28mm Northwest Frontier

 

Skirmish Warfare in 19th C. Afghanistan

Victorian Colonial skirmish actions have long been a favorite of our club's members, going back well over three decades now. When the switch to the larger 28mm figures was well under way in the hobby, we got rid of our large collection of 25mm Ral Partha Sudan figures and moved to a different part of the world, namely the Northwest Frontier in the late 1880s to satisfy our need for colonial skirmishing. The NWF offers a wide variety of scenario possibilities, ranging from large, set piece battles to raids and reprisals. Large British and Indian forces fought numerous wars against a collection of Pathans and frontier tribesman for well over a century. The terrain was as varied as the many actions that were fought there, from river valleys to treacherous mountain passes. With units of Highlanders, mountain gun batteries, Gurkhas, Bengal Lancers, and more, it is a colorful and unique period. We decided to forge ahead in the 1880-1898 era, as there were a large number of actions fought during that time with most figure ranges catering for that time period in 28mm. At this time we are still expanding our forces and terrain as well as looking forward to running a campaign or two for this exciting period. Our goal is to get somewhere around 500 Pathans for some really large battles, plus all of the accompanying British-Indian units that saw service on the NWF. There are several very good figure ranges in this scale, so we are slowly and surely adding a unit to the overall collection every now and again. We also need to develop more rocky areas, an Afghan watch tower, expand our tribal villages, and create some mountain passes for future scenarios.