More insurgents

Huzzah, an update!  I waited until the kids were in bed, then created a small diorama with my current figures and terrain.  Look for the giant goldfish in the background of some of the shots!

Here are some insurgents.  These are again Eureka, but with heads swapped from Old Glory Pathans because turbans.  The one on the left with the RPK is original, the two on the right have head swaps.

A couple more insurgents join the action.

Insurgents now get some heavier support, including a dushka and a mortar.  Mercedes truck in the background is a 1:50 Siku model.  Unfortunately, I've decided that it's too big to fit with the rest of the collection. 8^(

The livestock so far (more on the way!).  I hope that's not an atrocity happening in the background...

Some shots of vehicles.  The blue truck is a Rubicon Models Opel Blitz, that I picked up as an impulse purchase from my local wargaming shop.  It's a sweet little plastic model, easily assembled, much less hassle to build than the resin truck (the red one).  I'm undecided if it will remain part of the Afghanistan scenery:  there aren't too many 1930's era trucks still running anywhere, let alone A'stan!  However, I enjoyed building it.

Comparison shots of the 1:56 wargaming trucks with the 1:43 Mercedes die cast.  The taxi will be ejected from my Afghanistan collection - it's simply too big.  

However, following a lead from Carlos at Lead Adventure Forum, I've procured a car from the Pixar/Disney Cars collection, which looks like a better fit.  (the tractor trailer rig is also from Cars, but belongs to Erik so it's off limits for me!)

And finally, a couple of street scenes. A peaceful day in southern Afghanistan!

Taxi

Here's my attempt at the ubiquitous Afghan taxi.  I'm not satisfied with the result but not sure how to get a better base vehicle to paint.  I really just slapped the paint on to see how it looked - while there are plenty of paint splashes on the wheels and windows, I'm more concerned about the scale of the vehicle compared to the miniatures.

Afghan taxis are probably the most commonly found vehicles on the road, all with slight variations on yellow and white paint.  Yellow with white doors is fairly common, but there are many paint schemes to be found.  Almost every taxi is a Toyota Corona (not quite a Corolla, but pretty similar).

Models of modern, ordinary street vehicles are not that easy to come by.  For starters, there's almost nothing in any size close enough to gaming scale.  The model I found had the right price (under $10 Canadian) but is a 1:43 scale Mercedes wagon.  I've no big issues with passing off a Mercedes as a beat up old Toyota (maybe the owner got lucky) but the scale is out of whack with the figures.  It looks more like a Hummer than a street vehicle - at this scale the figures can barely see over the hood, let alone the roof.

I've got the same issue with the ANP pickup truck from my post a few weeks ago.  However, for now this is what I'se got.

Afghans with guns

The first armed Afghans (insurgents? criminals?  local militia?  who knows?) are now making their appearance.  These are Eureka Miniatures figures.  I'm a big fan, they are wonderfully sculpted and cast and a joy to paint.  My only complaint is that about half of them are wearing the distinctive Pakul cap, as favoured by Tajiks such as Ahmad Shah Masooud, lion of the Panjshir, and made famous by the mujahadin who fought the Soviets in the 1980s.

However, it is almost never seen in the south, specifically the area around Kandahar that I want to recreate.  I've allowed a couple of figures to keep their pakul hats, but for others I've attempted two different strategies.  Some have had greenstuff turbans rather haphazardly wrapped around their heads, while others have suffered greater indignity as I removed their heads altogether and replaced them with heads liberated from Old Glory NWF Pathans.  Here are the results:

These chaps are the rank and file.  (as always, click on the photo for a close up!)  The chap who is kneeling has had a greenstuff turban added.

Here are a couple of commanders - I managed to get two of the same figure, a grizzled commander wearing a pakul hat.  The one on the left has had a turban added, the one on the right is a head swap.  I like the way it looks like the head-swapped commander is concentrating as he looks down; this was serendipity!  Worked out but just by luck.  A simple tilt of the head makes him look like a completely different figure.

And finally, a couple of observers with binoculars.

