My 15mm Fictional African Campaign Revisited

The following is a rehash from my old web site, killed by AT&T, when they discontinued service to my area.  After a lapse of about a year and a half, I am finally bringing my game back to life, and thought I kind of review my previous efforts.

I started my fictional African campaign about three and a half years ago, after spending about a year researching a number of African conflicts in the post colonial era.  Originally, I had expected to game one or more historical conflicts, but instead decided to create a campaign set around two fictional African countries, using a variety of troop and equipment types. 


The game consists of the ongoing conflict (or conflicts) between Mugabia and Uwanda with extra chaos thrown in by various factions within the countries, possibly their neighbors, and occasional  intervention by foreign nations with longer reach.

The Map

Uwanda is on the left, and Mugabia is on the right.

The black lines are national borders, blue are waterways, red are roadways (mostly dirt).  Villages/towns/cities (also known as objectives) are shown as black dots, the bigger the dot, the bigger and more valuable the location. 


The stretches of road between the cities are accompanied by a red number, the cost in movement points to get from one objective to the next.  Each unit has a movement rating (of 1-4)  based on the type of unit and transport equipping it.  The unit accumulates its movement points each strategic turn, and adds them up over multiple turns until the unit can move to the next objective.  For example, a unit on foot, gets 1 movement point per turn, a mechanized unit might get 4 points per turn.  If the stretch of road  between objectives has a 4 next to it, the mech unit can travel to the next town in one turn (with its 4 points), but the unit on foot will have to accumulate 4 movement points, and will take four turns to move to the next town.  On the longer stretches between towns, there are red dots with labels.  These are strategic objective points other than towns.  other than not having lots of buildings, they function pretty much the same as the towns.  


The terrain type  is denoted by three background colors.  The tan is desert, light green  has light foliage and scattered trees, dark green is forest or even jungle.

The dashed line along the southern portion of the border between Uwanda and Mugabia shows the current extent of advance by Mugabian forces.




The Nations


Mugabia, the antagonist nation at the outset of my campaign (and located to the east of Uwanda), is a former French colony that has turned to communism and the aid of the Soviet Union (we're in the 1980s at this point). Its army is made up mostly of Soviet and  some French equipment. In addition to the large regular army, there is a ponderous semi-trained militia, and the Mugabian backed Uwandan Liberation Front (ULF), a rebel force fighting to overthrow the the government of neighboring Uwanda.
Mugabian regular army consist mostly of Peter Pig figs in Soviet style uniforms.

Mugabian militia and ULF forces are mostly Peter Pig with a few Flashpoint figs.

The other country, Uwanda, is a former British colony (located to the west of Mugabia), friendly to the west with at least a superficial democracy. The Army of Uwanda relies heavily on older British equipment with a smattering of US hand-me-downs. Uwanda maintains a smallish, but relatively well trained army. Uwandan security is aided by the Border Police, a small lightly equipped para-military force, and the Village Guard, a very limited civilian militia that works more like local police.


Uwanda Regular Army uniforms were inspired by the Rhodesian rifles camo uniform and again figs come from Peter Pig.

The Uwanda Border Police are Rebel Minis Contractors painted along the lines of Iraqi and Ivory Coast police.

A faction of fundamentalist separatists burden both nations from time to time. The separatists are located mostly in the region either side of the southern border between Uwanda and Mugabia.  the minis are Rebel Minis Fedayeen.

Other forces involved include mercenaries, and foreign armies helping with UN and other humanitarian missions. Currently, these are likely to be French, US, or possibly Soviet forces.


Peter pig French troops are pictured below.

The US troops are from Old Glory.

That  wraps up the intro to the two main protagonists and their troops.  In the coming days, I will talk about the armies equipment, the terrain, battles, etc.