Final Boer Commando

This will probably be the last Boer unit that I paint for this project as I can’t see that I’ll ever be able to use more than four Commandos on my 6’ x 4’ table given the way my rules play.

The figures are mostly from the excellent range by Raventhorpe Miniatures with a couple from Newline Designs thrown in to make up the numbers. The Raventhorpe Boers are lovely little sculpts full of character and movement and a joy to paint.

The unit will nominally be known as the Raventhorpe Commando in my OOB.

Long Tom

Nobody makes a 20mm Boer Long Tom gun in metal, so I bought the plastic one from Strelets. I’m glad I did because it is a really superb little model, and the crew figures are useful too. With the Long Tom done I decided to further expand the artillery park for both sides in preparation for the coming campaigning season.

155mm Cresout Long Tom Gun by Strelets, the crew are a mixture of Strelets and Jacklex. The appearance of the Long Tom on the battlefield was something of a surprise to the British as it could out-range anything they possessed (including the 4.7 inch naval guns) and the smokeless powder it used made it very difficult to spot.

75mm Cresout Gun. This model was an Old Glory one given to me by Roy and is actually 25mm scale but by switching the wheels with some by Newline I think it looks just right for 20mm. The crew again are a mixture of Strelets and Jacklex.

With all this Boer heavy ordinance about I thought I should beef up the British line with another maxim gun from Jacklex. Each British infantry battalion had a couple of maxim guns attached however they were difficult to employ in an attack and consequently had little impact in the fighting - but they are nice models!

And of course another field gun seemed like a good idea. The gun and crew are Jacklex. I must say that the quality of the Jacklex castings has improved greatly under the new ownership.

With the larger forces now available to the British I thought I should introduced a couple of Brigadiers to help with command and control. These are from Jacklex.

And finally, another mounted Boer commander (Jacklex) and Commandant on foot (Raventhorpe). The Commandant on foot will eventually get his own Commando.

This gives me a lot of choices to depict artillery in my games and the Long Tom opens up the possibility of gaming the Battle of Ladysmith.

Imperial Light Horse - Finished

In the end I decided to modify each figure in the same way I did the test figure, by snipping off part of the hat brims and building them back up using Magic Sculp. I did tentatively try bending the metal as suggested by Rob, but it felt like the whole head would snap off which was not the look I wanted.

I found this blurb somewhere on the internet, can’t remember where -

The first commander of the Regiment (consisting of 444 officers and men, chosen from 5,000 volunteers) was Colonel John James Scott-Chisholme, who led the unit at its first engagement, the Battle of Elandslaagte on 21 October 1899. During this battle two Victoria Crosses were awarded (to Captain Charles Herbert Mullins and Lieutenant Robert Johnston).

The Regiment subsequently saw service at the Siege of Ladysmith (where another Victoria Cross was awarded - to Trooper Herman Albrecht at Wagon Hill) Colenso, the Battle of Spion Kop and the Relief of Ladysmith. At Spion Kop, the ILH was successful in capturing Commandant Hendrik Frederik Prinsloo, the commander of the Carolina Boer Commando. The ILH was then specially selected to join the Mafeking Relief Column under Colonel Mahon. Eight men under Major Karri Davies of the ILH were the first to enter Mafeking on the night of 16/17 May 1900 to break the siege.

The figures are by Newline Designs except for the Officer who is converted from a Raventhorpe Miniatures Boer.

1st Devonshire Regiment

The Devons are finished and based ready for action. There are 24 riflemen plus the usual 3 officer figures to make my standard British infantry unit establishment. This brings the total number of British infantry regiments to four which must surely be enough to beat the Boers?

That’s probably it for the British forces now but I will add another Commando to the Boers at some point just to be fair.

I’m hoping to play a solo game of Talana Hill soon but just need to complete some scenic items first.

EDIT***updated photo***

British Reinforcements

As is common to all commanders who have just lost a battle I have called for reinforcements to my British army. I felt during the test game that if only I had one more infantry unit, I would have swept the Boers from the field!

I have completed the first batch of figures for the next unit; these are more from the superb Raventhorpe Miniatures range. The British ‘standing at ready’ are BO19 and the officer is BO21. At the same time, I couldn’t resist painting the very nice Boer Commandant figure BO08.

