ago I was suddenly hit with what I thought was a very good idea -- to try to use the same kind of WOOD-CHIPS I used to build a nice little rocky hill (LINK to prior blog post) in a different way -- specifically, to turn them on their ends and use them VERTICALLY, instead of stacking them horizontally. I thought this might give a more dramatic, "spire"-like effect. But I was very busy with work and family, and also other hobby-related stuff, so I didn't get around to putting the idea into practice for a while.

Then I came across this pair of images on the web, and they gave me the final push to get the "vertical" wood-chip hill done.

The first comes from Lord Roberts' autobiography "41 Years in India," and is a very striking sketch of the battlefield of Kandahar, as seen from the hills above the village of Gundigan. The most prominent terrain feature is Baba Wali Kotal - the high pass through the mountains outside Kandahar...

...the second is a perhaps even more striking 1880 photograph of a portion of Baba Wali Kotal itself:

Both images struck me as lending themselves to being created in miniature - at least in an impressionistic, "high concept" amateur terrain-maker way - with "vertical" wood-chips.

I worked on this project just before my family and I moved house. My wife was not very happy that I was spending time on a hobby project while there was so much else to do, but I knew if I didn't finish before we moved, it would take months, maybe longer, before I'd manage to get back to it. I finished just in the nick of time -- and I also spent endless hours, unto days, packing, moving, driving back-and-forth, etc., etc., in service of my family. We moved on the day of New Years Eve - December 31st - and started 2012 in our new digs, which are currently under renovation, but will be very nice when we're done.

The move went pretty well, and I'm happy to say I think this new hill turned out quite nicely. When the time arrives, I plan to build at least one more, for use together as the tall hills or low mountains on both sides of various Afghan/NWF passes.

Here's some details to go with all the WIP pics below:

1) I picked up the baseboard piece for a very inexpensive price at my local lumber yard. I thought it was some kind of MDF/Masonite but it was incredibly strong/stiff - more so than even double-tempered Masonite in my experience - which was a good thing, once I managed to cut the shape I wanted out of it! Still not really 100% certain what it is though.

2) - Used rubber cement to glue the styrofoam down to the baseboard (did a test on a small piece first, and it worked very well).

- Used my handy-dandy - especially for this project - HOT GLUE GUN to glue the wood-chips to the styrofoam, and also to piece together the "jigsaw puzzle"-like interior structure of the 2 upper contours, also made from styrofoam.

- Used 3 long "cocktail sticks", in addition to the hot glue, to help fix the third - top - contour into place, impaling it firmly into the piece below.

3) Used my usual Elmer's Wood Filler to spackle the cut foam, simultaneously strengthening it while adding some nice texture.

4) Brushed on full-strength white glue where I wanted the pebbly texture to match my terrain board ground-cover, then strategically placed a few larger, more prominent pebbles, before pouring on Home Depot "Soil Erosion" ballast (a far less expensive alternative to model railroad gravel/ballast, which comes in handy for large terrain projects).

5) After the ground-cover dried, I collected all the excess ballast, then used an EYE-DROPPER to apply a coat of Woodland Scenics SCENIC CEMENT, to add another layer of fixative.

6) I skipped using black spray-primer, in favor of an inexpensive can of flat interior black latex house-paint, in order to avoid doing damage to any mistakenly unspackled spots of carved styrofoam. Better safe than sorry, despite the longer paint application time -- which I'm happy to say my youngest daughter - Sarah - helped me with a great deal. THANK YOU, SARAH!

7) I think that's about it, except for the colors:

- base coat of BLACK

- heavy coat of BROWN

- strong dry-brush of a 50/50 mix of CARAMEL and BLACK

- lighter dry-brush of MUDSTONE (dark shade of khaki from Delta Ceramcoat)

- very light highlight coat of SANDSTONE (pale shade of khaki from Delta)

- a few spots of medium grey, highlighted with light grey, on a speck of rock here or there.

A very nice Maiwand Day at the Muzeo

2011-12-23T23:56:00.000-08:00

Things went very nicely at the MUZEO. I don't think it was a record-setting day in terms museum attendance, but the visitors showed lots of interest in the game, and asked lots of questions, and I think everyone there had a fun time. The Brits beat a hasty retreat back across Mundabad Ravine, and proceeded to fortify positions in the twin villages of Mundabad and Khig, even dismounting their cavalry to add to the firing line.

