From StuartL - Naval Brigade at Adventurer's Landing - 45 Points

Hello again.

For my second post today, I am working on clearing out the remaining locations on my trip through the Chambers of Challenge. Having bypassed a few spots on my mad descent to the Altar of the Snow Lord, I still have a few bonus points to grab before I am done. So, this submission is to fulfill the target for Adventurer's Landing on level 2. 

Like many hobbyists, I have multiple projects that I am working on at any given time and several that I add to as and when the mood takes me. For the most part, I try to collect armies for games that at least one other club member plays, simply because it is easier to do so. However, one of my largest projects is one that only I have any interest in, the Anglo-Zulu War. Having seen the eponymous movie multiple times in my childhood, when Warlord did a range of plastic minis about 10 years or so ago, I leapt at the chance to recreate it on the tabletop. Since then, I have bought up a bunch of Ospreys on the subject as well as multiple books by a variety of authors in an attempt to understand the short, bloody war in as much detail as possible. While I still enjoy the movie Zulu and it's prequel, Zulu Dawn, very much, it's quite sad how much of it was changed from the original history. 

While Warlord provide decent enough plastic minis for the bulk of the British regulars and the Zulus, the conflict included a lot of other auxiliaries and volunteers on the British side of things, and for those I turned to Empress Miniatures. (The Perrys do some figures for the AZW as well). Empress minis are nicely detailed and accurate figures, though their shipping can be a bit on the pricey side. 

Due to a lack of regular infantry at the start of hostilities (by the British, the Zulus weren't the aggressors in this case), Lord Chelmsford grabbed every able bodied serviceman he could get. After the debacle at Isandlwana, the lack of manpower became even more of an issue. Several Royal Navy ships docked at Durban deployed crewmen and marines to aid the British column fighting around the coast. One of those ships was the HMS Shah, a steam powered frigate named for the Shah of Persia. These four sailors are sporting the sennit straw hat with headband identifying them as from the Shah and are equipped with cutlass bayonets. While most of my collection is multi-based, these four have been given single bases to allow them to be used as a tiny unit of skirmishers in Black Powder.

Not a member of the Royal Navy, but just an extra AZW mini I had lying around, this is another Empress mini. By the brace on the neck, I think this is meant to be Private Hughes at the Battle of Rorke's Drift, played by Larry Taylor in the movie. Again, he is mounted on a single base as a skirmisher.

And here we have the five of them all together. Painting them was fairly straightforward, though the lettering on the headbands was a little tricky. 

So, for 5x 28mm minis, that should add 25 points to my score along with the bonus of 20 points for landing some troops on a foreign shore in the Chamber. Again, no skulls or GW minis, but another Squirrel point for my side duels.

My running Duels totals:

GW Points - 806

Skullz - 451

Squirrels - 17