28mm Malayan Emergency Update

Which is to say - an update on the Malayan Emergency, not an Emergency Update on Malaya....

Well - there has been movement! I had a text from John offering use of his Vietnam buildings for the jungle village, and offering to have a crack at building a planters bungalow too... Top man!
I also had a package in the post - a pack of Pulp Figures 'Chinese student militia' - http://pulpfigures.com/products/view/168 - to use to bulk out and add variety to my rifle armed CTs (Dave only did 3 sculpts :-/ ) and a pack of Militia in assorted head gear (http://pulpfigures.com/products/view/171) to use as Malayan homeguard albeit not in uniform, but still...)

Plans - 20mm Twilight 2000 Post Apoc

This is something of a 'journey home' for me - afterall, the first non-GW gaming I did was Post Apocalypse (inspired by the Fallout Tactics computer game), and it's a subject I have revisited many times over the years, the most recent incarnation being my BritApoc setting. I've fancied the idea of Twilight 2000 ever since I came across it, as at the time it was one of the few 'gritty/realistic/non-road-warrior-or-gamma-world settings out there.  Infact, some of the inspiration for BritApoc probably came from it, albeit indirectly. Apart from thinking about maybe doing a couple of BritApoc games with ragged British fighting ragged Soviets, that is about as far as the idea went until I came across some of the TW2K threads on the Guild (see below!).

http://www.guildwargamers.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=100&t=1671&p=13721&hilit=tw2k#p13721

http://www.guildwargamers.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=100&t=1069&p=7315&hilit=tw2k#p7315

http://www.guildwargamers.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=104&t=437
http://www.guildwargamers.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=104&t=221&p=622&hilit=elhiem+vietnam#p622
http://www.guildwargamers.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=81&t=456&hilit=twilight2000

I would already have a large number of 'Cold warriors' as well as some ragged 80's style partisans, so things were beginning to look set up. I was initially going to do 'straight' Twilight 2000...however, I'm not a great one for being tied into a 'canon' these days (did enough of that with Games Workshop, and as someone once said, why be limited by someone else's imagination?) so I swayed towards doing my own thing 'Twilight 85' if you will. Then I actually *read* the Twilight 2000 background (1st & 2nd edition - the first is Pre-Gorbachev, the second post, and for ease of integration of my figure collection, I'll be using the first...), and wow. So I'll be adding a few 'future which never came' elements to my forces (US army LAVs in MERDC camo!)

I'm not sure what scale games I'm aiming for (or what rules) - part of me expects the usual small groups of 4-12, but I also fancy major 'warband' size battles (about reinforced platoon strength) which are something I would struggle to do with my BritApoc stuff. I'm guessing that I'll use Force on Force for these games, especially as apparently one of the SOG campaign packs has post-apocalypse rules :)

Location wise (as it'll seriously impact on the forces available) I'm currently looking at the a region towards the Polish border in the DDR, so that I can use Soviets, Brits, Yanks, Canadians, Federal Germans, East Germans, Poles and possibly Czechs, as there aren't really too many other figures suitable for use in some of the other fronts (although, some games in Jugoslavia could be a good use of the various Balkan Wars Serbs, and having a Cousin-in-law who was in the Turkish Army in the 1980's kind of makes me want to do some Turks - especially giving the range of vehicles they and the Greeks used)

Anyway, enough airy-fairy hand wringing, on with the planning! The forces I'm currently thinking of are:

Soviets/Warsaw Pact
The Soviets have to be in there! These troops will be representing the remains of a joint Polish/Soviet force which was attempting to exploit the depletion in allied resources left by NATO's (well, the US MilGov aligned half's) last push into Poland. For the main body of these guys I will use Cold War forces, with the addition of a few raggedy types in mixed uniforms and head gear, maybe also use some of the RH 'Generic' figures in Soviet helmets & Civilians in Soviet helmets to add character. Vehicle support will probably be a motley assortment of Warsaw-pact armour - maybe a couple of BTRs and a T72, but probably some older kit too (T-62's and BTR 152s or some such). almost certainly a couple of heavy weapons either mounted in/on vehicles or ready to disembark ready to provide additional fire support. As with all major military forces these days, they are more along the lines of local warlords, but they have still endeavoured to maintain a series of offensives against NATO.

