amaThembu (No. 1 Company 1/3rd NNC)

Tonight I completed No. 1 Company 1/3rd NNC, this is a company made up of men from the amaThembu people in Natal. The shield colours are conjectural so I picked a set of colours for each of the different tribes that make up the battalion. The first 4 companies were all amaThembu, the 5th and 7th were made up of late comers so will have mixed shield colours, the 6th company is amaBele which will have black shields as will the final 3 companies that are made up of isiGqosa - I will vary the markings on the shields to make the companies look distictive. Incidentally the isiGqosa were Zulus that had left the Zulu kingdom some years before, they were probably the best troops in the battalion and were highly rated by the battalions commander Commandant G. Hamilton-Brown (his book A Lost Legionary in South Africa is available online - be warned that although of historical value it, along with other books written at the time, isn't very PC).

The full company including its command stand:

A close up of the NNC bases: