Angus Konstam

Edinburgh Wargames

Modern Brushfire Wars

Rhodesia

Using Force on Force rules

When my principal gaming buddy Dougie Trail picked up a copy of Force on Force, he plumped for his own modern period - the Rhodesian Bush War (1964-74). The inspiration for this came from the beautiful figures from Eureka's new Rhodesian War range. He ordered some, painted them up to his usual high standard, and so my "Malaya & Borneo" and Dougie's "Rhodesia" periods both "came on line" at the same time. As Force on Force games are very quick we tend to play one game from each period in the same evening. Anyway, I'm not going to provide a summary of the conflict - you can read the excellent book The Rhodesian War by Paul Moorcraft & Peter McLaughlin for that, or look it all up on the internet. Instead, here's Dougie's comments on turning this little bush war into a fully-fledged wargame period;

The Figures

When I was looking for a modern period I wanted to game I was more influenced by the available figures rather than any particular interest. Ii knew I didn't want to do something "ultra modern" like Afghanistan or Iraq. It doesn't seem an appropriate wargame period when soldiers are killed there almost every other day. Angus was doing the British campaigns in Malaya and Borneo, so I wanted something with a completely different flavour. I looked at the figures from several manufacturers like Assault Group, Mongrel Miniatures, Mofo and Chiltern, and considered several different post-war conflicts before I looked at Eureka's site. they'd just launched their Rhodesian War range, and the figures looked really good.

I ordered a few sample packs, and when they arrived I knew I'd found what I was looking for. As you'll see from these pictures the sculpting is really excellent - a very natural and realistic look. I had fun painting them up - especially the Rhodesians, who have some really unusual camouflage patterns. Even the African guerrillas were fun to paint, and I experimented with skin tones, dips and washes until I was happy with the look. The Eureka range is still limited, but they claim to be bringing out more figures, including mounted rifles. One of the most distinctive figure is the Selous Scout tracker, dressed in a t-shirt and Adidas trainers (sneakers). the pose is based on a contemporary photograph, so I used this as a guide when I painted the figure (pictured above).

The African guerillas are from the two military-political organisations ZAPU (ZImbabwe African People's Union) led by Joshua Nkomo and ZANU (Zimbabwe African National Union) led by the evil Robert Mugabe. Both groups were assorted types of military uniform, often supplied by other neighbouring African states. Therefore there is no real uniformity in the appearance of the African guerrillas, although units were often kitted out in some form of uniform. The Rhodesian Bush War was a relatively low-intensity conflict, so there isn't much need for a lot of figures. that said, given the disparity in troop quality, you need substantially more African guerrillas than Rhodesian security forces. I've also been collecting other accessories - a 1/48 scale Aloutette helicopter form Solido, purchased on E-Bay, and assorted farm machinery (tractors, trailers etc.), so I can stage a guerrilla attack on a white-owned farm.

The Terrain

Rhodesia encompasses a wide range of terrain types, from jungle to open savannah, cultivated farmland, urban suburban sprawl, and isolated villages and farms. Obviously it'll take time to build up a suitable selection of terrain, but we already have some African terrain features at the club, such as Acacia trees, patches of elephant grass, dry river gullies and African villages. I just have to add to it, to make the terrain look as distinctive as possible, and to give it a southern African feel.