Saturday, July 20, 2013

Ngāpuhi Scouts, New Zealand Musket Wars

The following is the beginning of my next side project, a small Maori war band depicting the Ngāpuhi tribe from the New Zealand musket wars. On release of the new Empress Maori Wars miniatures being a New Zealander (Kiwi) myself I immediately fell in love with the miniatures and despite already have far too many unpainted miniatures I couldn't resist starting this side project. Ngāpuhi is a Māori iwi from my local Northland region of New Zealand, and centered in the Hokianga, the Bay of Islands and Whāngārei (my home town). I have used Back to Basixs Woodland bases to depict the thick rainforest like conditions of which the Maori often loved to battle utilizing gorilla warfare style tactics and I almost went cross-eyed painting the traditional patterns on the blanket ha.

Some wikipedia history: Ngāpuhi: New Zealand Musket Wars
By the early 19th century, the Bay of Islands had become a prominent shipping port in New Zealand. Through increased trade with Europeans, initiated by Ruatara, Ngāpuhi gained greater access to European goods, including muskets. Armed with European firearms, Ngāpuhi, led by Hongi Hika, launched a series of expansionist campaigns, with resounding victories across Northland and in the Waikato and Bay of Plenty.

Anyway I hope you enjoy and please feel free to comment, share and follow :-)

Oh and the Empress Maori range can be found here http://www.empressminiatures.com/userimages/procart11.htm


 




 



4 comments:

  1. I must admit I'm not too familiar with the Maori Wars, but I do like the stuff from Empress. Yours are looking really good from the start and that basing is fantastic. I'm looking forward to seeing your progress on this project.

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  2. Kia Ora Halflinghouse!

    Fantastic. I have been scouting around to find someone modelling this period as I have an interest in it myself. Empress do have a wonderfully sculpted range. Consider yourself followed!

    Do you have a ruleset in mind?

    Also why multibase? Are the figures small or are they on 40mm bases?

    Ka kite ano.

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  3. Thanks guys.

    Minitrol I do not plan to wargame with these and the basing was intended for display purposes only :-) They are standard 28mm scale.

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