Getting Distracted by the Portuguese

As I mentioned in my last post I recently got hold of the OOP Wargames Foundry book on Colonial Armies in Africa. This has finally given me some info on the Portuguese in Mozambique during the 19th century.

I’ve been interested in the Portuguese after I read a few snippets about Major Serpa Pinto’s Shire River expedition which nearly lead to war between Portugal and Britain during the scramble for Africa. The major issue stopping me doing anything with the Portuguese was that information about Portuguese forces in Africa  appears to be rarer than hen’s teeth unless you are interested in the 20th century colonial war

As soon as I saw the picture, in the book, of an African soldier in a  loincloth and a kepi I knew I needed a Portuguese army for Africa. Of course no one makes African Portuguese soldiers for the 1860s-1880s in 28mm so I was going to have to get creative.  I ordered a selection of miniatures that I thought I could use, with some conversion, and put them on a shelf and got back to painting Arabs ….for about 20 minutes before I broke down grabbed a few of my new miniatures and attempted to make some Cacadores de Africa based on the pictures in my new book….doh

So these are really just test pieces to see what I could achieve. Some of the details are probably a bit off but I think they are heading in the right direction I really want to put together a few units of these guys for TMWWBKs now but first I have Arabs to finish…