When the Afghans reached them, things went fifty-fifty, with the ghazis, irregular tribal cav and regular cav winning half the melees and the 66th and Bombay Grenadiers winning the other half, while the ill-fated Jacob's Rifles got an unfortunate "6" on their "Stand-&-Fight" die roll -- the only result which would have, and did, cause them to turn tail and rout off the table. At that point the museum was about to close and we needed to beat a hasty retreat in order to pack up and load out before they locked the doors on us.

I call the result at the time we ended a narrow Afghan victory. The Afghans still hadn't brought their powerful artillery train to bear on the villages, and their vast numbers of regular infantry had yet to make their presence known, so despite taking massive casualties, they had a good chance to overwhelm the British positions, despite their defensive strength.

At the start of the game, Hector Maclaine -- the firebrand RHA officer who ran his guns up to engage the passing Afghan army, somewhat contravening his orders at the time -- did exactly what he'd done in real life, sticking around a bit too long to fire at the advancing enemy, resulting in his gun being overrun and lost. In the game the figure representing Maclaine escaped the melee alive as a "fall back," which is much better than the real Maclaine did, being captured, held prisoner for about a month, and then having his throat cut just before British troops reached him in the Afghan camp at the end of the battle of Kandahar.

I'd like to thank my friend Matthew Rigdon for showing his Texas spirit by helping me out at the last minute, putting together a DVD of Second Afghan War imagery, plus the scene of the attack on the British residency at Kabul from "The Far Pavilions," which played in the background of the museum gallery behind our game table -- he even threw in some battle footage from "Zulu," and the final charge from the 1968 "Charge of the Light Brigade," all of which perfectly fit the Victorian British paintings and artifacts on display.

I'd also like to thank Harmon Ward and his fellow St. Crispin's Irregulars gamers of Anaheim, several of whom showed up to help out and to play -- and a special thanks to RJ and Rod Galati, who treated us to lunch and dinner.

And a very big thank you to several members of the legendary Bengal Club who made the trek down to help as well, and even brought some very nice hand-outs they had prepared for the occasion.

Last but not least I need to thank my entire family -- my mom & dad, my wife and our daughters, all of whom showed up to lend their support. But most of all, my son, who accompanied me back and forth from LA to Anaheim on Saturday & Sunday, loading, unloading, carrying a ton of stuff, lugging and setting up tables, and generally helping me out a great, great deal.

Here's a LINK to the video we showed in the b.g. of the game at the museum. As mentioned above, it includes period maps and photos, some nice pics of the Maiwand game from Colonial Barracks, and the scenes of the Siege of the Kabul Residency, from 1980s TV miniseries "The Far Pavillions," as well as a couple of other Victorian military movie scenes. It runs just under 40 minutes altogether…

VIDEO LINK

With my family and I about to move, Maiwand Day will be taking a brief leave of absence. I hope to be back some with some blog activity in early 2012, showing off another Afghan/NWF rocky hill, which may even be big enough to use to refight the battles of Charasiab or Kandahar. In the meantime I wish everyone reading this a very Merry Christmas -- or, for members of my tribe, Happy Hanukah -- and a WONDERFUL NEW YEAR!

MAIWAND DAY @THE MUZEO of Anaheim

2011-11-23T11:03:00.000-08:00

On Sunday December 18th, 2011, in conjunction with the ST. CRISPIN'S IRREGULARS gaming club, I will be bringing MAIWAND DAY down to the Kabel Gallery at the MUZEO museum in Anaheim, California.

MUZEO LINK

LINK TO ST. CRISPIN'S IRREGULARS MEET-UP PAGE

This is being done in connection with an exhibit of Victorian British artwork, titled "The Queen's Gallery."

LINK TO ST. CRISPIN'S IRREGULARS QUEEN'S GALLERY PICS

The doors open at 10:00am and close at 5:00pm and I expect to be there there all day. I'm going to try to set up the terrain boards and troops the night before, but that may not be possible, so if you are planning to attend, expect me to be setting up the table for at least an hour, until 11:00, at which point the game will kick off.

