Friday 4 October 2013

African militia

Moving on from Rorke's Drift in time and scale, but staying in the same continent... Fellow Blogger and Newcastle Legions member StazMatt has been putting up pictures of his 15mm Africa terrain- check it out here! He's inspired me to put up pictures of my 15mm Peter Pig militia I did a year or two ago.

My imagiNation for these guys is Bangalla, a once-prosperous nation near the horn of Africa. Destabilising internal and external influences have thrown this beautiful land into turmoil. This rag-tag militia is typical of the undisciplined warbands that roam the land, terrorising the civilians. They wear a mix of civilian clothes and jungle greens, and are equipped with old Soviet bloc kit.


Bonus points if you know where I stole the idea of Bangalla from.

First up, my leaders. The kneeling ones could be weapons crew as well. The leader in black isn't Peter Pig, but is from Blaze Away. See another pic of him here.
Militia leaders

RPGs and RPKs. There are eight of each per pack- four of my RPKs were recruited for Taliban conversions- more on that at some future point.
RPGs

RPKs

Naked fanatics. Just because.
"This is my weapon, this is my gun..."

The rest of the AK boys.



Everyone together! You can see here how the RPGs and RPKs have colourful grass tufts on their bases to help distinguish them. The leaders don't, they have more pronounced poses.


I'd like to get a few crew served weapons for this mob, and especially to make some weapons to go on the backs of the vehicles. The shanties were trial builds. I like them, but maybe they need more colour? I plan to build a tabletop-full eventually. The tyres are HO/OO railway scenery from some backyard industry in Hobart.

I've got a soft spot for those tragic pictures of bizarre African militias, offset by despair at images of child soldiers.
The film Johnny Mad Dog

17 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Thanks, Matt- sometime we should get a game in...

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  2. They look amazing and as for the shot of them en masse - wow!

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  3. "...this one is for war and this one is for fun."

    Great looking troops!

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  4. "Johnny Mad Dog" sounds like an interesting, if harrowing, film. It's hard to comprehend the lives led by child soldiers, but people have an amazing capacity to recover from loss and tragedy. Friends of mine recently traveled in Rwanda, and because the country has dedicated itself to recovery, reconciliation and forgiveness, it's gone from a place where people hacked their neighbours to death with machetes, to one of sub-Saharan Africa's more functional governments.

    Anyway, I'm amazed at how good your forces look... especially photographed in such realistic terrain. Somehow, they capture the image of undisciplined but still very dangerous fighters rather well. The naked berserkers are an interesting touch, perhaps they believe they're bulletproof?

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    1. I haven't seen 'Johnny Mad Dog', but is a superb screenshot. I've read horrific stuff about Rwanda, it's somewhat reassuring to hear things are looking up.

      Thanks for the compliments; I'm sure the fanatics won't care about their personal safety in the least...

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  5. Great collection Barks, not just the figures and vehicles, but I love the corrugated iron shanties and piles of old tyres- great stuff!

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    1. Thanks, Gunrunner! I prefer a little bit of scenery in my fashion shoots....

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  6. How coincidental. I picked up AK-47 Republic at MOAB on Saturday. Typical quirky Peter Pig stuff. Have you had a look at it? It's supposed to be for multi based 15mm but I'd be interested to see how it would work in a different scale/ base as well.

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    1. I've heard good things about AK47. Theoretically I could make sabot bases for my little guys...

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  7. Yes, I have quite a few bits and pieces from PP. I particularly like their modern US troops, but not so much of the 'scenery/miscellaneous' stuff. I have a copy of AK47, but haven't really played it yet.

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  8. That is, I haven't SEEN too much of the miscellaneous stuff!

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  9. Lovely work, you've inspired me to paint my Khurasan Somali pirates!

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