Marauders 
As bandits, deserters and renegades, and the occasional 'good guy' unaligned to other forces. They are truly independant and will happily strike at anyone if it offers a good possibility of loot.  These guys will need to be a mix of figures, with a range of uniforms and equipment. Luckily for me, I already have the perfect foundation for this by using my NATO partisans, although they might well need to have a few more vehicles rather than the current planned technical  I'm guessing these will probably be '1-off' bits of kit (probably diecasts) which I'll pick up anyway knowing my inner horder...! They'll be a mix of Eastern & Western, possibly with some 'bodge' jobs (gives me an excuse to get/use one of the Vietnam Aussie M113 Fire supports with a Saracen turret) and armoured civilian kit. I'm also hoping to add some 'European Road warriors' to add to the post apocalypse feel of the setting, but without getting too mad max on it!

Town Militia/scavengers/etc
I'd envisage most settlements having a few 'have a go heroes' in addition to any forces stationed there by one of the 'powers'. I'll probably just use the few civilians I am doing without partisan armbands to fill in for these guys...

NATO Cantonment
The remnants of NATO in this area are a ragged mix of East (!) & West Germans, Americans, 'free' Poles, Canadians and Brits. These troops have given up any goal of ejecting the Soviets from the region, and have instead fallen back on trying to maintain the status quo, and protect what troops lie within their Cantonment from the deprivations of some of the other forces in the area. These will be a mix of my various NATO figures, with added Americans & also a home for some of my East Germans (Following a Coup, they switched sides and asked for NATO assistance. These guys will have a real hodge podge of kit - but I'm hoping for atleast 1 LAV and a couple of Humvees to capture that 'TW2K' feel.... 

Plans - 28mm Malayan Emergancy

So, I thought I'd start  working out some of my plans for projects which will be starting sooner rather than later... I'll start with Malaya as I currently have some figures for it, sitting waiting to be striped (13 Gurkhas, 2 'planters', 14 Communist terrorists =CTs) and it will probably be a smallish project so shouldn't require much planning (!)

Commonwealth troops trek through the jungle

Ideally, what I want to 'get' is going to be linked to the sort of scenarios I'll be playing. After a bit of thought these will probably brake down into:
*CTs ambush British (Probably involving CTS barricading a road used by British troops, possibly National Servicemen, and waiting to pick off the troops that attempt to clear it. The Brits will need transport vehicles of some sort)
*British ambush CTs (This will probably be a matter of a small force of 'elite' men - Gurkhas or SAS - lying in wait on a jungle trail)
*British attacking a CT camp (Not sure what British forces, CT camp will be a couple of Jungle houses)
*CTs attacking a Planters house (The Planter and his family will be armed, and there may also be some Malaysian Home Guard to help defend it)
*CT sympathisers trying to smuggle food out to CTs, whilst pursued/ambushed by Malaysian Police (So I'll need civilians and some police troops. Maybe some army regulars too)

Commonwealth Infantry move through a Malaysian Village

So from this it looks like I'll be aiming to get an aproximately platoon strength force of CTs, 1 section Gurkhas, 2 sections + platoon command of British Infantry along with a couple of 'native' trackers, the Malayan Police pack, a couple of Native 'home guard'*, some planters*, planters bungalow,* a couple of native huts*, Malayan civilians*, a few civilian cars/trucks*, Malayan Police Jungle Squad*, a Saracen and/or an up-gunned Dingo and possibly an armoured platers car*.