There is room for 8 Afghan and 3 British players, so any colonial-minded wargamers within reach of Southern California are heartily invited to attend. I know a few members of the St. Crispin's club will be volunteering their time to help me out -- for which I thank them in advance -- and hopefully they'll be able to play as well.

The main idea behind displaying and playing the game at the museum is to reach non-wargamers, giving them a surprise opportunity to enjoy the hobby, and possibly end up with a few new recruits to miniature wargaming. Since my game is so big, I doubt there will be 11 casual museum-goers who all want to participate at the same time -- and certainly not for the entire 6 hours -- so I'm confident I'll be able to give any gamers who show up to play, the opportunity to do so, probably for as long as they like.

Needless to say, there is an ENTIRE MUSEUM connected to the space where we'll be playing the game, so there will be a lot of other very cool things to see and do while visiting the Muzeo!

I look forward to meeting AT LEAST ONE PERSON AT THE EVENT who learned about it here on my blog. If you are that person, please let me know on the day!

COLONIAL BARRACKS

2011-11-23T10:51:00.001-08:00

First, to any and all followers of this blog, I want to apologize for taking so long to put up a post re: my somewhat epic trek there-and-back-again to New Orleans. Colonial Barracks -- the world's first-ever all-TSATF convention -- was a tremendous success, IMHO and also according to all the various other reports posted on TMP and individual wargamer's blogs. I'm very happy I was able to participate, and I'm proud of being awarded a "BC" by the Brom family hosts (it stands for "British Colonial" &/or "Brom and Carr -- as in Larry BROM and George CARR, sr., originators of the rules).

The Maiwand game played at the con was one of the best ever! It pitted 8 Afghan players against 3 British players, played for about 6-hours (approx. 10:00am to 6:00pm -- with a 1-hour lunch break and 1/2-hour convention group photo break), and resulted in a narrow Afghan victory. The British were able to withdraw all 6 of their guns from harm's way, as well as their baggage train and hospital, and ended the day ensconcing themselves in the villages of Khig and Mundabad. But they took serious casualties, relinquished possession of the field, and did not "defeat" Ayub Khan's army -- though they did inflict severe casualties on his Tribal irregular and Ghazi fanatic forces, virtually wiping them all out, leaving only the vast array of Afghan regular infantry, cavalry, and artillery intact.

I will post more details about the game, along with tons of high-quality photos, as soon as humanly possible!

I returned home from New Orleans just in time to sell my family's lovely home, so we can move to another lovely home we are now in the process of buying. Needless to say, at the moment there is not much time available for the hobby. The downside of this move is that we are not moving to a "dream-house" complete with game-room or game-shed (we looked at a couple of hose but for one reason or another they just didn't work out). The upside is I believe the garage is roughly equal in size to our current one, so hopefully I'll have about the same amount of space to devote to the hobby as I do now, though of course you can never be certain about such things.

For any followers or occasional visitors to this blog who reside in Southern California, or within easy reach thereof, please pay special attention to the next post, where I'll be discussing a forthcoming visit by MAIWAND DAY to the MUZEO museum of Anaheim, in Orange County, on Sunday, December 18th, 2011...

COUNTDOWN to Colonial Barracks begins...

2011-10-31T01:13:00.001-07:00

Man am I beat -- between ref'ing soccer games all day Saturday, teaching an all-day class at the Boy Scout merit badge midway Sunday, and non-stop work the week before, I am literally about to keel over, BUT... somehow I have managed to eek out the time needed over the past couple weeks to get most of what needed doing done in order to be ready to pack "Maiwand Day" up in my wife's nice big Mercedes some time tomorrow, go to sleep tomorrow night, wake up early Tuesday to join her in taking our older daughter to a school interview, then drive back home (in my own more humble car), get out of my car, hand my wife the key to my car, kiss everyone (or at least the ones who are home at that moment) goodbye, climb into my wife's car (which will pre-packed to the gills with terrain boards, miniatures, playing aids, and maybe a toothbrush if I remember it), hit the gas and head to the 10-East, so I can start the 1900-mile trek to New Orleans.

