Saturday 4 August 2012

G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. detachment: 1/72 Sikh Rifles

Assembled for action, the 23rd Cuminpore Rifles.

A little break from Sword and Sandals slaughterage. I painted these lads up a while ago on a whim and tucked them away forgetting about them. I finally rediscovered them when the Pre-Teen Visigoth and I started considering playing some G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. 

I rank G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. as one of my three top miniature games. In fact after DBA I really don't bother playing anything else. Your Victorian Sci-Fi May Vary, but if you dig Colonial and Steam-funk this ruleset delivers the goods. And it's short, simple and utterly lacking in pretense.

For the game, your detachments operate in 10 guy (more or less) squads. Guns, vehicles, giant robots and angry dinosaurs are deployed singularly.  The rules work just dandy when if you are playing straight-up Colonial wars type stuff and flexibly port the oddball things in when you want to take a detour into Verne-ish Sci-fi or the current Steam-Punk (I grow tired of that phrase) genre and esthetic. 

One of G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T.'s more appealing features gives your leaders and heroes an almost RPG-ish detail and latitude of action. The troops are left characterless, consigned to a Red Shirt existence of short, brutal but potentially heroic lives.

The Pre-Teen Visigoth was taken with Sikhs and claimed them for his own. He's organized them into a snappy little squad. Here they are, ready to take on any threat. I'll post their G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. stats when I find them.

The Doughty Leader, Jemadar Garam 'Masala' Singh.
The figures are HaT's more recent production of Colonial Indian Infantry. A nice set, well thought out and most useful. Only one duff pose in the box and no big deal, as well all need head swaps. Speaking of head swaps, the softer plastic now used by HaT is superior for conversions and painting. Not sure why there is so much whinging about it. Each to his own.

The paint job was a quick and splotchy Teenage Visigoth style followed with The Dip and the All Powerful Dullcote. I think I will lighten up the skin tones a bit next go  'round for contrast with khaki uniforms.

 
His trusty NCO Havildar Josh Rogan
Together with a ranker for the 'Charlie's Angles' shot.
By now, the clever among you have suspected that the Pre-Teen Visigoth has a fixation with the cuisine of the Indian sub-continent.  You'd be right.  So please, consider his punny Indian take out names given with great respect. He's an aspiring chef and for him, it's a mark of honour.

It's a funny thing, naming for pseudo-historical games. We here at Chateau Visigoth have no delusions that we are recreating history.  As such, we are somewhat loose and silly about naming our heroes and villains. Food related names have a long and sketchy history, both is wargaming and the real thing. Unimaginative or lazy? I'm undecided. I'm going to address the topic in a rant later-on.

We have two battle reports to follow, in which our band of bold Sikhs will encounter the nefarious Ali Sin Bad and the Pirates of the Nile 

Gripping Tales of Adventure for the Daring Son or Daughter of the Empire to read about! *

-TV

*You know it's got be some Badass 19th Century Action in the works as the writer has started using Creeping Capitalization.