When finished the unit will be nominally designated as the 1st Devonshire Regiment who fought at Elandslaagte.

Another Commando

Commando made up of the last of  the Scruby's that Ross sent me together
with Jacklex, Newline and Raventhorpe figures. I think they blend together
remarkably well.

I’ve just finished another Commando bringing the total in my Boer army up to three plus a mounted one. This means I have enough Boers now to have a stab at playing a game based on the Battle of Elandslaagte. This is something I’ve wanted to do since I was 14 when I was given a copy of “History of the British Army” (edited by Peter Young and J P Lawford) which contains a chapter on the battle that sparked my interest in the Boer War.

I’m still short of British though as I need a Highland regiment (which I’ve just started to paint), two British field guns, some lancers and a unit of dismounted Imperial Light Horse. This is likely to take me some time to paint up but it’s good to have a goal.

I’ll also need some scenic items including Elandslaagte Station, some farm buildings and a few barbed wire fences. Oh, and I need to finish writing the rules!

A pair of pom-poms

The pom-pom was a development that grew out of Hiram Maxim’s machine gun in the 1880’s. The British army initially rejected the gun but the Boers enthusiastically included them in their arsenal using German ammunition. The gun fired a 1-pound exploding shell at a rapid rate that not unsurprisingly alarmed the British troops on the receiving end.

These pom-poms are by Raventhorpe Miniatures and the gunners are a mixture of Scruby and Jacklex. They’re not specifically gunner figures but are the closest I could find for the job and I’m quite please with the result.

This completes the Boer artillery for this project, next I need to sort out some British guns.

Coldstream Guards

The 1st battalion Coldstream Guards formed part of 1st Guards brigade under major General Colvile and also contained the 2nd Coldstream, 3rd Grenadier Guards and 1st Scots Guards. The 1st battalion Coldstreams were engaged at Belmont, Modder River and Magesfontein where they suffered heavy casualties.

Although I have called these the Coldstream Guards they will be able to stand in for any Guards units on the wargame table. These wonderful figures by Raventhorpe Miniatures are on the chunky side of 20mm and certainly dwarf my Jacklex figures but I guess Guardsmen were suppose to be tall and I really wanted to use them.

27 Raventhorpe figures painted for me by the talented Matt Golding.

First of the Guards

I couldn’t resist painting up this test figure for what will be my Guard battalion – no particular one in mind but possibly they’ll represent the Coldstream Guards who took part in the actions at Modder River and Magersfontein.

The figure is from Raventhorpe Miniatures ref BO13 British standing firing. I really like this range as they are amongst the few 20mm models available specifically designed with the Boer War in mind. There is a lot of character in this pose that somehow conjures up that Boer War feel.

I’m going to need more British troops because I’m hoping to receive some Boer reinforcements shortly and we can’t have the Boers outnumbering the British as that just wouldn’t be cricket.

1st Commando

Having said that I wouldn’t be mixing different manufacturers figures within the same unit I’ve gone ahead and done exactly that in my 1st Commando.

This unit is comprised of  5 x Newline Designs, 6 x Jacklex and one odd Raventhorpe Miniatures thrown in for good measure. To be honest I don’t think there’s actually that much difference between the figures once they’re based up. It would probably be much more noticeable if I did the same thing with the British.

Next I’ll be turning my attention to my first British battalion which will be a Jacklex one.

Figure comparisons

Thanks to some super sleuthing by Roy in tracking down the UK distributor for Raventhorpe Miniatures, I took delivery of some samples this week from their Boer War range. The figures are really excellent (as was the service) and this now opens up a whole load of new options for units. Most importantly it gives me access to some decent British infantry that match in perfectly with my favoured Newline Designs Boers.

Jacklex BW5, Newline BOE01, Raventhorpe BO02

I thought I would post some comparisons of figures from Jacklex, Newline and Raventhorpe in case anybody else is thinking of dabbling in this period in 20mm as this would have been helpful to me at the start of this project - click on the pictures to take a good look.

Jacklex B5, Newline SUD04, Raventhorpe BO13 (uncovered helmet)

The Raventhorpe British infantry come with separate heads (there are covered and uncovered helmets available) which gives the potential for a great deal of variation and they have some lovely poses. They also make a very nice model of a Boer pom-pom gun and British Maxim but more on those in a future post.