Earlier tonight my wife and I took all three kids to visit a house in our neighborhood which became famous a few years ago for the incredible HALLOWEEN display put on by the owner and his family. The owner is an incredibly creative guy who puts on a dazzling show "spooktacular" show that's fun for all ages and is always filled with everyone from the littlest tykes to teenagers to old geezers and geeze-ettes (I don't count my wife and I in this category quite yet, but we are will be approaching it soon enough!). Here's a LINK for anyone interested:

SPOOK-TACULAR BONEY ISLAND!

Thing is, several years ago Boney Island went under, so to speak. It disappeared. I wasn't sure why, but I figured the home owner/creative maniac responsible had probably had enough and simply wanted a break from hosting hundreds unto thousands of enthusiastic Halloween visitors. But it turns out that wasn't the case. It turns out he had a neighbor who didn't take kindly to living near to one of the world's leading home-made Halloween haunts. This fellow made his feelings known to Mr. Boney Island, who chose to put the kibosh on it. But this year, the unhappy neighbor MOVED AWAY, so the ghostly curtain went back up and BONEY ISLAND has made a ghoulishly fan-tasm-tastic return from the grave, and I for one am very happy about that -- and my kids and wife make a minimum of five, and I know I saw at least a hundred others who would agree over there tonight during a mere 1/2-hour visit.

The reason I bring this up is that I think, in a way, Maiwand Day and "Boney Island" have a lot in common. They both involve men somewhat madly obsessed. In his case with turning his home into a larger than life haunted house, in my case with refighting the 1880 battle of Maiwand over my homemade terrain. We are both lucky enough to be able to bring our mad obsessions to life -- though in my case, only at a small miniature scale. Still, I know I am lucky, even more so to be able to take a "time-out" from my normal routines of work and family life, in order to make the trip from Los Angeles "LA" to Louisiana "LA". For that, more than anyone else I must thank my wife for being extremely generous and forgiving of this particular mad obsession of mine. Of course I have thanked her already, but I want to do so publicly as well: THANK YOU, DEAR!!!

131 years ago, Maiwand set Roberts' Kabul-to-Kandahar march into motion. Obviously my one-man highway sojourn is nowhere near as desperate or dangerous. Nonetheless, for me personally it will be quite an epic trek. So... to anyone and everyone who reads this blog, if you are a praying type, please say a prayer for my safe travel, and if you are not a praying type, please keep a good thought or cross your fingers, or just wish me luck in getting all my stuff get safely from Point A to Point B over the coming days -- and also that I don't leave anything I need for the game behind in my garage. I'll try to make daily posts regarding my progress, but I know it will be a challenge with my limited travel time and solo travel circumstances, so I'm not promising anything until I get to the convention site!

66th converts back from Igor the painter...

2011-10-12T13:56:00.000-07:00

Received my Pontoonier Third Burma War British Infantry w/helmet conversions to make them better resemble the 66th Regiment (Berkshire) at Maiwand. As usual, Igor did a wonderful job, as you can see for yourself:

(click on photos to enlarge them to full size)

These guys will be playing the part of the 66th Regiment's component of Major John Ready's BAGGAGE GUARD on Maiwand Saturday at the upcoming COLONIAL BARRACKS TSATF convention in New Orleans. They will be joined by elements of Jacob's Rifles and the Bombay Grenadiers, as well as a small cavalry component.

More on building 2-contour styro hill

2011-09-25T23:25:00.001-07:00

My previous post (LINK) showed some pics of the first few steps of building this hill, namely:

(1) Carve contour out of 1.5" foam, using mix of coping saw, dovetail saw, utility knife, and X-acto hobby saw.

(2) Trace footprint of hill onto model aircraft plywood, cut plywood & glue to base of foam using white glue.

(3) Turn contour upside-down and stack books and reams of paper onto plywood so it dries and seals tightly.

(4) Cover carved foam edges with ELMER'S WOOD FILLER (or any similar material).

...we pic up the "story in pictures" below, having carved a 2nd contour and preparing to glue it down atop the first.

