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RISK ZULU!
Hi, I should probably explain... My Dad and his friends regularly participate in ‘RISK evenings’, which I occasionally attend. Essentially, this consists of vast quantities of beer, wine and arguing as well as, to some extent, playing Risk. My Dad also co-manages ‘RGC Classic Carss’, a Norfolk based classic car hire company, and is the proud owner of a 1930s Rolls Royce Phantom II Safari Wagon, among other things. This has lead to their group regularly wearing full safari regalia, pith hats included, while attending various car rallies where, it seems, Risk and beer also feature heavily. This naturally led to plenty of references to the classic ZULU film, such as awarding the player controlling Africa a pith hat, which he must wear. And all of this of course led to me spending an insane amount of time producing RISK ZULU! Every time I’ve played Risk I’ve thought about how I would go about creating a bespoke version with painted figures. My Dad’s 50th birthday seemed a great opportunity to finally have a go. Obviously at this stage I hadn’t planned properly or thought remotely about what would actually be involved. I decided that essentially expanding the theme into the wider ‘Scramble for Africa’ period, as it has often been dubbed, seemed appropriate. This game is based roughly on the period 1879 to 1900. In addition to the British and Zulus I had to decide upon the remaining four factions, as RISK uses six. The French and Germans held the next largest African empires, and I felt that, while their empire was in decline, the Ottomans were still involved in North Africa, plus they could help reflect the other Islamic peoples present in Africa at the time. Similarly, the Zulu and Ashanti could help represent the many native Africans who resisted European colonisation. The Ashanti seemed like the perfect choice for the sixth faction after reading more about them. They had more success fighting the British than even the Zulus, defeating them not just in several battles but in a consecutive series of wars. Furthermore they were (and, indeed, still are) from Northern Africa, while the Zulu are from the South. I’ll explain each bit briefly below: The Board The board is the same as the original RISK board, in the sense that all of the territories correspond to those on the original, and have all the same boarders. So, for example, ‘The Cape’ is ‘Alaska’ on the original, ‘Suez Canal’ is ‘Indonesia’ and ‘Rorke’s Drift’ is ‘Central America’. All territories therefore have the same borders, and all ‘continents’ remain essentially the same, just visually different. The gameplay therefore remains unaffected, which I felt was important to keep the game playable. It took a long time to arrange them to fit in accordance (broadly) with historical territories! The board was designed in Photoshop, then printed onto plastic and laminated courtesy of Phil Burton Photography. The map underneath was simply found on Google, and I used Wikipedia for references of several historical maps. Apologies to all serious historians! The Figures Choosing the figures was obviously a big decision, and luckily I found a manufacturer who produced all of the figures I would need, plus hundreds more besides, and at a feasible cost. I strongly suggest anyone, wargamer or painter, to look up Pendraken Miniatures. Their figures are hugely detailed and perfectly proportioned, even compared to many larger scales I have seen (they are only 10mm). A few of them had to be converted: the Zulu and Ashanti canons are Mhadist canons with a few headswaps and some zulu troops thrown in to help them match. The Zulu and Ashanti cavalry are actually Ancient Numidian cavalry painted to match. I painted them in batches of 25 men, or 10 horses or 5 canons at a time. I found, as many have said that brighter colours and high contrast is best on smaller scale figures, and ‘line’ highlighting helped retain their form. As a former wargamer I found this scale really satisfying to paint, as I could finish 10 or maybe 20 men in an evening to a standard that I was happy with, and that did the figures justice. It was great to see legions of soldiers appearing on my desk so quickly. Seeing, however, that I had a total of 480 figures to finish, it did take a couple of months! Cards and Boxes The Cards were designed in Photoshop and printed by a local printer. For the icons I simply traced paintings found on Google. Colour coding helps when setting up troops. The boxes were bought online from a company called ‘Boxy Lady’. They’re amazing value for money, I recommend them highly if you ever need something similar. All the green felt, including that on the board, was bought from a local shop and stuck on. I think that’s about it! I reckon the total time taken was around 300 hours, thought it’s hard to be exact. I’m really satisfied with the end result, and I hope you have enjoyed reading about this project. It was completely insane and I won’t be doing anything like it again! (I give it a month). James Links: RGC Classic Cars: http://www.rgcclassiccars.co.uk/ Pendraken Miniatures: http://www.pendraken.co.uk/ Phil Burton Photography: http://www.philburtonphotography.co.uk/ Boxy Lady: http://www.boxylady.co.uk/
Posted: 21 Apr 2011
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