Tuesday, June 16, 2015

Zulus

As a kid growing up obsessed with little toy soldiers there couldn't possibly have been two more important movies than "Zulu" and "Zulu Dawn". The classic British uniforms, the absolute masses of Zulu Warriors, simply amazing.

 


This is a project I've wanted to do for a long time now. Last year at Historicon I got a great deal on both a British starter set and the Zulu starter set - more than half off of retail for each. How could I possibly pass that up?

 

I'll be completely honest and say that I'm doing this project because I think it's fun and it reminds me of my childhood. I'm not going to research actual regiments that fought at Rorke's Drift or Isandlwana, or worry about differentiating married and unmarried warriors. Shame on me as historical gamer I guess, but again this one is for fun.

Army Painter Quick Shade Applied

The figures are from Warlord Games and Empress Miniatures. The starter box is just massive! You get 60 married and 60 unmarried Zulu Warriors, along with 1 mounted InDuna, 1 Zulu runner, and 1 Witch Doctor. 123 total figures!? The only thing I don't care for is that the figures are plastic. I'm a metal guy - insert the heavy metal horns here. Besides, it's a fact that metal figures fight better than plastic. Google it.

A mother beautiful box

Not a whole lot to say about this first group, really simple painting and basing, except I made a complete meal out of 7 figures because I stupidly tried to spray dull coat outside today when it was 80 degrees and humid. In the photo below it's hard to tell, but these guys look liked they rolled around in flour. Every one had a white haze all over them. Luckily all I had to do was throw some Vallejo Sepia Wash on them and they were back to presentable.


20 down and only 103 to go. Seems reasonable that they should be finished sometime in 2020 based on my current pace with them. That's exciting.




As always, thanks for looking!

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6 comments:

  1. Very nice bunch you have there! Zulu is my dad's favourite film so I was subjected to it a lot as a kid and grew to love it. I was actually at the regimental museum for the Welsh regiment that was at rourkes drift 2 years ago. They had some great displays and a massive 28mm diorama of the battle using those figs.

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    1. Thanks! That's brilliant, I wish I could have the opportunity to visit that museum. The diorama sounds a lot like one at Gettysburg, I'm sure it was amazing.

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    2. My next update post I'll upload some pics I took!

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    3. That's fantastic! Looking forward to it!

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  2. BRILLIANT WORK!

    Oh, if you have the problem of dullcoat going all tits up again, try a thin coat of hand painted on Gloss Varnish, then re-matte varnish. Works a treat.

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  3. Thanks, much appreciated! I'll keep that in mind for sure, I know this particular incident was all on my impatience!

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