Hmmmm AK47 or AK Complicated

We are told that the famous AK47  is popular amongst some of the less savoury political militias in the even less savoury partsof the world  becasue it is simple to operate and maintain .
 Would that were true of its gaming namesake by Peter Pig AK47 Republic.

Shaun#s splendidly painted Giraffe wait for something to happen. They had a long wait. 

  For our February game Shaun was in the chair and elected to run a game using these rules for the first time along with his rather spiffing collection of 15mm African forces. So enthusiasm was quite high in the pub when the 4 of us arrived Andrew the Tekkie ,Mechanical Shaun ad Theatrical Steve  and myself- your Gentle Author- being unusually last to arrive despite having most- but by no means all - of the scenery.
 Now first off AK47 is not a set of wargames rules for battles in post colonial Africa. A better description would be "A game based  very vaguely on Politico- Military shennanigans in Post Colonial anywhere that might look a bit like Africa".
 Now this was the game's first outing for us  but the amount of faff and farting about even before you get to lay some lead was to say the least significant. Rather than present some scenarios  the rules writer chose to give us a somewhat tortuous dice rolling contest to decide what type of battle we might- or might not- be fighting. The idea was actually quite clever but the execution  long winded.
 Then once it had been decided that I would have to fight a defensive battle against a full blown attack by Andrew and Steve  there was more faffing about with the terrain generation system. The after THAT  there was more faffing about to decide which units of each of our 5 unit "armies" actually turned up on time or even at all.. By now it has to be said I'm afraid my bore-o-meter was reading 11 so it was good that lunch in the usual form of Landlady Jean's fine hot beef butties had turned up  so the four of us set to on those aided by pints of Consett Brewery's fine "White Hot" for those of us not driving motor vehicles. 

After shooting up the square  village to their front the enemy armour moves down the straight African road. 

 After lunch we finally got down to a bit of action but again more faffing as to how we laid out the few troops we had to begin the game with. Now obviously more familiarity with the system would have speeded things up quite a bit but, so far, not a single military or tactical decision had been in the hands of any of the players- though a few landscaping ones had using there gridded and rather stereotyped terrain choice system. The troops any player had in hand were entirely dice controlled and bore no resemblance to the mission in hand for either side. There were some good bits- units which had lost parts in the deployment phase could have some troops back again in a neat little sort of observation rule as - for example the enemies 2 approaching technicals  became 4 as the dust subsided.  Combat mechanisms were theoretically simple but since attacking troops fired first on hidden defenders I never got a chance to find out how it all worked. Except to realise that the one unit at a time IGOUGO system was glacially slow even with tiny numbers of troops on the table.  Tactically this was nonsense as in reality my out numbered and out gunned troops would simply have piled into their technicals and bugged out.

One enemy tank has gone of for a crafty spliff.

 The rule book included a bibliography- of which I own about half or more but missed other major sources out= so while I own Mockler, Cocks and Forsyth  amongst others cited in the rules there was no mention of Hoare, Puren or Reid- Daly let alone Cole or Moorcroft and McLaughlin or many more modern writers I don't yet own. I'm not convinced however that the writer had actually read any of these- or possibly a book ever.
 Yet having savaged the system I still think there is potential here given a little imagination. Although a bit- well a lot- long winded the "Approach to War" preamble has its points if you want to set up a scenario without benefit of a scenario . My main problem with the system is simple. It is once again the lack of "positive freedom" and the idea that dice rolling should take the place of actual thought or knowledge of the period in hand.

Mutiny Colours

Finally the first of the Bengal Mutineer regiments have their colours. According to the sources some- but by no means all of the rebel regiments carried their old British Colours into battle.In style the flags were similar in style- but differing in detail - to British regiements of the day / It was no big deal to download some generic British Napoleonic flags from warflag.com and the repaint to suit.

I've deliberately hidden the centres of the flags so they could be several yellow faced BNI regiments 

As the mutineer force grows more regiments will be added- though not all will have colours as some were destroyed and other simply left behind.

Figures all 28mm Old Glory from packs CMM 1 ,2 ,OR 3 

More Mutiny Men

The completed Mutineer artillery battery- san hanging static grass this time.

Despite the ever increasing amounts of Government crap I am now supposed to deal with due to the success tax- sory says he knuckling his forelock  governemnt wars that eould be VAT-  I've still managed to finish a couple more units for my slowly growing Indian Mutiny project. Now to be fair  much of this was basing as the British were painted by  James Main. Though the mutineers are by me. Still the British would be pathetic without the units that Jim painted for me-I have an unbased Punjab Irregular Force unit that is next in line for treatment as well.
  Any how here are the photos.

The 52nd Foot- Light Infantry - one of the Delhi Field force units,

N.C.O and Officer.

More of this stuff is on the painting table. More Mutineers for a start including some Irregulars Barkanzies and sucghlike. Watch this space.

Phew I could do with a breather.

 Van loaded up for the York show all ready to go at half past firts sparrow fart tomorrow morning . I sometimes wonder how the hell I get everything done.
 This last week has been just a tad fraught.as OGUK is now VAT registered again- the finacial crash forced us out of VAT registry in 2010  but we are now registered again. This has a downside- some prices will HAVE to rise simply to pay the taxes when due. HMRC says they must. Now I will not be putting the complete tax on everything I'm going to absorb around half of it as an importer pays an awful lot of VAT up front .
 Nevertheless prices will rise- for the UK and EU customers. Blokes out side these countries don't have to pay so I'll simply refund them the correct proportion if they order via the website or if the email me directly  paypal them the non vat price.
 Now prices have not yet risen I simply have not had the time to work them all out as the amount of government bullshit is IMMENSE and much of it hidden from view in obscure pages of their website in small print that I as visually impaired find sometimes difficult to read let alone understand once I have manged to read the gobblegook.
 So please bear with me, our 30 figure bags of 25/8 mm figure will need to go up to £30..00 inc VAT  which still makes them cheaper than most of the competition.  Indeed the per figure price will still be just a quid each. Smaller packs will rise in proportion. Sash and Saber and other will also rise. All of the rise will go to our glorious Government. I expect my own margins to drop by 10015%
 Most of the Blue Moon 15mm packs will go up by about a pound though some will not go up at all and a few may rise by a couple of quid

See you at Vapnartak in York tomorrow