From StuartL - Redcoats for Afghanistan

Being interested in historical gaming and British history in particular, it should come as no surprise that I have a British army for the Napoleonic era and one for the Anglo-Zulu War. A while back, I decided to start another British force, but I was sick of painting red, so I had a look around for something else. The 2nd Anglo-Afghan War provided the setting and I eagerly planned out a force for The Men Who Would Be Kings, using British troops in khaki. No red for me, no sir.

However, local interest in the period was disappointingly non-existent, so I decided to pick up a force of Afghans as well. If I could do demo games then I could maybe entice others into playing. As I started this project quite some time ago, (i.e. before the Perry brothers announced they were doing a range), I went with Artizan Designs range of figures. As well as picking up a load of British troops and Afghan tribesmen, I added some Afghan regulars to my order as well. May as well break up the monotony of another game with British lines facing down charging hordes of tribal infantry.

As I haven't made a great deal of progress over the last few years, I decided to make good use of my time and get some work done on my two armies. Grabbing the Afghan regulars from the box and undercoating them, I proceeded to look up their uniforms on Google. As it turns out, the Afghan army went through a period of updating their equipment just before the outbreak of hostilities. To smarten up his troops, Sher Ali Khan had purchased a load of surplus uniforms and equipment. This army surplus had largely come from British stocks, so quite a few of his regular units looked remarkably similar to British troops, right down to their red uniforms. At this point I just sighed, it looked like I was going to be painting red again. (I could have painted them in khaki or some other colour I guess, but as I was using khaki for their British opponents, that might have been confusing on the tabletop).

The headgear and footwear of the troops marks them as being non-British infantry. Likewise their weapons were not up to the standard of the modern rifles being used by the imperial troops they faced.

The troops from Herat (below) wore a distinctive hat made of soft black felt. The flag was printed from home after I found a few images on the Lead Adventure Forum.

And here is a shot of both units along with some terrain.

24 infantry should add 120 points to my unofficial score, for a total of 452.5

@NoelW - Is our side duel still on? I haven't seen you mention it, though several of your entries would score points.

These figures are all from the period of 1878-1880, so fit in the bolt action rifle era. Assuming that the side duel is still running, they'll bring my total up to 342.5 points.