Cold War Africa Imagination - Bridge Update 06/10

[Belgian]

Working on a small project set in Equitorial Africa during the Cold War ranging from 1950-1990 offering plenty of possibilities to field local African regular and irregular forces, rebels and insurgents, freedom fighters and resistance groups along with western and soviet soldiers and of course mercenaries and UN peacekeeping forces. Note this isn't a historical project, so wrong uniforms, weapons and vehicles are no problem at all 

First of all some rather poorly armed local forces defending their tribal homeland or looking to gain some more ground during the larger conflict. As you can see armed with a rather ecclectic collection of muskets, rifles, world war two weapons. Most miniatures are Wargames Foundry with some Forlorn Hope Somali RPG armed miniatures. Although pretty poorly armed they might be able to threaten unarmed civilians or overrun local police forces and army barracks if lucky.

[v_lazy_dragon]

Awesome start!
I had a similar project a few years ago, and had great fun 'Mau Mau'ing up some Ruga ruga

[dadlamassu]

I have something similar.  Our son decided to play games using the Spectre rules.  Naturally he wanted to use my table and terrain.  After a couple of games I was impressed by the rules as being fairly realistic and also playable.  I did not want to start a new period so  searching the plastic mountain I found Zulus both Warlord and Perry.  These “bodies “ were combined with Zombie apocalypse survivors and weapons from Warlord from a sprue sale years ago, weapons and heads from the Zulu, Russian and U.S. Army WW2 sets and other bits and bobs from the spares box.   

Not very historical but great kitbashing potential. 

[Belgian]

Thanks for the comments and interesting tips!

[AKULA]

A great looking force. Plenty of  scope to include a couple of beat up old landrovers, or even a witch doctor 

[CapnJim]

Good looking indigenous force there.  I'm curious to see how well that chap with the M1919 fares if he fires it like that...

[Grumpy Gnome]

An interesting project and some clever kitbashing. Inspirational in fact. Thanks for sharing.

[Tom Dulski]

These look GREAT. May I ask where you got the pieces of the African masks? I can use something like that for a project I am working on.

[trev]

These are great.  I'm looking forward to seeing what you do for this project. 

Here are my Simbas so far.  I intend to add some militia with more traditional weapons when I get back to this.

[Belgian]

Good looking indigenous force there.  I'm curious to see how well that chap with the M1919 fares if he fires it like that...

Not the best trained force, he will soon find out the result 😀

[Belgian]

An interesting project and some clever kitbashing. Inspirational in fact. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks much appreciated!

[Belgian]

These look GREAT. May I ask where you got the pieces of the African masks? I can use something like that for a project I am working on.

Thanks, sure they are Wargames Foundry Tribal Warriors in Hideous Masks from their Darkest Africa range.

[Belgian]

These are great.  I'm looking forward to seeing what you do for this project. 

Here are my Simbas so far.  I intend to add some militia with more traditional weapons when I get back to this.

Thanks, had already bookmarked your website very inspirational!

[Belgian]

Have been painting some of the warriors, must finish these before starting some more regular forces. Most can also serve for regular Darkest Africa games so double win 

[Belgian]

Some progress on the tribal forces, managed to finish 3 groups of eight rebels (still need some matt varnish and basing) with another 2 groups of eight rebels each in the works along with some witch doctors. Read somewhere in a Congo Crisis book that the Simba witch doctors were mostly female if I recall correctly so decided to paint a female witch doctor too. Think that will do for the rebels although I would like to add some vehicle mounted heavy weapons and maybe some dismounted heavy weapons but haven't managed to find some EU based sources for this kind of miniatures that are also affordable. Would like to add some heavy machineguns, mortars and maybe some recoiless guns or light artillery mounted on trucks. Also read about some tactics the Pierre Mulele rebels used to delay, stop or ambush vehicles during the Kwilu Rebellion, quite low tech by digging pits in the roads covered with branches, leaves and dirt but were succesful so interesting detail to add to the setting and suits my rather primitive tribal rebels.

Have been looking at some useful ranges such as The Assault Group (Africa, Vietnam), Empress Miniatures (Indo-China, Vietnam), Eureka Miniatures (Bush Wars), Mongrel Miniatures (Congo Crisis) but most look unavailable in the EU or are a bit too expensive for my frugal taste if available more or less locally. Might place a bulk order in the UK or USA but if somebody has useful miniatures (everything that could be useful in post WW2 Africa that would include WW2 equipment etc as plenty of that seems to have been used to) and don't need them anymore feel free to get in touch!