Rapid Fire! Spanish Civil War in 1/72nd scale - Moorish Tabors from Larache.

This action happens close to the village of Quatro Casas - as you can conclude from the above picture - and it portrays the two dreaded Moorish Tabors (half battalions of 2 companies of infantry and one of cavalry each) of Melilla, east Morocco.

The Moors were coming from North Africa and belonged to Franco's African Army who became  famous for the first history's airlift (with Hitler and Mussolini's help), its fighting prowesses and also its cruelty.

The figures gave me lots of pleasure to build as I could do what I like the most: converting, that is building armies without becoming broke! (of course I would prefer to be rich, order everything metal and send scratch building and converting for a big walk around the park!).

In the mortar stands I used two metal Irregular Miniatures figures, here with fez, and one plastic. These last ones got a little tricky as the torso and mortar comes from the Esci WWII US mortar figure and the legs are from Revell WWI Germans. The head is the original Esci with a GreenStuff turban.

Cheap Chinese copies of Airfix Japanese and US Marine were turned into Moors again with GreenStuff in the turban and bed roll. The blanket roll was quite used in the SCW and helps desguise imperfections and particularities of the uniforms.

German WWI Esci MG 08 crew with head from Esci Muzlims. The HMG firer is from the Esci US WWII box complete with gun; the helmet is carved to become a fez; the blanket roll hides many different parts of the US uniform and equipment. Pay attention to the HMG crew who should always be Spanish so no turbans. Here I only placed a Spanish as the firer, all other are Moors.

All non-metal figures are these kind of conversions. The basis is mostly Revell WWI German bodies with heads from the Esci Muzlim set.

Loctite Special Plastics gives a good bond to soft plastic parts and was used in all figures needing a new head.

The command stands have figures from the Atlantic WWII Russian set, again converted, Revell and IM metals. The Flags are simple prints from the internet.

The cavalry are based on the Zvezda Turkish cavalry. Some carving, two blanket rolls (on the horse and horseman) and a rifle/SMG made the rest. The Ottoman tuban also had some cutting in order to make it smaller.