Between 1779 and 1879, a series of conflicts was fought between the Xhosa, Boers, Khoikhoi, San and British on the eastern frontier of the then Cape Colony. It was the longest running military engagement in African colonial history.
But these local conflicts are seldom seen represented on the gaming table, especially when compared to the more familiar wargaming fare of the Zulu and Boer wars. They were not conflicts with many large set-piece battles, and was more guerrilla than regular warfare. For this reason, we decided to adapt Muskets and Tomahawks, (now unfortunately out of print), which is an excellent rule set for representing irregular warfare, to local conditions.
Until recently, the Xhosa Wars were also poorly represented amongst 28mm figure ranges, but over the last year or two Perry Miniatures have released some lovely figures. These are three of their Cape Mounted Rifles packs.
The Cape Mounted Rifles was a colonial regiment recruited from residents of the Cape Colony. It could trace its origins to a regiment raised by the Dutch rulers of the Cape in 1793 and eventually became the Cape Corp.
By the mid-1800s, the regiment's troopers were equipped with double-barreled cavalry carbines, and wore a "rifle's green" jacket over cavalry trousers. There are very few contemporary color depictions of the CMR, and those that there are appear to disagree on whether their trousers were light grey or light brown. It could be that they changed color at a time, or that both colors co-existed. My choice eventually came down to aesthetics.
The Perry figures are, as always, characterful, detailed and, as far as I can make out, accurate. Despite the limited number of packs available, there is a healthy diversity of poses in the range. In addition to these figures fighting dismounted, there are also three packs of CMR figures fighting from horseback, and some horseholders, and those are next up on my painting table.
