Onwards ! (another Jimland Expedition)

Earlier this month saw the last expedition of my Friend "K's" last expedition into Jimland, probabl for some time. (you know why).
Sorry about the inevitable, obligatory blurry , photograph on the right showing his expedition in all its glory !
Undetered by his poor showing in his last two expeditions, he was keen on testing himself once more in Jimland.
The Expedition consisted of just the two surviving Explorers from the previous expedition, but included a good number of soldiers and Askari to boost firepower and ten bearers (all carrying food of course).

Once more then :

From the Journal of Fredercik Cartington at Jim's landing,

 "The Royal British Museum of Archaeology Expedition's"
leader Angus McDoughty led yet another expedition into Jimland despite being low on numbers and the recent loss of both his wife and sister in law.
"I was of a mind that I wouldn;t be seeing him or his scout Raymond Grylls ever again"
"Here though, is their exploits as related to me by one of the survivours"

 "By day three we were reduced to six bearers, thanks to them being scared off by native drums in the night, but still plenty of food was available. It did seem that no matter the problems the terrain threw at us, whether mountains or swamp  Ray, our scout never failed to find a way through. perhaps our luck was chnaging for the good.
"Near the end of the first week though, once more a solitary female emerged from where she had been hiding in the mountaiss. 
"I just knew that this spelled doom for the expedition, give Angus' recent record with women.
Our expedition's size was further increased as a soldier also joined us and he had a gun !
"Our luck seemed to have changed as we entered yet more mountains and a way out coudn't be found. Our food, started to cause conern, but due to the discovery of edible rations being found, our hoped were lifted, soon afterwards of course, they were dashed once more by the food turning out to be unedible.
"All our endeavours to survive came to a climax as we were ambushed in a swamp midway through the second week.

Natives with guns to the rear draw first blood

Natives in front close in using cover

The column's bearers break for safety, whilst the expedition returns fire.

A huge snake appears...

...and attacks one of our Askari

The expedition claims its first kill...

...and the Natives' fronttal attack goes in, losing a man.

With the loss of another man, the Native's morale is broken and they flee.

A combination of rifle fire and an Askari rifle-butt, the snake is beaten.

 "With the ambushing Natives seen off, we set off once more Jim's Landing and safety, arrving there with grumbling stomachs and no rations."
"Strangely Angus was in good spirits and looking forward to his next expedition."

"I found out later that the women was Freya Johnsdotter, a huntress who willingly joined Angus' expedition"
F. Cartington. 

Route of the RBMAe's thrid expedtion.

It was a strange game, lasted a mere hour or so as the expedition hit bad terrain and managed to get out, the Natives and Tribals encountered were either Neutral or friendly, food was either abundant or in short supply, but the whole expedition  (save for a single soldier) survived !
"K" had followed my advice and headed North, avoiding crossing any river and following a river that was already known of.  His point score was well over $300, which considering his relatively short expedition was exceptional.
Here's the map of his expedtion's journey:
 

In other News:
 After this game I was wondering whether or not it was worth the effor of fighting in a swamp (from the natives' point of view and I'm now considering abandoning the idea as it makes little to no sense from the natives' pov, plus the fights are not that enjoyable as figures 'get stuck' half the time and movement is halfspeed when they can move !

Strangely this self-isolation thing hasn't had much effect on me, the major changes being I sadly no longer collect my granddaughter from school each day and neither do I go grocery shopping - which I did two or three times a week. It does mean though I have added to my painting sessions, now having two sessions a day each of about an hour or so. It's just as well, as painting the British for the Sudan is becoming tiresome and tedious, but I'm getting there!

The chap on the left is not significanlty taller than the others...

The Great photo Mystery:
I had to dig out the explorers I'd recently finished, as I couldn't remeber one figure being particularly larger than the others. Of course he wasn't !  It's an illusion caused by the camerman getting used to the new camera . The photo has been foreshortened as can be seen by the sizes of their bases seemingly getting smaller.
 (They're all 20mm square)

...but it appears that he is when taken from an angle

 So the mystery is solved, the camera is probably too good at close range !