  

Camels

I recently scored on a figure exchange with another gamer.  I had some figures that were languishing in an abandoned project (my idea to do "something" for an 1870-ish game).  I shipped them off to Ontario in exchange for some Perry Sudan Brits (who will fit in quite nicely on the NW Frontier), and as a bonus I received these camels, a blast from the past which I immediately recognised as the old Ral Partha Brigands' Treasure Caravan.  (Thanks, Pete!)  So naturally I had to paint them up immediately.

The 'naked' camel will fit in nicely for my Afghanistan games (both modern and 1880).  I could have disguised the loads on the other two to make them generic, but nostalgia prevailed so here they are in their glory:

ANP Pickup

I picked up a die cast pickup truck for the ANP.  I like the way the paint job turned out, but I keep seeing things that are wrong with it, like that it is a Chevy Silverado and it should be a Ford Ranger and that it should have a roll bar and grill guard.

Of course is it (probably) 1:43 so somewhat out of scale with the figures, but on the tabletop it doesn't look too bad.  Really stands out in the photo, though!

If I can find a suitable DShK, I'll mount it on the truck sometime - certainly saw a few of those driving around (although at the time I didn't know enough to call them DShK or dushka, just "WTF is that cannon doing on that pickup!?").

Standing next to the truck is the latest figure, could be Taliban, might just be an armed civilian.

Afghanistan people and terrain

The past few months I've been reading up on Afghanistan and (more importantly) building terrain and painting miniatures for Kandahar.

First up, a rock!  Walking on the beach with the family, my wife found this lovely piece of driftwood. A coat of gesso, a lick of paint and voilà, terrain for the game.

I've also built a couple of compounds.  The first is based on the design from Matakishi's Tea House (http://www.matakishi.com/afghancompoundbuild.htm).  I didn't follow the directions exactly, as I used foamcore rather than cork tiles, and pretty much everything is held together with the handyman's secret weapon (duct tape).  The base is a 12" x 12" plywood square from Michael's.  Then I slathered on a layer of gesso. I smeared white glue over most of the surfaces and coated the walls and ground with sand and model railway ballast to give some texture.  The structure is pretty basic but I like how it turned out.

For compound #2 I started with the Renedra Mud Brick house.  By itself, it's a nice little structure, but it needs to be part of a compound.  For me, if I'm going to the trouble of building all the compound walls, it's just about as easy to carry on and build the interior buildings as well.  So rather than do that, I tried to make this as easy as possible by grabbing a few bits from the Warlord Games ruined hamlet.  The hamlet ruins aren't quite right for Afghanistan, but I didn't let that stop me.  I used a bit of masking and mostly decided to depend on the paint job.  The idea here is a ruined complex, with bits of walls and a single building still standing.  At some point I'll build at least one more compound.  I hope!

I purchased the Afghan civilians set from Eureka Miniatures USA.  Here they are in their fully painted glory (including the ones featured in an earlier blog post!).  The Eureka figures are lovely but I needed to add some putty to convert the pakul-style caps on two of the figures into turbans, as these are meant to be Pashtuns, not Tajiks.    The turbans ended up pretty bulky but good enough for me.

The men:

I should have given at least one of the older gents a bright orange beard, as many Afghan greybeards will use copious amounts of henna!  Maybe if I get another set...

The women:

And I also decided to repurpose a set of Warlord Games Celtic civilians.  I added a bit of greenstuff to make the skirts longer and to give the girl a shawl.  I tried to convert the tunic on one of the boys into a shalwar kameez, but it looked a bit rubbish so I left the other one alone and depended on the paint job.  I gave him a bit of a Kandahar-syle pillbox hat, though!

And finally, la pièce de résistance, my jingle truck!  Admittedly, it doesn't look much like any jingle truck on the road in south Asia, but I hope it adds a bit of local colour to the table.  I started with a Warlord Games Bedford OY and again depended mostly on a garish paint job to do the trick.  I also chopped up a small chain necklace, then built up a front bumper from tin foil and putty.  There aren't many WWII-era trucks still on the road in South Asia, at least not that I noticed, but I couldn't find more appropriate, modern era trucks that were readily available.  I'm sure they're out there, but this does the trick for me.