The Tabletop General moves to Blogger

Welcome to the all new ‘The Tabletop General’ blog on Blogger! For the past 15 years or so, I have been running the Tabletop General website, which, for most of that time, has been hosted by 1&1. Sadly, I have taken the decision to close Tabletop General down. As with so many other things these days, the decision to close Tabletop General is a financial one. We have been cutting back in so many other ways that paying out to host a hobby based website is a bit of a luxury that we can no longer afford! However, thanks to Blogger, the future looks bright and I can’t wait to get started adding lots and lots of pics of our favourite games and possibly saying a word or two about what is happening out there in the gaming world.

Just to get things up and running, here are a few shots, straight from the painting bench, of one of our latest projects. The 1879 Zulu War has always been a favourite period of mine, ever since our little gaming group at college back in the 1980s used to spend the weekends re-fighting Rorkes’s Drift, using an old battered copy of the Zulu War rules produced by Airfix. One of our members had recorded the movie ‘Zulu Dawn’ onto a cassette tape and we had that continuously playing in the background while the Zulu Impi relentlessly closed in on the hideously outnumbered British Imperials. Not even the presence of a piece of artillery and a Gatling Gun could take away that feeling of impending and inevitable doom! Since then, reading ‘The Washing of the Spears’ by Donald Morris and everything ever written by Ian Knight and, of course, periodically viewing ‘Zulu’ and ‘Zulu Dawn’, have maintained my interest in this fascinating period of history.

These figures are part of my first batch of 28mm plastic Zulus from Warlord Games. There are a few small oddities with these figures in terms of dress, but I absolutely love them. They are nice and easy to clean up and construct, with only minor additions of green stuff being required, and they are a complete treat to paint. The figures here are from the un-married warrior set and I have painted them in my interpretation of the Mbonambi Ibutho. There are 24 figures altogether, including the grand looking chap below to lead them into action against the British invader. I will add more photos in coming posts and should have some British Imperial infantry to upload as well.

Click Here to view Warlord's Zulus at their on-line shop