In the past I have kept my hill contours separate, for greatest versatility when laying out tabletop terrain, but since this new hill is being built primarily to look good, I decided to permanently glue the 2nd contour down, so the edges of both contours could be sloped and their surfaces textured to match my terrain boards.

NOTE: if you plan on using SPRAY-PAINT for your base or "primer" coat of paint, it is very important to COVER EVERY SPOT OF EXPOSED FOAM with wood filler or whatever spackle material you are using (I'm referring to those areas of foam which have not been covered with sand or pebbles). Any foam spots that are left bare and exposed to spray-paint will be eaten away by the aerosol spray. You can avoid this potential problem altogether by simply brushing on your base/primer coat with black latex house-paint.

COLORS:

I used the following colors for this hill, all of which -- except for the black base coat -- are identical to those used for my terrain boards:

1. BLACK

2. BROWN (matched to Delta Ceramcoat "Dark Brown")

3. FAWN (matched to Folk Art "Fawn")

4. HONEYCOMB (matched to Folk Art "Honeycomb")

5. MUDSTONE (matched to Delta Ceramcoat "Mudstone")

6. SANDSTONE (matched to Delta Ceramcoat "Sandstone")

7. RAIN GRAY (matched to Delta Ceramcoat "Rain Gray")

8. QUAKER GRAY (matched to Delta Ceramcoat "Quaker Gray")

9. Final highlight coat of SANDSTONE

I used successively lighter dry-brushing as I proceeded, going from near-total coverage with the first coat of BROWN, to a very light touch with the final coats of Quaker Gray and Sandstone.

BEFORE PAINTING I textured the surface of both contours.

First I dug some spots out of the foam surface and glued in some small WOOD-CHIPS, which are meant to look like large slabs of rock-face or boulders. In addition to simply looking good, I did this so the hill wood blend in better with the previous hill I made almost entirely out of wood-chips (LINK).

After adding a few wood-chips, I spread some scattered patches of WOOD FILLER on the contour surfaces as well. I started doing this when I first textured my terrain boards, because I didn't want them to look too "perfect" from edge to edge, with nothing but an unbroken stretch of sand. I felt like that would look more like the Sahara or Arabian Deserts, as opposed to the more mixed ground cover in most of Afghanistan, so I used the wood filler to break up the sand.

Once I'd done my wood filler patches, I spread out FULL STRENGTH WHITE GLUE onto a stretch of contour surface, then I hand-placed several small and medium size PEBBLES where I though they would look good, and only then did I pour rough sand (actually HOME DEPOT "SOIL EROSION" ballast, an incredible bargain at something like $3.00 for a 10-pound bag).

I also made sure to use glue on a few spots along the slopes/edges of the contours, where I thought it would look good for rocks and sand to be scattered and link together the rocks and sand on the upper and lower contours.

Once everything had tried and I'd reclaimed all the loose ballast, I applied a coat of Woodland Scenics "Scenic Cement" -- which is nothing more than watered-down White Glue -- to bond everything together with one last coat of adhesive.

After that dried, I spray-painted my base-coat of FLAT BLACK, and then commenced DRY-BRUSHING.

Whew!!!

To be honest, the carving, spackling and gluing is somewhat interminable, but it all leads up to the PAINTING, which goes really, really fast, and which I personally really enjoy.

That does it for the step-by-step narration -- now on to the visual aids...

Building a 2-contour HILL from 1.5" foam, wood filler, ballast & pebbles

2011-09-24T12:54:00.000-07:00

Bad news: I just spent a couple hours loading up close to a hundred pics showing the process of building my new hill -- but unfortunately Blogger experienced a problem and this page I was working on lost them all. Needless to say, this kind of sucks, and after a very long day and night, I sadly can't summon the fortitude to go back and reload all those pics right now. If I'm very lucky maybe I can manage do it tomorrow night. But before I lost all that work, I had loaded up the handful of pics below, showing the very start of the process, which remained saved...

...and now for the good news: even though I didn't have the stick-to-it-tiveness to go back and reload all those myriad work-in-progress pics, I forced myself to put up a handful of pics showing the finished HILL, some of them with some figures added, as seen here:

As soon as I can manage it, I will repost all those other pics that fit in between the ones on top and on bottom. I'm very happy with how the hill turned out, and I want to share as much info as possible on how I built it.