Malayan Home guard

The figures marked with astrixes (*) are not in the Britannia Malayan range...
The civilian vehicles should be easy enough  to source from the diecast market (albeit they might be a little out of scale). An 'armoured' planters car will have to be a plasticard conversion jobbie.
Dave did make some planter figures, they were never officially released, but I may be able to get my hands on them. If not, then I've got a Foundry Chindit & a Copplestone KKBB agent in short sleeved shirt and slacks which might be able to make a Father & son duo...
Uniformed Malayan home guard will be a problem, but I'm hoping that maybe a mix of WW2 Chindits, some of the Brittania Armed Malayan Police figures and some Brittania Gurkhas might do the trick. for the less uniformed units, I've picked up a pack of Pulp figures Chinese student's militia in assorted head gear which, whilst not perfect, should do the job.
Native huts in the right scale can come from Scheltrun (Their Borneo range), otherwise it'll be converting the Airfix jungle outpost set which is only available in 1/72 or 1/35...!
Malayan civilians are a bit of a problem, but I've seen some in 'coolie' hats (especially amongst the chinese minority, which were also the main CT sympathisers) so I might be able to get away with Vietnam Civillians. maybe the ones from West wind (which will be a fair bit smaller than the Britannia figures, so will get plasticard booster shoes)
Which just leaves the jungle squad. Sikhs in long trousers and turbans can be found in the Artizan WW2 range, but their a bit heavy on the webbing front, so I might end up extending the shorts on some Pulp figures ones instead. The Malaysian members present more of a problem - on extended service they wore 'boonie' hats, so possibly conversions of Britannia Gurkhas might work, but in other situations they wore pill box caps or berets. Berets could come from '2-gun' Stafford pack I guess, but otherwise it'll be tracking down colonial  period Gurkhas and lopping their heads off...!

Members of the 'Jungle Squad' run to their vehicles

Force on Force: Thunder Run to Baghdad Photo Report

It's taken me a while to get this typed up and posted (damn you, freshers flu) - so I'm afraid the details are now a little hazy... 

The game was 2003, the US Army's "Thunder Run" to Baghdad. The American's (John & Kev's) main objective was to get off the board, with all vehicles intact, minimal casualties to their own forces and no civilian casualties (No points for killing 'bad guys' though!). The Iraqi's (Steve and Myself) objective was to stop them, with points scored for every vehicle damaged and American killed. 

The game played well, and it was interesting to have a more balanced 'stand-up-fight' rather than the pseudo-Colonial games we'd played up to then (Not that I dislike them, far from it, but variety is the spice of life!). The Iraqi RPGs just pinged off the Abrams, whilst generally speaking the Iraqi armour was pretty much useless. Despite all that - quantity has a quality all of it's own as they say, and we got lucky with artillery and reiforcements - the Iraqis eventually won 17 (?) points to 3 (all due to a Fog of War card, which said that footage of the American's proffesionalism and shear fire-power had become a major youtube hit!). Most of the Iraqi points were scored by disabling vehicles and killing unbuttoned tank crew. Interestingly, the table as it stood at the end of the game, with a couple of immobilised US vehicles wasn't too far off from what actually happened (an Abrams was immobilised and needed to be rescued/destroyed in a later action).

There were some great heroics, especially on the US side, with vehicles exiting the table, to deposit their troops in safety, only to return to the fray to collect some of the stranded infantry, some of which eventually had to ride out on the tops of the vehicles. That said, the Iraqi guy who started the game as a civilian and who became one of our most effective AT assets with his RPG certainly deserves some sort of mention. The American heroics were tempered by their engagement of civilian mobs (in fairness, 2 mobs had been converted to insurgent bands, and the one in question did have a guy trying to pass out AKs and incite them to violence ) and their engagement of several civilian cars (which did have the potential to become VIEDs)

Venue: Steve's
Scenery: Steve, Johnny & Kev
Vehicles: Steve (& Kev?)

Figures: Steve (dark bases) & Kev (desert bases)

Sound track: ACDC 

Substitutions?: The free standing walls towards the American starting point were counting as trenches...