More Recent Arrivals

I've recently added to my wargaming library the excellent Wargames Compendium by Henry Hyde. I've read chunks of it, but far from all of it, and found it just as good as I expected. Henry has a love for the hobby that comes through clearly, and a wealth of knowledge available both in his own brain and in his many contacts.

To give me some inspiration in painting up the new troops, I picked up Modern African Wars (2) : Angola and Mozambique 1961-74 (Men-At-Arms Series, 202) from Osprey. I've only really skimmed a bit of the text, since the war itself is not of great interest to me, but may go back later to gain more knowledge and flavor from the conflict. I may later pick up the volumes on the Algerian War and the Indonesian Confrontation from the same series.

Noble Knight carries some of the Rebel Miniatures figures, but not all of the line, and several of them are out of stock, so I ended up ordering part of what I wanted from them and part directly from Rebel Miniatures. Noble Knight also used the wrong photo on their Modern Police, so I thought I was getting Riot Police from them and turned out to be getting regular officers without the riot gear. I picked up a pack each of African Militia and African Military, the mistaken pack of Modern Police, and a pack of Modern Civilians. Today's mail brought the figures direct from Rebel Minis, comprised of 1 pack each of Riot Police, Modern Rioters, Hostages, and News Crew w/Robber. Yesterday's mail brought a tiny order from Khurasan Miniatures as well, comprised of one pack of Modern Civilians (despite the innocuous name, these are running and shouting and provided with bricks and molotovs as optional weapons) and one of "Galactic Dictator and Techno-Ninja." I really only needed the Galactic Dictator, a woman with long flowing hair and a suitably ornate military uniform, complete with frilled epaulettes, medal, and eye patch. I haven't decided what I'll use her for, but when I noticed her, I knew I needed one.

The AK-47 Republic Rules require both armies to be formed of exactly 5 units, but allow for each side to have one optional sixth unit of "Unarmed Militia", which means not so much unarmed as not equipped with military weaponry. They can still have knives, bats, pistols, bricks, molotov cocktails, and other such implements common to violent mobs. Under normal circumstances, this unit is required to always be off-board as a reinforcement unit that dices for arrival. However, I have it in mind to set up a scenario with the rioters as the cult's "Unarmed Militia" and the riot police as the government's "unarmed militia" and start both on the board in a confrontation, with military units of both sides responding to the eruption of violence.

The other arrival in today's mail was a set of bases from Litko Aero. A lot of 30x30, the standard AK-47 base size, and smaller quantites of 40x40 (towed weapons and tanks), and 30x40 (cavalry and possibly trucks, technicals, etc). The 30x40 may end up being superfluous, because I'm no longer sure if the vehicles will fit on them. I'll have to wait and make my decision once the vehicles arrive.

I'm still waiting for arrival of figures and vehicles from Peter Pig, Old Glory (via Warweb and Old Glory 15s), and QRF (via Scale Creep Miniatures); Barbed wire from SnM Stuff; some markers/tokens from Litko; and a set of needle files from Amazon.