Arabs and Baluchi - Darkest Africa

As promised here some pictures of the rest of the stuff I painted this weekend. First up (top four pictures) is my first Arab unit. Rated as Askari in the heart of Africa rules these guys, along with two similar units, will be the main stay of my army. Each unit will be a mix of Arabs proper plus a number of African slaves and retainers. As troops go these guys are pretty dire who probably work best behind some sort of fortification.

the last four pictures are some Baluchi. These where going cheap on e-bay and don't really fit with my theme of a 1880s Arab army in Nyasaland. However the bulk of my Arab army will ,once painted, work for Arabs all over Africa. As these miniatures were cheap I thought I'd buy them and use them if I want to morph my army into an earlier Zanzibar army in east Africa.

I read on the lead adventure forum an interesting thread about the Baluchi including that they liked to were saffron (IE orange/yellow) clothing I thought that sounded a bit funky so I went with it. I usually use a brown base coat when I paint yellow but this time I wanted the colour to really stand out and went with an orange base colour. The result is probably far to orange for Baluchi saffron in reality but I like the result. The guy in middle is actually an Arab and has no doubt paid good money for his Baluchi bodyguard.

In game terms these guys are counted as swordsmen and are a very hard hitting unit probably the best Arab armies have accesses to.

next up I have another 24 Arabs and askari to paint up.

Cheers Jon