African Bush Wars rules recommendations

[terrement]

Just saw a note about the latest Eureka Miniatures minis for the Bush Wars in Africa, and was wondering what folks would recommend as skirmish rules for this period.  Looking ideally for rules for small actions, 1 fig = 1 man, but welcome inputs for (slightly) larger battles as well.

Equally happy with rules your wargame group might use or commercial ones.

If there are better historical reads for the period, I'd welcome those as well.

Thanks!

JJ

[juergen c. olk]

The norm seems to be "Force on Force" w/ their Bushwars supplement. Also "Too Fat Lardies" has a set "MBASo" ,I may not have the name exactly right.But I am also looking for a set for small and big and simple ,to compensate for my groups willingness to read rules. Also anything you need to see or find links for check out  http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/ModernAfricanBushwars     also on facebook.

[Poiter50]

There is a playtest group for a TFL set based on Rhodesia but to a degree it has been sidelined by the playtesting for Fighting Season (TFL again & more Afghanistan based). The AArs I have seen look excellent (TFL blog/news).

[Arlequín]

Rhodesia was a war of small actions. Other than the bigger cross-border raids, even 'platoon actions' were quite rare until the last two years of the conflict. Portuguese operations in Guinea involved battalions and companies, while again in Angola/Mozambique actions tended to be much smaller. Post-Portugal both Angola & Mozambique commonly saw much larger actions.

I'm guessing that Rhodesia will be the focus of your interest, as the 'Portuguese' part of the range haven't been fully developed as yet.

Paul L. Moorcraft and Peter McLaughlin - 'The Rhodesian War' is still the basic go-to book for a general history and unit details etc. If you are buying just one book, this will do the job.

For my money any of the 'Africa @War' books by 30° South/Helion (also available on Amazon etc) are great, packed with info and anecdotal material in an 'Osprey' style format (albeit with much more content, but no pretty art); bear in mind though that some of the authors have varying degrees of bias.

If you are interested in Angola/Mozambique too... then John P. Cann is the guy to look out for. He's wrote one of the Africa@War series, but also has worked on some of his own titles. I haven't read the ones on Air Ops, or the 'Brown Water Navy', but the more general one on the 'Portuguese Way of War' was very good.

[CptJake]

The norm seems to be "Force on Force" w/ their Bushwars supplement. Also "Too Fat Lardies" has a set "MBASo" ,I may not have the name exactly right.But I am also looking for a set for small and big and simple ,to compensate for my groups willingness to read rules. Also anything you need to see or find links for check out  http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/ModernAfricanBushwars     also on facebook.

The TFL set, "B'Maso!"  is 100% worth getting.  The info in it is well researched and well presented.   http://toofatlardies.co.uk/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=3&products_id=37

Having said that, I am pretty sure it is a supplement and not a rule set.   The website says you need either IABSM or TWaT.  My copy is on a hard drive that I don't have hooked up right now but I do recall it had the rules needed to use the included info in the other games but is not a complete set in and of itself.

The FoF supplement Bush Wars ( http://www.amazon.com/Bush-Wars-Africa-1960-2010-Force/dp/1849087695/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1440767025&sr=8-1&keywords=bush+wars ) is also a good source you could use with other rules if you desired.

[S_P]

I recommend B'Maso too. Also look out for 'A Man amongst Men' supplement as well as the Britton scenario pack.

http://theminiaturespage.com/news/299226/

http://www.lulu.com/shop/bennett-p-lacy/rhodesian-bush-war/paperback/product-22092641.html

[juergen c. olk]

Thanx for the recommendations,I have the supplement and played Bmaso,once at Historican,a SADF angola game,great time. Books I have a ton John P.Canns books are great as the other mentioned and I love A.J.Venters many books.

[FrozenRob]

I am going to mod Bolt Action using the Russians for the Africans and the British for the Rhodesians

[Chuckaroobob]

I use Iron Ivan's "A Man Among Men" Rhodesian supplement for their WW2 rules "Disposable Heroes."

[Rhubarb633]

A few years ago I used a set of 'quick & dirty' skirmish rules by Sam Scott called Bushwars. Not big on detail, but they gave a fast and fun game with a nifty infiltration/hidden movement system using standard deck of playing cards. I still have a copy lurking on a memory stick somewhere - but a quick web search turned up a copy here:

http://www.unitedforums.co.uk/vb/website-development-scripting/11599-strange-php5-bug.html

[sundayhero]

I bought B'maso as a source book, really good purchase no matter the rule you're using. I also bought bush wars supplement for FoF, again great sourcebook with plenty of scenarios easily adaptable to any ruleset.

Concerning rulesets, most "guerilla" bush wars games could work with a lot of diferent rules, like FUBAR (for the simpliest rules) to Force on Force.