More Sudan Camel Corps....

At the same time as I finished the Cuirassiers following (I'll say again, they were a joy to paint) I also finished up some more of the excellent Peter Pig (15mm Sudan Range) Camel Corps for my Sudan project. I bought these at Salute earlier this year.. as mentioned in my previous post, the Camel Corps were intended purely as mounted infantry so never fought from "camel-back" which makes them an expensive unit in wargaming terms as you need to represent the same unit in three "states"... mounted (which was the previous post), dismounted as infantry (not done yet - they are sitting on the painting table as I write, waiting to be cleaned up and undercoated) and dismounted for the camels as a placeholder for the unit on the wargame table (which are these guys) ..

Once again they've painted up really well - the red I'm using is quite thin so has a pleasing effect over a black undercoat for the saddle cloths.. I really like the look of the sentries as well, like they're poised for action at any time..

After I've finished the dismounted infantry unit, I've then decided it's time to take my first outing in the Sudan.. a small skirmish type game to get a feel for the rules, and as I've only got a dozen or so Dervish units ready, with perhaps a couple of units of Imperial troops... I'm putting together my own rules for this period based on the articles by Peter Gilder, the "Pony Wars" rules that he also used as a basis for his Sudan games and some of the mechanisms from the Will McNally AWI rules (sorry, I'm a great fan of the combined shooting/morale feature!). I would definitely recommend the "Pony Wars" rules to anyone, by the way, as they have a very interesting approach to managing the 'hostiles' whether they be American Indian (as was the intent for "Pony Wars") or modified for Dervish in my (and Peter Gilders) case. Basically the players are all on the same side, the enemy (who are the American Indians/Dervish) are entirely controlled by the effect of reaction tests, morale tests, etc. Can't wait to see how this turns out...!

Only a few days now until I disappear on my trip for a few days.. really looking forward to it - much needed break.. I've saved the end of the Tincey "Sedgemoor" book until just before I leave so it's fresh in my mind when I visit!