That's it then for this week, I'm going to try and finish the Brits and also have an expedition of my own (Von Sackville's) into Jimland over the next week, which should give me something to write about in the weeks to come. 

Thanks for taking the time to visit and as always your comments are both welcomed and appreciated, but above all stay safe!

(I really still miss having a spellchecker on Blogger)

More Explorers

These six explorers were finished well before last week's post, but as I had it in mind to publish an adventure, here they are now !
Four of the figures are from "Copplestone" (Amazon Adventurers - or something similar) and the remaining two are from "Ironclad".

Rear view for those that like this sort of thing (we know who you are)

The chap on the left in the photograph above looks like he would be more at home in a western setting rather than a jungle one and is the most didsppointing of all of them, (not just because of my rubbish painting either) - maybe he's a bit on the big side too.

These two are the Ironclad castings iirc

Two "speccies" - I love these two !

A left-handed gunfighter  ?

Poundland Spray (£1 - obviously)

I took advantage of the sunshine and lack of wind this last week to experiment with my newly bought spray-tin of varnish. After an initial successful trial with some surplus Brits, now not destined for the Sudan, the six explorers were also used as guinea pigs.
You can judge the results for yourself -  the sprayed figures are not completely matt finished, but they have a rather satin (or vinyl if you prefer) finish - which suits me fine too.

In cas you don't recognise this product, the spraycame from "Poundland", as I'd thought it was worth trying - for £1 !!!!
If I'm ever allowed out again I'll be purchasng more .

With more daylight hours and no afternoon tasks to disprupt my day my painting output has incresed to at least two one-hour sessions each day.

If I keep painting at this rate, I could have all my unpainted minis finished by 2030  (just about), but I'll settle for finishing off my British Infantry for the Sudan


The new restrictions on my movements won't have a great effect on my hobby but it was sad to have to tell my mate "K" that our Saturday Jimland session was cancelled until futrther notice !
Yep, I'm in the bracket of the vulnerable, hitting about three or four of the criteria and will therefore be in self-isolation for a minimum of twelve weeks - so nothing much changed in my lifestyle tbh.

It seems we'll all have a bit of extra time on our hands, I'll be doing a few solo adventures in Jimland, painting what few Sudan figures I have left and returning to modelling "Gordon's Palace", all of which I'd have been doing anyway!

Take care everyone, keep washing your hands, keep your distance and stay safe.

That's it then for this week, next week I'll be posting "K's" third adventure into Jimland, to give me a little more time in which to finish off my Brits (just the 65 of them).

Of course, as always, your commetns are welcomed and appreciated - more than ever in this time of need for social interaction.

JImland - The Rescue

As an experiment I decided to try out a slightly different experiment in Jimland, givng the chance of for an expedition tohave a specific task, I have several of these in mind as "quests or jobs", imagining them to be on a notice board for adventurers to take up (or not) with a specific reward in mind - a bit like side-quests in a lot of computer rpgs.
The objective of this game was therefore to explore a specific area of seven hexes, two days' march from Jim's landing, to see if there were any survivours of the second Molyneux Expedition.
Once in the designated area, the rescuers had two chances of finding any survivours each time they explored a designated hex. If there was a village there then that would be a success (a 1 in 6 chance) and if there was a hostile encounter with Slavers then this would automatically be a success, as it was slavers that did for the Molyneux Expedition.  This however didn't mean automatically that there were any survivours as I assumed that a slaver would have tried to revive the three fallen adventurers (with a chance of 11/20), but ONLY after they had defeated any hostiles.

