Edinburgh Wargames
Colonial
Mr. Kipling's Favourite
Although I'd dabbled with colonial gaming in the past, I never found it that satisfying. It always seemed something of a turkey shoot where Whatever happens we have got, the Maxim gun, and they have not seemed to sum the whole thing up.
However, I've come to revisit it in the past year or two, mainly because I was suckered into it. The first mistake was to start re-reading the Flashman books. That put me in the mood. Next, I built up a small army for WW1 in East Africa. It involved tribal allies, so I found myself buying a whole army of Foundry He-He tribesmen... and Germans for them to fight. Well, other guys was doing the same with the Masai, so it seemed like the thing to do.
Next came "The Back of Beyond" campaign, set in Central Asia in the 1920's. I have the Turks, so it seemed only natural to buy some irregular tribesmen to back them up. Inevitably this meant Foundry NW Frontier Pathans - which was a terrible mistake. It coincided with me reading Saul Davis's book The Indian Mutiny, and before you could say "Pandy" I had a big plastic bag of mutinous sepoys and an empty wallet. Then I picked up The Road to Kabul by Brian Robson (about the 2nd Afghan War), and I was back to the Frontier again!
Colin Jack and Dave O'Brien at the Edinburgh Club play Colonial games from time to time, and the Mutiny pictures are from games I've played with them. I've now painted my mutineers, and you can visit them by clicking on the link below. My He He are done, and although they rarely seem to make it to the tabletop, they always make for a colourful game.
For rules we use Chris Peers' Heart of Africa set, which if you haven't tried it is great fun. We've also experimented with Sepoy, an older Indian Mutiny set, and also with The Sword & the Flame. Colin and Dave modified the Heart of Africa system for the Indian Mutiny, and it seems to work well -quickly and enjoyably, which is what you want from a game! We call the Mutiny version In the Heart of India (hardly original), and you can download a playsheet by clicking the link below. I've also come up with In the Heart of the Frontier, but that version still needs a bit of tweaking. Please don't sue us Mr. Peers, as our tweaking with your rules is really a sign of flattery!
My African figures are mostly Foundry with a few lovely Copplestone Ngoni tribesmen thrown in, while the Indian Mutineers are mainly Old Glory (whose Colonial range is very good), with a few Foundry and Dixon figures. Actually, all my Indian cavalry are Foundry, bought before their prices became prohibitive. For all their sins as a company, their Indian range includes those ever-so important elephant limbers and maharaja command elephants that no Indian army should be without! Of course the only way the Indians and Africans ever win seems to be by outnumbering their European opponents, so there's always more to paint. I've recently been building up my Pathans (why do I always get lumbered with the natives?), and after that I'll work on the opposition - a few units of Sikhs, Highlanders and Gurkhas.
I've also been painting up a small Afghan regular army, which (with some modifications) can be used for either the 2nd Afghan War (1878-81), the Third Afghan War (1918-19), or as auxiliaries for our Russian Civil War "Back of Beyond" campaign. In fact there's a real cross-over between our "Back of Beyond" games and Colonial ones. After all, Central Asia starts just beyond the Hindu Kush...
For more information: Darkest Africa The Mutiny The Afghan Wars (this one is still under construction)
Downloadable playsheets: In the Heart of Africa In the Heart of India (both are Word files)
For examples of Indian Mutiny Games, see Journal 8 , Journal 12 , Journal 37 , Journal 38 , Journal 49 & Journal 56
for Darkest Africa games see Journal 7 , Journal 12 , Journal 25 , Journal 35 and Journal 58
For other colonial games, see Journal 21 , Journal 25 & Journal 42
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Colonial The Great War Second World War Modern Brushfire Wars