"Death in Dar Fur" Topic

Hello there. I've just recently got back into painting after ignoring the hobby for about three years. So to celebrate I thought I'd risk it and make my first post on TMP in what seems like a quadzillion years. So here it is…

In this most remote of the Great War's theatres, a trooper of the Sudanese Camel Corps comes across a fallen Fur warrior…

This and a few more of the things I've been painting in the last few weeks can be seen here on my slightly revamped blog:

misterplynkes.blogspot.co.uk

It's posts like this that make me start periods and genres I had never considered before.

Well done!

Great to have you back.
That camel and rider look fantastic.

somehow, the fur on him looks like … fur. In keeping with your title.

Its posts like this that make me wish I had double the time and double the skill.
Plynkes its your fault and because of this you need to do really good detailed tutorials of how to do it for us mere mortals. Thanks so brilliant how did you do the undead fuzzy?
Rules? Good for T&T still Plynkes? Any new updates in the cards, finally speaking of cards who has a card making program for T&T (which are still the best rules for this period)m
Now I'm off to google more info on Sudan and the Camel Corps :)

Good to see you back Plynkes. Where did you get the BlogSpot's wallpaper from?

Wondarful stuff, Mister Plynkes (see what I did there? :P)

I need to dust off my Zulus now …

Thanks, fellas.

Zargon, the Dar Fur campaign was really a little Victorian war that somehow found itself happening in 1916 in the middle of another, somewhat bigger war. It was part of the Central Powers' version of the Arab Revolt. They sent advisors and weapons to a North African Islamic movement called the Senussi, who as well as making life a pain for the Entente colonial powers themselves, stirred up Jihad among neighbouring peoples such as the Tuareg and the Fur.

So in the good old style the Brits sent a punitive expedition into the Fur Sultanate, deposed the Sultan, Ali Dinar (by putting a bullet through his head in battle), and annexed Dar Fur into the Sudan.

Nobody really makes suitable figures, the camel guy is a Perry British Camel Corps chap with a new head and some shorts put on him. You could use Mahdist troops for the Fur, as they dressed pretty much the same as Mahdists, right down to the patched jibbahs (though some of their patterns were considerably more funky and colourful than the Ansar ones). On the British side the campaign was fought almost completely by Egyptian and Sudanese troops, with British officers and air support. The Sudanese infantry looked pretty much the same as their 1890s counterparts who fought in the Mahdist war, but the Egyptians had an entirely new look, which would probably require some serious converting to bring to the tabletop.

Not sure how gameable it is, outside of skirmishes between scouts looking for waterholes, as it was a bit one-sided and there were only a couple of battles. Though the Fur did seem quite good at hitting British biplanes with rifle fire. And if people think Omdurman is gameable then I guess this is too.

I didn't actually paint it for any game. The webmaster of another forum asked me to paint something for a thing he was running on his site. I really enjoyed myself and so have been painting a few other things just for fun. When I said I was back into painting that's what I meant. I'm not very interested in actually gaming these days. Painting one figure is satisfying and enjoyable for me, as soon as I have to do a whole unit then my interest wanes.

So for now at least I'm just painting the odd thing here and there for fun. But who knows, I may start gaming again at some point.

Oh, and he's not an undead fuzzy, just a dead one. :)

It's an old GW Tomb Kings skeleton. Just laid the bits out on the base, and covered them with a bit of toilet paper coated in white glue to make a tattered robe. It shrank and ripped exposing his rib cage, but I quite liked the effect so left it as it was. The final touch was to give him some hair, that was done with Greenstuff.

It was inspired (if that's the right word) by a horrific picture I once saw from the more recent unpleasantness in Darfur. A chap whose skin had withered on his bones, somewhat keeping his African skin tone (and a full head of hair) but forming a skeletal appearance.

Boudin Noir, I made the wallpaper myself. It's artwork from a couple of old Hugo Pratt comics, "Cato Zulu" and "Ann de la Jungle." I photographed the pages, and then ran them through a couple of processes in GIMP (the most ridiculous name for a photoshoppery program I can imagine, but what can you do, it was free) to stitch them together and get them to match the colour of my blog.

Brilliant stuff. Who one Earth is doing the Darfur campaign of 1916?

Well not me, that's for sure. Not gaming it, at any rate. But I have seen a website with some homemade scenarios for it on the net, so I guess somebody is.

Now I think of it, some fellow whose name escapes me once wrote a rule set called "Science vs. Pluck." An approach similar to the one that game took that might well be the best way to tackle this conflict.

My thanks Plynkes, still very intriguing I'll do a bit of research about it (I've got that excellent book about little rebellions from this period from Foundry. Now for a look to another little project and going to have a crack at doing what you did with the ehm! Casualty. Will be scratching through my bits boxes tomorrow. Thanks and don't be a stranger ( I'm a member of LAF but it doesn't work that well on a BB :( no pictures.

Fabulous looking figures!