CONGO Update

As I said earlier, I've recently started up CONGO by Studio Tomahawk, and have a bit of an update on some hobby progress.  After doing a bit of research, I've settled on doing the British South African Company and the Matabele Tribe as my two forces.  I'll start with what I had picked up a week or two ago, which was a blister of Adventurers and Hunters from Northstar.

This pants-less chap is my Column's guide.  Based on reading about him from Northstar's site, he's a hunter who's preferred hunting garb is just a shirt/shoes.  I mean, if you think of tribesmen at the times, running around and hunting without pants isn't *that* strange.  In the game, he's supposed to know the terrain, speak the local language, and be able to set up trade and baggage handlers.  He seems like he'll be a good fit for all that!



Up next are the European Adventurers: Big Game Hunters, Sportsmen, and the like.  For my BSAC, I see these guys fitting in almost like a small unit of special characters, not part of the BSAC proper, but maybe they are tradesmen/Investors in the charter, liaisons, former soldiers, diamond/gold hunters, etc.  Any of which seem like they may fit the bill, though I haven't fully settled on their purpose for being with the BSAC in the thick of the fighting with the Matabele Tribe.  All of these served as the sort of test models for some of the basic colors I'll be using, along with a change to figure out the basing situation.  All in all, I'm pretty pleased with them!

So, once they were finished, my painting was 100% cleared off, so it was time to buy some more CONGO stuff!  I went to the LGS, and picked up as much of the BSAC stuff that they had, which wasn't a whole lot, but enough for about a 50pt column.  (games are 70 or 100 pts)  I picked up Major Allan Wilson, leader of the Shangani Patrol, alongside a cannon/crew, which I'll use the kneeling guys as scouts and the cannon as an objective/display piece.  I also picked up 2 BSAC blisters that will be my Asakri, the basic fighters.  Since I couldn't get my hands on enough BSAC for a full 70 or 100 pts, I decided to grab a box of Zulu Warriors from Warlord Games that I'll use for my Matabele Tribe.  From this box, I was able to get within a few points of a full 100 pt army from that single box, all I need to complete the army is 2 more warrior models.

In order to get a full, playable force onto the tabletop quicker, I switched gears from working on the BSAC to the Matabele Tribe.  Assembly took much longer than I anticipated though, but they are assembled and ready to start painting!  From that one box I have: A Witch Doctor, a converted King model, 4 Fanatics, 2 units of Married Warriors (5 each), 2 units of Askari w/ Muskets (5 each), and 2 units of scouts (3 each).  I've got 4 more points, so I'm going to pick up 2 "Sacred Warriors".  I'm planning on starting with the 2 characters first.  For the Witch Doctor, I did a small conversion, showing him doing one of the rituals he has available in the game, the Red Hand. (or something like that)  Instead of putting a weapon in his hand, which was intended, I left that hand open, and put a knife in his other one.  In the game, he's said to slice his hand open, and smear blood allover his face, and I couldn't miss the chance to show that on the model itself!  For King Lobengula, the Rhodes miniseries depicted him as an overweight man, ridden with gout, so I took some green stuff, and sculpted a pudgy belly and moobs, along with a bunch of fur/feathers that he was also depicted as wearing.  I'm not good at sculpting, but I think he turned out alright.

So there you have it!  You'll have to wait for me to complete the Witch Doctor and Lobengula to get some better pictures, as I've just primed them prior to writing this, and the details will be difficult to make out.  I'm going to start with them first, so hopefully you wont have to wait too long!

Until then, thanks for reading!
-WuhSawBe-