So once more, :
From the Journal of Frederick Cartington

"Even as the news of the Molneux Expedition's disater was filtering through camp, the Royal British Museum's expedition had returned from their own exploits. Immediately upon hearing the news and despite my own and others' protestations (and his own grief at the loss of his wife's life) with a day or two, Angus McDoughty had set out on a "rescue" mission taking along his erstwhile sister in law (again, against the advice of many). [The expedition is shown above - Ed.].
On their return a mere week later I gleaned what had happened, once more from one of the soldiers present."

"

"The very first day we were set upon by hostiles"

"We entered into a fire-fight, whilst trying to get the bearers away"

"Our shooting quickly took its toll on the natives..."

"...we did take a casualty and consternation arose from the assasilants in the rear"

"We readied ourselves for their assault on our rear"

"Our hunter was cut down in vicious hand to hand fighting..."

"...but we drove them off without further loss,"

 "Over the next three days Anne (Johnstone)  managed to save the lives of two of our bearers; one from  a spider bite and another after swalllowing large amounts of dirt from his encounter with quicksand. - not bad for a "Midwife"."
 "On day five we encountered Slavers ...

"With four riflemen behind and four spearmen in front...

"...we set up for a frontal attack."

"...that didn't come... for now."

"so we made a dash for cover..."

"with the enemy hot our our heels..."

"The natives were much surprised after distrubing an elephant in the trees..."

"The elephant would leave the area soon after goring one of the slavers ...

"Our rifle fire was beginning to take a toll on the Slavers too...

"Poor Anne was shot dead, even as we got into cover."

"With their casualties mounting and our position seemingly unassailable,n the Slavers left the area. We quickly looked for their camp and found two Europeas still barely alive,  one a Doctor Minden, the other an Interpreter named Hubert. (as an aside - I'd met both of these on  a oevious occassion.)
"The two day return journey home saw three of our bearers lose their lives and full packs of foood, whilst crossing a rapid moving stream, but the very next day we arrived back at Jim's Landing ".
There had been no sign of George Molyneux with the Slavers, but he had been thought by Doctor Minden to have been mortally wounded"

The route and area to be explored shown in red

With the small force available and the large area to be searched I didn't think that there was much chance of success, but it turned out to be a great game. "K",  my friend lead the rescue attempt with his usual bravado and although successful still managed to lose a woman from the party!
(He must have enjoyed the game as he's asked for a cop of the rules, the mastermap and we've since had another game !)
As reward, in keeping with the usal 'Jimland' reward system (a fixed amount and a random amount) I had to think on the fly for a suitable reward. I settled on the 'value' of the Explorers rescued (their points value) plus 1D20  each. So although few points had been scored for explorartion more than a hundred was scored for the two explorers - a success imho.

In other news:
My Egyptians have all been packed away in bubble wrap and stored (still needing varnishing) and despite another hospital visit (routine and boring) I'm painting another six explorers for Jimland !
In addition, as mentioned above,  I've managed yet another adventure into the wilds of Jimland with "K" - a very enjoyable game.

I've no more (known) Hospital/Clinic appointments until June/July - happy days ! (I'll just self-isolate/hibernate until then).

That's it then for this week, thanks for taking the time to visit , hopefully there was something here of interest and as always your comments are both welcomed and appreciated.

Egyptian Infantry for the Sudan

I managed to finish all my Egyptian
Infantry in just two sessions (about three hours)
All the figures are from Old Glory and with just three packs of them I have enough figures to make up four units of twenty figures each based singly for use with "The Sword and the Flame" rules .

The smallest tactical infantry unit of twenty figures

 Each unit has an Officer (leader) and an NCO,  I'm using a bugler to represent the latter.
All westernised units follow this pattern, whilst most 'native' types have only a single leader figure).

A 'company' of two units

Two such units have an additional two leaders to command them (again I have used an Officer type and a bugler). The colour bearers had to have their hands drilled (yep, I'd forgotten to do this) and consequently had to have their hands touched pu with a spot of paint.
The second Leader figure for the two units could be the colour bearer but I just added him as an extra.

