My Zulus thousands of them.

[Darkman]

Ok not quite thousands, just a couple of boxes. Played a game of Black Powder the other week as a friend of mine discovered he had 3 file boxes of Zulus and a couple of boxes of British. It was an enjoyable game even though I umpired.

So looking through ebay I noticed that there was a couple of boxes of Warlord Zulus at a reasonable price. Won them and a few more (4 to be exact)

A couple of weeks after they arrived and I have now painted this.











Done with Army painter dark tone over scorched brown. I have decided to do 2 bases for each regiment so I can combine them into one unit if needed.
I decided that the bases could be irregular in shape as I like the idea for the look and it is after all a game for Gentlemen

Oh if you think this should be in a different section please move.

[mikeland]

They look fantastic. Love the irregular basing! Really nice work.

[carvel2]

beautifully done

[Cubster]

They look bang on, a great 'irregular' feel to the basing and swarming warriors.

[grant]

Nice job!

[Helen]

Love them!

[Stuart]

Agree with everyone else who has said it, those irregular bases look great and brilliant looking Zulus as well, you can never have enough Zulus!!

[shadegate]

Love the paint work on these guys and the irregular bases are simple genius. They just wouldn't look right on regular little square bases. (Or not as good anyway)

Showing my ignorance here but what is the difference between a married and an un-married Zulu. (All joking about a 'hen pecked appearance aside, lol)

[Cubster]

Showing my ignorance here but what is the difference between a married and an un-married Zulu. (All joking about a 'hen pecked appearance aside, lol)

The Zulu warrior was not a professional soldier at all, but rather a citizen soldier drafted into military service as and when the occasion demanded. Unmarried men were always eligible for military service; married men went on the 'reserve' list and were only called up in emergencies. The Zulu men were not allowed to have sex until they were given permission to marry (although there were apparently quite a number of 'extras' they were permitted to indulge in!) and could not marry until they were considered experienced enough warriors - hence the expression 'Washing of the Spears' (in blood) and why they were really quite keen to get on with it. A married man could start a family, own his own herds and generally went up a notch in the social scale.

At the time of the AZW the 'unmarried' were still younger warriors, but because of the relatively peaceful nature of Zulu society before war broke out, they could be up to 40 years old before given permission to marry. So the unmarried warriors would likely be closer to their physical peak, but the 'married' warriors would be the grizzled veterans and considered to be the 'Old Guard' of the Zulu nation.

As regards appearance (other than grey hair and middle-aged spread) the married warriors wore a black leather ring on their head to denote their status. Also, shield colour was an important indicator and each regiment had it's own distinctive colour or combination of colours. In general, the rookies had dark shields and as they more experienced, there would be more white on the cowhide until you got to the very highest ranking officials or regiments who had pure white cowhide shields.

[Darkman]

Basically the unmarried warriors were formed into regiments that did what the king needed them to do. Which could be anything from cattle herding to building villages, acting as policemen or going to war.

Once they were married they only had to respond at certain ceremonies or time of war, and then only if the local chief of the village they belonged to decided to follow the kings summons.

It had nothing to do with killing anybody. They could be unmarried for anything from 15-20 years. The normal way to show the married regiments is by the head rings they wore and the shield colour. The longer serving regiments would have the whitest shields. However by the 1870 this distiction had become a bit blurred. This is mainly due to the fact of obtaining enough hides for the shields. But if you are painting regiments it is the best way to go. Black shields with a bit of white, moving up to more white as the regiment becomes more veteran. You could also add red shields (light to dark brown) into the mix as well. Also note that the unmarried regiments tended to be more flamboyent.

Hope that helps.

Thanks for the comments. Looking to do about 18 of the units 4 for each Horn, 6 for the head and 4 for the loins. I might field them as small units. But that is just a concept I have at the moment.

And I just finished that as Cubster did his reply