Let H M Stanley have the first, words:

A long line of bearers stumbles along a narrow, winding track. Nervous askaris glance left and right expecting a sudden rush from the man-high grass to either side. A sweating European mops his brow, checks his revolver and shouts a Swahili command ...

A caravan of Zanzibaris, their blood red flag tattered by thorns, enters the dark forest. In the oppressive heat and gloom the drummers falter and fall silent. The chattering of the women and children dwindles and then stops. The bleating of their goats suddenly seems unnaturally loud. In the deep shadows a hidden archer removes the intricately folded leaf covering the poisoned tip of an arrow...

For a long while now an obsession with nineteenth-century Africa has been creeping up on me, and finally it has all became too much, I had no choice but to make some miniatures - the beginnings of a vast Darkest Africa range.

The first part will cover the European expeditions and Zanzibari ( or Arab) caravans which penetrated the heart of Africa. These could be small affairs of a few dozen bearers with a handful of askaris, led by an under-funded geographer, pillaging armies of slavers or huge, almost military columns with the latest weapons and hampers of the finest foods. All of them would face harsh terrain, disease, starvation and hostile tribes. Leading them were characters like Karl Peters, the Doctor of Metaphysics turned Imperial zealot, Mtagamoyo, the brutal Zanzibari general, and Henry Morton Stanley, ace journalist and discoverer of Livingstone.

Apart from these straightforward scenarios the Zanzibaris can be used to fight the Belgians in the Congo, the Germans in East Africa, the Royal Navy in anti-slaving skirmishes and each other in numerous little wars. Similarly the Askaris can be used as auxiliaries of the Zanzibaris and Belgians, or as the Ruga Ruga mercenary troops of warlords like Mirambo. The African warriors with their varied headdresses and separate shields have endless uses from DBR armies of fifteenth-century Africa to a safari skirmish in 1914.

The second group of Darkest Africa releases will be the Belgian "Force Publique", German colonial troops and Zande and Masai tribesmen. Later releases will cover the French in the Western Sudan and Dahomey, the Ashanti Wars, the British and Egyptians in the Sudan and WW1 in Africa. And I haven't forgotten North Africa - what about Abd El Krim and the Riffs or the death-cult of the Spanish Foreign Legion?

Let H M Stanley have the last, almost hysterical, words:

We also had laboured strenuously through ranks upon ranks of savages, scattered over a score of flotillas, had endured persistent attacks night and day while straggling through them, had resorted to all means of defence, and yet at every curve of this fearful river the yells of the savages broke loud on our ears, the snake-like canoes darted forward impetuously to the attack, while the drums, and horns, and shouts raised fierce and and deafening uproar. We were becoming exhausted. Yet we were still only on the middle-line of the continent! We were also being weeded out by units and twos and threes. There were not thirty in the entire Expedition that had not received a wound. To continue this fearful life was not possible. Some day we should lie down, and offer our throats like lambs to the cannibal butchers.

Darkest Africa Figure Listing: Part One
Review: Darkest Africa Figures

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