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.

Mounted Commando

Having rebased the Scruby foot figures I felt I had to make the effort and do the same for the mounted ones. They needed a little more TLC than their foot brethren but I limited the repainting to areas that were worn or scratched as I wanted to retain as much of Ross’s painting handiwork as possible.

I’m very pleased with the way they’ve turned out and I must admit I’ve grown to love these old sculpts which date back to at least the 1970s. The horses have a certain something about them and manage to successfully convey movement in a way that not all more recent figure designers have managed.

Within the ranks is one Jacklex figure but he blends in so well you’ll have a hard job to spot him. The Commandant figure is one of the contemporary mounted figures produced by Newline Designs.

Scruby Commando

Commandant Ross leads out the newly refurbished Scruby Commando. These are more of the figures I received from Ross last year that have now been touched up, re-varnished and rebased to my own system.

These figures by Jack Scruby are slender and look a bit small compared to the Boer figures by Jacklex and Newline Designs but they have a charm of their own. I particularly like the figure representing Commandant Ross with his rifle cradled in his arm.

Each of my Commando’s will be comprised of 12 men plus a Commandant based in such a way as to allow casualty removal. The initial phase of this project will require me to have three such Commando’s and I’m well on the way to this now.

Boer Artillery

These are more of the figures I recently received from Ross. They’ve been touched up and rebased to my own basing scheme. The gun I believe is a British one but I thought it looked suitably ‘Boer-ish’ and in the absence of proper 20mm Boer artillery it certainly looks the part.

The gunners are a mixture of Jacklex and Scruby figures. Jacklex never produced any Boer gunners commercially although apparently some prototypes were made – click here. The Jacklex figures in this crew are BW6 Horse Holder and PEA5 Officer (from the Mexican War range).

There is good news on the Boer artillery front however as Newline Designs have just released a Pompom gun and crew. I already have a couple of Pompoms from Raventhorpe Miniatures but this newer offering looks a bit more businesslike so I will probably get some in due course.

Jacklex Maxim

The Maxim gun was invented by Hiram Maxim in 1883 and was the first proper machine gun to be deployed by the British army. It was used successfully in several colonial wars although it is said its effect was more psychological than physical. By the time of the Second Boer War there were two maxim guns attached to each British battalion.

“Whatever happens, we have got

The Maxim gun, and they have not”

The Boers however were not the spear wielding tribesmen the British were used to dealing with as they had invested in some state of the art weapons including the Mauser rifle and the pom-pom gun. The pom-pom was an upgraded version of the Maxim gun that fired a 2-pound shell and the British Tommies were not keen to find themselves on the receiving end of such a weapon.

This model Maxim gun and figures are produced by Jacklex (available from Spencer Smith Miniatures) and were amongst the figures I recently received from Ross. I had to touch up them up slightly so that they blend in with my existing British infantry and then base them to my own basing scheme. I’m really pleased with the way they’ve turned out.

Boer Reinforcements

I have just received some rather splendid Boer reinforcements that in one fell swoop have trebled the size of my commandos. The figures are a mixture of Scruby and Jacklex ones that were previously in the collection of Ross and appeared on his blog here.

A complete 12 figure mounted commando. This will save me
a lot time as I'm always slow to paint cavalry. My idea is to
have just one mounted Boer unit which can be used to
represent any of the foot commandos when required. These
are nearly all Scruby figures (JC54 & 55) with a couple
of Jackex (I think all the horses are Scruby).

This is a full commando on foot made up entirely of Scruby
figures (J50, J51, J52). They are charming slender little figures
full of character. That's Commandant Ross out front
leading them.

I believe this is Jacklex C6 Colonial Field Gun although it is
bigger than some I bought recently. The Boer gunners are
mostly Scruby J53 but I'm not sure where the gunner with
field glasses came from - great figure though.

This is Jacklex C5 Colonial horse drawn maxim gun and crew.
The maxim is a particularly nice model and just what the
Suffolks will need as back up against all those Boers.

I was really excited to receive this because it is the 'must have'
item for any Boer War British force. This is Jacklex N15 Naval
Gun. I will have to get some naval gunners to crew this.

Last but not least Ross included these Boers painted I believe
for action along the Canadian border but can be trasferred to
South African duty with a dab or two of paint.

Thanks to Ross for being noble enough to part with these lovely figures. I hope they will do him proud in my planned Boer War battles.