"MAIWAND SATURDAY" at Colonial Barracks in Metairie, Louisiana, Nov. 4th-6th

2011-09-22T11:30:00.000-07:00

Word got out about a week ago that "Maiwand Day" will be participating in the first ever all-TSATF gaming convention, "Colonial Barracks," to be held on the weekend of November 4th through 6th, at the Sheration Metairie-New Orleans Hotel in Metairie, Louisiana.

I haven't said anything about it here until now, maybe because it still seems like such a crazy idea, even to me, but with the support of my very understanding wife, I will be going through with it.

The idea was suggested to me months ago, by Patrick Wilson of The Virtual Armchair General. It took me a couple of months to decide in favor of packing up my terrain and armies and driving 1895 (not a bad number for a trip to play TSATF!) miles from Los Angeles LA to Louisiana LA, but in the end I couldn't pass up the opportunity to meet Larry Brom -- author of The Sword And The Flame -- in person and enjoy having my set-up and scenario be part of such a fun and, for those of us who have loved, do love, and will always love TSATF, noteworthy event.

As I've said before, I have been playing the rules since they were first published in 1979, when I was 14 years old, and they have enabled me to enjoy many tabletop moments of triumph and moments of tragedy. It's my hope and expectation that a bunch of new players ("new" to me at least, no matter how longstanding their experience of playing with the rules may be!) will enjoy "Maiwand Saturday" at the convention.

I hope to post more info on details of the game, exactly how many spots for players, the exact orders of battle, maybe some of the scenario specific rules, etc., etc., as soon as I get a chance, which hopefully will be before the event arrives!

In the meantime here's a link to the convention page at "Sergeants3" -- the website devoted to sales of TSATF, its variations, supplements, and scenario books, and various other Larry Brom rules sets:

LINK TO SERGEANTS 3 COLONIAL BARRACKS CONVENTION PAGE

Maiwand will be played on Saturday, November 5th. It's a BIG GAME, requiring a good deal of time (fastest we have ever played it was 4-5 hours, and it certainly could go longer), with room for 3 British players (infantry/C-in-C, cavalry, & baggage) and from 5 to 8 Afghan players.

I'm hoping at least 2 and possibly 3 of my fellow "Maiwand Day" veterans (including my 14 year-old son) will be flying in to help me set up and run things at the convention.

If I had time to spare I would try to schedule stop-ins for some games along the way from Los Angeles to New Orleans (I plan to take a pretty straight route via Pheonix, Tuscon, Juarez, San Antonio and Houston), but I'm expecting to spend 3 days on the road each way, which is already a ton-and-a-half of time away from home, in addition to the 3 days spent at the con, so I'll have to settle for well-wishing wargame "drive-bys" to fellow gamers (especially of the colonial variety!) along my route instead.

On the miniatures front, I recently finished converting helmets for enough Pontoonier figures to serve as the 66th Regt. component of the BAGGAGE GUARD command at Maiwand and shipped them off to Brooklyn today. So if the talented Igor Olshansky can paint them brilliantly and send them back within the next week or two, they should be available to be christened in battle at the convention.

On the terrain front, I just put finishing touches on a long-standing AFGHAN HILL project I've been intermittently working on for many months. I need to take some time and post the usual ton of pics I took of the construction and painting process. I hope to do so before the end of this weekend.

One last "Maiwand Saturday at Colonial Barracks" note:

I'd like to say a very sincere THANK YOU to Nick Stern and Bob Abra of San Francisco for generously supplying me with an additional unit of sword-armed Indian Cavalry, to play the part of the mounted component of the British baggage guard. They are Bob's beautiful figures, which will be carefully packed and shipped to me by Nick. If not for their kind assistance, I'd be forced to employ Bengal Lancers or perhaps even the 10th Hussars, to fill this gap in my army list, which would somewhat depress an obsessive-compulsive nut such as myself. So once again, THANKS VERY MUCH GENTLEMEN!

