It’s April 30th, which means it’s CAMERONE DAY, the anniversary of LA LEGION ETRANGERE’S most famous and hallowed battle. Be you French, Mexican, or other, I wish you a Happy Camerone Day! If you happen to be interested in all things Camarone, please visit my less-travelled blog at, where you’ll find some brief comments and FURTHER LINKS to a couple of Legion songs, one traditional, the other quirky:
http://cameroneday.blogspot.com/2020/04/camerone-day-2020.html
Meanwhile I hope everyone reading this is in good health and staying sane, or if you’re ill, I hope and pray you recover fast and fully, and with as little suffering as possible.
Work continues apace on the big Kandahar refight. I have spent the better part of the past 2 months sequestered at home with family, work, news, and the hobby. And though work has been very busy and with all 3 kids back home there are more people to talk to, laugh with, fight with, and otherwise interact with, I’m happy to report I have somehow been able to spend more time on hobby-related matters than is usually the case. It’s true this is small consolation compared to all the medical, economic, and mental/emotional destruction being wrought across the country and the world, but I will take consolation where I can find it. In a similar vein, because of current circumstances our middle child who is a second year cadet at West Point has been back home with the rest of us for the past month, something that would otherwise have been impossible for another 7 years — 2 more years at the Academy and then 5 years as an Active Duty Army officer. And though she misses her classmates, my wife and I and her brother and sister are all enjoying this surprise bonus time with her, and I think she’s enjoying it as well, despite the fact that it comes courtesy of a global pandemic. I know for a fact she is enjoying the food!
Since my previous post I spent way WAY too much time sucked down the rabbit-hole of Ayub Khan’s tent. I had hoped to start play-tests 2 weekend ago but instead I went nuts trying to build a 28mm size version of the tent illustrated in the magazine sketch below, and described in somewhat intricate detail in a number of contemporary accounts of the battle…
CLOSE-UP OF THE TENT:
The model turned out alright, though perhaps not the masterpiece I was hoping for, but still useful for the game — at least as useful as any commander’s tent can be. Truth is I should have spent all that time working on the Baba Wali or Mirza Kotals, or gluing ground dover onto the 10’x2′ of new terrain boards that need to be finished for the game! Actually that reminds me that I did make some more significant progress for the table: I built the last 2’x2′ terrain board box and then trimmed down the last 2’x2′ sheet of blue foam and fit it into the board. So now all that remains is the aforementioned gluing and painting of ground cover onto a total of 10′ x 2′. The only things standing in the way of me getting this done pretty fast is my need to conduct the also aforementioned play-tests. At least a couple. At this point with Ayub’s tent all but completed and the previously missing terrain board securely in place, I’m pretty confident I’ll be able to actually set out the armies and play at least a couple of turns this coming weekend with help from my son, and maybe some from one or both of my daughters as well — though that may be asking too much, despite one being a future officer of the United States Army.
Meantime here’s some pics of the progress I listed above, as well as more pics showing work being done by my friend Bob Ridenhour, who goes by Rhyngll on TMP, and is graciously helping me out by contributing several units of Anglo-Indian troops and even more importantly by volunteering to MAKE A COUPLE OF KEY BUILDINGS FROM SCRATCH for the game (THANK YOU, BOB!).
The first of these is the Shrine or Mosque in the photo below, which I believe was located close to the small village of AHMED KHAN:
Here’s some pics of Bob’s model building process so far:
And here’s a pic of Bob’s 3rd Bengal Cavalry (Skinner’s Horse), who will — hopefully — be traveling from the Mid-West to Los Angeles come August:
ON THE TERRAIN FRONT:
1. I traced and cut out a baseboard for the MIRZA KOTAL to place at the far North end of the table:
First I lined up the very edge of the table with some of my ROCKY TERRAIN MARKERS, because I didn’t want the actual mountain pass to be right at the edge, where it would be easier for figures placed on it to possibly topple over the side and off the table edge to the floor. Then I used a big piece of paper to TRACE the outline of the pass itself and went from there…
2. Making the last terrain board…
FIRST THE FRAME BOX:
THEN THE FOAM BOARD:
I scrounged a 10 year old 2″ thick 2’x2′ blue foam board that I had experimented on with Rustoleum Multi-Colored Textured BROWN spray-paint, in hopes it might save me hours of dry-brushing. The result was the paint ate up some of the foam surface. It really didn’t look too bad and might have worked well for a more sci-fi oriented terrain scheme, but I put the board off to the side and changed to a more traditional painting approach. Now, a decade later, I’m glad I didn’t toss it, since I was able to flip it over and turn the untouched bottom into the top for this extra board I now need in order to complete the Kandahar/Baba Wali battlefield. But first I had to TRIM IT DOWN by 1-1/2″ so it will fit into the box between 3/4″ thick frames…
There’s still a ton left to do:
1. Use ELMER’S WOOD FILLER to fill in the slight gaps between the wood frame and foam and then glue ballast onto the 3 new boards that total 2ft x 10ft;
2. After they dry PAINT the boards with BROWN, HONEYCOMB, & SANDSTONE;
3. Build the Mirza Kotal on the baseboard I cut;
4. Glue ballast onto the Baba Wali Kotal & Mirza Kotal;
5. Make a few bespoke road pieces to complete the road network on the table layout;
6. Make some Woodland Scenics WATERFALLS to connect the canals to the Arghandab River;
7. Finish Ayub’s Tent
8. Get AHMED KHAN Shrine building from Bob;
9. Get British OUTPOST building from Bob;
10. Make some more FRUIT TREE ORCHARDS;
…and last but not least:
11. PLAY TEST, PLAY TEST, PLAY TEST!!!
PS. THANKS again, Bob!
