From GregB: 28mm Afghan Tribal Warriors (155 points)

28mm Afghan tribal warriors from Perry Miniatures, ready to close in on the British columns...

For my second submission today, I'll be switching gears to a completely different setting and a new project for me - the Second Anglo-Afghan War. These are 28mm Afghan tribal warriors, multi-part plastic figures from Perry Miniatures. There are 32 figures, enough for two units/groups of tribal warriors for the Osprey skirmish game "The Men Who Would Be Kings". 

An assortment of rifle-armed tribal warriors.

This setting seems to be popular among colonial wargamers, including several fellow Painting Challenge participants. Their various efforts through the years have intrigued me, and between looking at those, and a couple of "just browsing" sort of visits to the Perry Miniatures web site, I was intrigues enough to take the plunge myself. Reading through the "The Men Who Would Be Kings" rules sealed the deal for me...

Very basic hand-painted flag.

This project has been under way for quite some time. I had started the majority of these figures right around Christmas last year. But owing to the disruption caused by moving to a new house, I was not able to complete the basing and the (very basic) hand-painted flags until last week. So here they are today!

I love the guy loading the jezzail!

These multi-part plastic from Perry Miniatures are fantastic. The metal castings are still better (because obviously) but the plastic boxes are very well done and have been an excellent way to accumulate a relatively large number of tribal warriors. I plan to add units of cavalry and regular infantry from the Afghan army, but the tribal elements would be core to any Afghan force and I wanted to start with them. 

There are lots of swords and shields in the mix too!

I tried to mix up the colours a bit, and sought out different bits of inspiration in the hopes of not completely f*cking everything up, which is always a risk when one comes to a new period/setting. The warriors are equipped with a broad mix of muskets, rifles, jezzails, swords and knives of various sizes, and even shields! It all gets abstracted in the rules, allowing for a nice and motley appearance for the tribal warriors.

This lot is ready for battle!

One area that still needs a ton of practice is the skin tones. I wanted to get some different skin tones, and it was quite hit-and-miss, owning in large part to the fact that GW paints I use have tended to be out of stock, leading to improvisation, and combined also with the fact that, in the chaos of moving, I haven't really kept careful track of what worked and what didn't...maybe this will improve when I get to the next round of Afghan units for this project...

A 16-figure unit of Tribal infantry for "The Men Who Would Be Kings", ready for action on the table

Anyway, for scoring purposes, we have 32 figures in the photos, but there are a couple of pre-Challenge test paint jobs in there, so this will only count as 30 figures in 28mm scale - should still be good for 150 points, and by my recent standards it feels like a "points bomb" for me (even if, by current Challenge standards, 150 points does not even count as a "points candle" but who cares). Thanks for reading!

In my this book this is a points bomb, Greg, and what a great one! I really like how you achieved some uniformity while still keeping it so diverse and interesting. Great figures and a great paint job! An excellent start to a promising new project, and I am already looking forward to the next installment. The swordsmen are especially fine, I love the striped turban! And you may call them basic, but I think your hand-painted flags still warrant some bonus points. As I like round numbers, that's another 155 points in the bag. 

Martijn