The 66th Regt, helmet covers, chin-straps & THE HUMAN ELEMENT

2011-09-06T23:12:00.000-07:00

For followers and repeat visitors to this humble blog it will come as no surprise that I am somewhat obsessed with the uniforms, equipment & weapons used by the Afghan, British, Indian troops present at the 1880 battle of Maiwand.

Over the past months I've discussed how I converted miniature units of Bombay infantry, Bombay cavalry, and British artillery, in order to make them more accurately reflect what those units are said to have looked like at the battle. The last such conversion needed in order to complete my miniature version of General Burrows' army at Maiwand, is the 66th (berkshire) Regiment of British line infantry.

I had used the same unit of miniatures as the 66th for all 3 of the Maiwand games I have played (a few are on view in the masthead photo above). They are beautifully sculpted minis from the Perry Sudan range, beautifully painted by a professional painter in Australia (on another front, I only wish I knew his exact identity and how to contact him to commission some work!). But, aside from wearing khaki and carrying Martini-Henry rifles, they are not very historically accurate. To wit:

(1) their helmets have puggarees rather than smooth cloth covers with leather chin-straps hooked up to the top;

(2) their pants legs hang loose at the ankles rather than wrapped in puttees;

(3) their "Valise" pattern ammunition pouches are painted white, matching the rest of their leather equipment, rather than black.

Painting pouches black instead of white is no big deal, but puttees, helmet covers and hooked-up flat leather chin-straps are another story.

It took awhile but I finally tracked down British infantry figures wearing puttees, carrying Martini-Henrys (rather than the later magazine-fed Lee-Metford ), and wearing Valise pattern equipment (rather than the earlier "pouch-belt" style with rolled greatcoats worn across the shoulder en-banderole).

The figures are from the Pontoonier Miniatures Third Burma War range, available from Newline Designs in the UK: LINK TO PONTOONIER THIRD BURMA WAR BRITISH

There's only one thing on them that doesn't fit: their helmets also have puggarees wrapped around them.

The labor-intensive-but-still-relatively-easy part of the fix was slicing, filing and sanding off the puggarees, but the much harder part for me was finding a way to add a perfectly uniform size chin-strap to each of 20+ helmets.

I started out thinking I'd use 2-part epoxy modeling clay, like "green-stuff" and did 2 samples. Problem was, after a great deal of work, I wound up with long, thin, CURVED straps, rather than flat ones. So... in hopes of finding something like a spool of thin FLATTENED wire, I visited my local hobby store. Lucky for me, working that day was a very knowledgeable and helpful guy I've known for a few years. I had brought one of my figures and explained in excruciating detail what I was looking for. It took him a few minutes but he FOUND EXACTLY WHAT I NEEDED:

...teeny-tiny strip styrene. Small enough AND flat enough to work as leather chin-straps for my 28mm figures (as opposed to rounded chain-link straps).

If not for the HUMAN ELEMENT, I would have failed. I've bought other -- much larger -- pieces of Evergreen Scale Models merchandise (big flat pieces of plastic to use as bases for terrain), but I had no idea they made such minuscule items.

Needless to say, if it hadn't been for the presence of that trusty fellow at the hobby shop, I would never have found the solution to my problem. Like what I assume to be a very large number of my fellow hobbyists, these days I spend most of my hobby dollars via the internet, rather than at my local "brick-&-mortar" hobby shop. There's nothing wrong with that and I would guess it is not going to change, other than becoming an even more common practice. Nonetheless, this has reminded me that there will always be times when the key ingredient is the HUMAN ELEMENT -- when you need an actual STORE complete with a living, breathing HUMAN BEING knowledgeable enough to help you out.

Here's some pics of the first two chin-straps I added -- actually the only two I've done so far --using small amounts of long-acting "slo-zap" super-glue. I need to do a bunch more, but I'm happily convinced this is the right way to go, as it results in perfectly uniform dimensions for the added straps, as is appropriate for a piece of industrial-age military equipment.

***PS To be brutally honest, even these figures are not ABSOLUTELY PERFECT, since they wear full Valise equipment, rather than the stripped down "belt-order" version usually worn on campaign in Afghanistan, where the greatcoat/blanket and mess tin would usually be carried by the baggage train, but it's still pretty dang close, and I'm sure there were occasions when such full equipment was worn.