My Colonial Collection, Part Five: Northwest Frontier

 I've been following for a while the blog of a friend who goes by the online handle Sgt. Guinness, and runs the South Florida Miniatures Gamers group here in ... south Florida. His favorite ruleset is The Sword and the Flame, and we have had many a fine game at the clubhouse here. Since the pandemic, he's focused on an online, semi-solo Northwest Frontier campaign. That in turn has caused me to get my butt in gear re: collecting Northwest Frontier minis; I've never had Pathans of my own, and very little in the way of Indian Army. This despite the locale and period being a popular one for gaming; there is an attractive sample battle report in The Sword and the Flame I've always wanted to reenact.

Having bought a lot of the Wofun fiberglass versions of Peter Dennis' Paperboys, I inclined towards some of their other collections. The one that caught my eye was The Great Game, an 1880s-ish set of individual figures (as opposed to Peter's multiple-troops-in-a-strip). These will work for TSATF, or possibly The Men Who Would Be Kings (which uses smaller units - handy since few of these are twenty strong). They are side-on flats, rather than front-and-back, which makes them easier to "point" at opponents.

Designed by Vyacheslav Batalov, these appear to be a "Great Game Gone Hot" series, as they include Russians, Central Asians, British Indians and Afghans (both tribal and regular army). The Russian frontier is not something I know much about, nor for that matter the redcoated Afghan Army that fought in the second Anglo-Afghan War. I've started reading the well-regarded The Great Game by Peter Hopkirk, but I don't know how much Russian background it'll provide.

I can't take a photo of every single unit in the collection. Most range from 15-20 infantry figures or 8-10 cavalry, plus small command/character elements and plenty of artillery. The figures are delightfully characterful; however, the sides are mirrored, unlike Dennis' which are front and back. A couple favorites are Gurkhas in rifle green, and imitative Afghans in helmets and kilts!

There are three basic factions - Afghans, Indian Army and Russian, each split into a handful of types and most in separate infantry, cavalry, artillery and character/command groups. The tribal types can easily fight the regulars as well as being on the same side, thus making for wider campaigns.

• Russian:
• Russian regulars
• Cossacks
• "Middle Asian" militia (presumably equivalent to Indian auxiliaries).
• British:
• Bengal Army (lancers, etc)
• Gurkhas
• Afghan:
• Regulars
• Tribesmen

I've obtained a bottle of Agrax Earthshade Contrast paint, which is popular among Wofun owners for dulling the wide white edges of these figures. I'll try it on them - it'll also match the brown-gray terrain. I'll probably build some vertical cardboard terrain to fight among, as depicted on the classic Tremorden Rederring website.

As for what scenarios I'll use? I'd like to do some sort of campaign. There are a few ways of doing it that I'd like to try: Grid-Based Wargaming's Snakes and Ladders campaign and a series of solo scenarios from Charles Grant's book, laid out as an "expedition."

That's enough for today, and possibly this month. I'm surprised to find I've published ten blogposts this month alone! Probably due to finally getting some library gaming in...