The Men Who Would Be Kings - Afghans

     A friend was looking to do a new period, so we decided on the 2nd Afghan War, using the very easy to learn rules "The Men Who Would Be Kings" from Osprey Publishing. 

    These rules a by no means perfect, but a great starting template and with some minor tweaks of House Rules are a fun set of rules to play.

    He was to do British and I was tasked to build and paint an Afghan army. I purchased a box of the lovely Perry's box of plastic warriors. and within a week they were ready for the table. But like most periods, I like to do both sides, so alongside this project I was also putting together a Naval force of German and British matelots (gifted to me by a pal and already painted) , Some Royal Marines and some support weapons. 

I started this project on 6th March 2024 and painted the first three units as Irregular Infantry of twelve figures and painted each unit in subtle colour coding, Red, Blue and Green!  

     

I already had this  Artillery unit, so it just needed basing! 

My next unit had to be some Cavalry and I had in my Stash of Shame some Perry Metal Arabs from their Crusades range. I had ten, so they could be Tribal (10 figures) or Irregular (8 figures).  

I was then kindly given a box of the Wargames Atlantic Afghans and this is a work in Progress picture at the time, along with some other figures from the Stash. These have been since finished and I will photograph and attach later. 

  

This unit required four figures to finish the unit, which are now purchased and primed. Two were kit bashed to make a Standard Bearer and Commander of the unit.   

     In early April of this year (2024), Wargames Atlantic released some Afghan Cavalry. Here is a short review of the figures pre paint! 

Afghan Cavalry from Wargames Atlantic (youtube.com)

I used some of the WA Infantry heads, as the Cavalry ones were lacking character IMO.

Infantry head used 

In June I added to my force with some Artisan Metals, beautiful sculpts, although not many poses. 

I now have, in true "carry on" style, The Kahzi of Kalibaar, Bung Ditin and Pvt Widdle in disguise! 

Some Herati Regulars and some Irregular Artillery (Artisan miniatures)

 

The closest figure has been kit bashed to make up the last artilleryman required  

Another box of Wargames Atlantic Afghan Cavalry, and this time made up as eight Regular cavalry and four tribal elders/ commanders.