One Box Wargame Challenge Progress

So I got working on my Afghans this weekend, making two warbands of 10 figures each, leaving me enough for two more warbands. Wargames Atlantic figures really are incredible value.

The kit is great, and you really could knock out a huge Afghan Tribal army for colonial era gaming for very little money (just over 50p a figure).

I wanted an older look for my warbands so I opted to leave the Martini-Henry Rifles behind, additionally I wanted every figure to be equipped roughly the same, so there’s a lot of Jezails swung over backs, shields and swords hanging from belts etc.

I primed and then gave a covering with Typhus Corrosion for texture, then sprayed black as a base. From there I went for a slapchop. To avoid the desaturated look of slapchopping I thought I’d try out some other colours for the initial drybrush. For my more red warband I drybrushed them in an almost pastel orange, for my yellow and green warband I drybrushed them in yellow.

The orange did well under the dark blue too, and didn’t make the skin too far off a human shade.

The yellow warband didn’t do as well in the skin department, but I don’t think it’s the sort of thing you would notice unless it was pointed out to you. After the contrast paints were done, I picked out a few metals and then I gave everything a thinned down black wash. From there I sprayed them with a matt varnish, and then to finish I put the edges of the blades back in with a chrome marker pen as matt varnish often knocks the shine out of any metallics.

As far as the Wargame goes, I’m looking towards my old Deathshot Rules with a couple of modifications, and currently in very rough note form:

Alternate activations. Each figure gets 1 action per activation.

Move, Shoot, Charge, Reload or Rally.

Moving: 2D10cms.

Shooting: Select a target for the figure firing and measure the distance between shooter and target in cms. Roll a D100 to hit. If the result is equal to or greater than the distance then a hit has been achieved. If the roll is 10 or less it always counts as a miss regardless. If a hit is scored roll another D10 for the effect:

Target in the open – 1-3 No effect, 4-6 Near Miss, 6-10 Kill.

Target in soft cover – 1-4 No effect, 4-8 Near Miss, 9-10 Kill.

Target in hard cover – 1-5 No Effect, 6-9 Near Miss, 10 Kill.

Charging is when a figure moves into base to base contact with another, a bout of melee is immediately fought as the same action. Roll a D10 for each combatant. High roller kills their opponent. In the case of a draw, both are killed. Figures that have not yet rallied from a ‘near miss’ result (see below) when engaged in combat receive a -2 modifier to their roll.

A reload action must be performed between each shot a figure takes. All figures begin the game with their muskets loaded.

When a figure is fired upon and receives a ‘near miss’ result lie the figure on its side. That figure can perform no other actions until they have performed a rally action, and get back on their feet.

When either side takes a casualty during a player’s turn, at the end of that turn roll to see if that side’s morale breaks. Roll a die and multiply it by the number of figures on that side still in play, roll another and multiply it by the number of casualties they have taken. If the roll for casualties scores higher the side breaks and the game ends.