Quick Conversion – Indian Levies

It’s late, I was having a rummage around (don’t be rude) and I found a box of Perry Mahdist Ansar I bought a few years back for a war in the Sudan project that never really took off. Pondered over what I could do with them and it occurred to me that Wargames Atlantic have recently released some plastic Afghans and I’ve got a load of spare turbaned heads from Warlord’s 8th Army kit. Maybe it’s time to visit the orient! Quick head swap and they should suffice as some sort of Indian levy troops, armed insurrectionists or something, will they be accurate? Naah, unlikely, but its a quick way for me to use up some sprues that would otherwise be sat there gathering dust and worse comes to worse I can set my games in the universe of Carry On Up The Khyber or something silly.

Quick snap of the box art in case you’re ever interested, have to admit, as ever the artwork on the box is really nice – something I’ve come to expect of the Perrys!

Few shots of the sprues – irritatingly, I appear to have lost the two command sprues you’re meant to get in the box but a quick rummage round my bits box and I’ve managed to find some suitable parts for a command section of sorts. Nice kit, barely any clean up – just a couple of mould lines here and there.

Quick to put together and I think they came out OK! Only questions I had while putting them together were the shields, which I’ve decided to leave off and the swords which I didn’t think looked particularly Indian. Luckily, after some research I managed to find a particular type of Indian sword called a Khanda on Wikipedia which was popular amongst the Sikh population of India for a time and a spitting image for the steel present on the Sudanese arms. Cracking! Along with spears and some muskets, nice mix of weaponry for my Indian levies. Chucking in a few of the original heads from the kit along with my turbaned heads I’ve got a nice crowd, ready to fight the British Empire! In the immortal words of Om Puri’s George Khan in the 1999 film ‘East is East’ – ‘I kill bloody English!!’