THE INDECISIVE WARGAMER

My latest project, and still somewhat incomplete, is III/70 Tuaregs.

The Tuaregs have lived in north-western Africa for over a thousand years, across the Sahara in what is today Niger, Libya, Algeria and Mali. They are a Berber people who speak their own language within the Berber branch.

Historically, the Tuaregs are said to have emerged (or perhaps separated) in the 4th or 5th Century and are mentioned in written accounts from the 10th century. They were heavily involved in the battles of the colonial era in North Africa, where they conducted lightning raids on the backs of pale camels.

The Tuaregs in DBA

The list, unsurprisingly, focuses on camelry.

Tuaregs generally fought in and around the Sahara, but did engage in raids; their Aggression 1 and their home terrain is Dry.

I love a low-aggression list, particularly one with interesting terrain, and Camels in Dry let you play asymmetric warfare through dunes and oases.

The list can be fully mounted, with 11xCm and 1xLCm if you are masochist that enjoys painting so much camelry. The other options involve various amounts of fast Warband and Psiloi, with up to 5x3Wb and 2xPs in place of Camelry and another Ps for the LCm.

To get my list off the ground for the last club day, I went for maximum warband, with 4 Cm and 1 LCm, the other two elements being Ps.

The list is still a bit soft to being disrupted by bow as psiloi and warband aren’t great at weathering arrows. I think the best option may be alternating camels and warband across the battleline, with psiloi guarding the flanks. This should give the opponent a tough choice of how to deploy, but will be PIP-intensive if warbands and camels need to be manoeuvred to plug gaps or ensure particular matchups. I think I will aim to get another element or two of Cm ready, and try running the following:

Cm (G), 4x Cm, 5x 3Wb, 2x Ps.

But maybe I won’t; I am nothing if not indecisive.

Painting the Tuaregs

My painting is nothing to write home about, but I will say that the Khurasan Tuaregs are lovely, and are almost tempting me into getting more of their Sudanese.

The heavy lifting was done with contrasts and speed paints, alongside the classic dry brushing technique.

Camels were sprayed bone and washed sepia, before being dry brushed with a pale flesh, ivory and then a few very fine pure white highlights.

Cloth was done in various blues, greys, blue-greys and grey-blues in contrast/speed paint and highlighted sparingly in pale greys and blues.

Skin tones were AP Tanned Flesh for the Tuaregs and a variety of darker brown contrasts and washes for the Iklan psiloi, I think mainly Snakebite and Gore-grunta washed with AP Strong Flesh Tone.

A few details needed some wood, leather and canvas colours and the minis were mostly done (other than metallics).

Bases are Vallejo diorama Grey Sand, washed with thinned GW Aggaros Dunes and then dry-brushed with Vallejo Iraqi Sand and Pale Sand, finished with some Army Painter tufts.

I added gloss varnish for strength and matte varnish to kill the shine, and then metallics to finish.

With a couple of weeks of evenings, the Tuaregs were ready (or at least at minimum viable). A few more camels with give me some options but I have no appetite for the full 12 elements of mounts, let me tell you.

Stay tuned for next week when I talk about a different army and a different game system, if I don’t change my mind by then.