Flag is for the frst company, blue with the arabic numeral '1' on it

Two companies forming a battalion.

The two 'companies' are allowed a single mounted officer to command them, but as I have figures to spare I have included the extra mounted bugler and a figure with the regimental colours.

The third and fourth comany flags, and the Khedive's flag iirc.

There were six companies to an Egyptian battalion/regiment each having their own coloured flag  with the company numeral on it and a regimental flag of green. I wonder if this got confused with the 6th Regiment's 6th company flag; both would look identical, as both were green (perhaps they were different sizes.
My flags came from "Warflags" and re=coloured to suit my purposes.
All these took a lot longer to complete than I'd first anticipated, mostly due to the numerous hospital and clinic appointments I've had to attend (all thankfully with no adverse results).
With the single routine appointment this week, I shouldn't have more until August !!

That's it then for this week, on the painting front I'm having a break from the Sudan in favour of adding six more explorers to face the dangers of 'Jimland'  before returning and facing the three units of British left to do.
No game this week, but next week I'll probably post about my mate's second adventure into 'Jimland'.

As a footnote (of sorts) the photographs in this post were taken with my new camera and magically transferred without wires to my computer (though it doesn't make the cameraman any better).

Thanks for taking the time to visit, hopefully you found something of interest and of course, as always, your comments are both welcomed and appreciated.

[Damn,  how I miss the spellchecker]

Another new Expedition into JImland

I welcomed another new victim guest to Jimland thi last month (and he must have gleaned some
enjoyment from the experiece as he returned for a second adventure last weekend).

Once more then, here is the story as recorded in the journal of Frederick Cartington:

"Shortly after George Molyneux left on his first expedition there arrived at Jim's Landing another expedition calliing itself "The Royal British Museum of Archaeology Expedition".
"Despite advice from many they immediately set off into the wilds of Jimland with one of their number's wives in tow"
"The latter left behing her sister who explained they were medically trained but should be referred to a 'midwives' for reasons of decorum (ahem)"

"The leader of the expedition, one Angus McDoughty, led his wife (the 'midwife') a scout by name Raymond Grylls and a hunter - Nathan  var der Holt."
"Two soldiers provided some security , who along with a mere ten bearers al lladen down with food, completed the complement of the expedition."

The sole survivours

"Some two weeks or so later only four forlorn survivours of this expedition staggered back into Jim's landing. still led by Angus, with his Scout, Hunter and a weaponless Soldier bringing up the rear."
"They had the usual tales of losing bearers to windstorms, hailstones and bad food and all the usual encounters Jimland can inflict upon one."
" By day nine, they had no food and an extra mouth to feed as they had chanced upon a wild white female in rags wandering the jungle (one Aisline Monroe), who sadly died of starvation, the day before their arrival back in Jim' s Landing."

The Single White female is in the centre of the rear rank).

"Angus though, being a doughty Scott and hearing of the demise of the Molyneux expedition, determined to immediately to head out once more into the wilds in search of fellow explorers."

Thus ends the story of the RBMAE's first expedition, both myself and my friend "K" enjoyed the game and sat for a good hour afterwards talking of the action/adventure. It was unfortunate that just a week or so later (in real life) I lost my camera and all photographic evidence of the game. Before our recent game (yes,"K" had returned for another game !) we reconstructed the column as best we could, aided by the detailed expedition's turn records.
Here's the expedition's map:

The expedition managed to explore a mere four new hexes1

In other News

I was very saddened to read of the very serious illness of a fellow blogger, my thoughts are with him.


In rather more pleasant news, my Egyptian infantry are now about 99% complete, requiring merely a flesh wash  to finish  them off !

Thanks for taking the time to visit, sorry for the rather brief post, but hopefully there was something of interest to be found therein.

That's it then for this week, as always your comments are  bthe welcomed and appreciated.

(Still missing the spell-checker)