*
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
March 28, 2024, 04:00:43 PM

Login with username, password and session length

Donate

We Appreciate Your Support

Members
Stats
  • Total Posts: 1686506
  • Total Topics: 118106
  • Online Today: 857
  • Online Ever: 2235
  • (October 29, 2023, 12:32:45 AM)
Users Online

Recent

Author Topic: African Bush Wars rules recommendations  (Read 3966 times)

Offline terrement

  • Librarian
  • Posts: 173
African Bush Wars rules recommendations
« on: August 27, 2015, 03:08:28 PM »
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

Offline juergen c. olk

  • Supporting Adventurer
  • Scatterbrained Genius
  • *
  • Posts: 2388
Re: African Bush Wars rules recommendations
« Reply #1 on: August 27, 2015, 10:06:10 PM »
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.

Offline Poiter50

  • Scatterbrained Genius
  • Posts: 3562
Re: African Bush Wars rules recommendations
« Reply #2 on: August 28, 2015, 03:33:41 AM »
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).
Cheers,
Poiter50

Offline Arlequín

  • Galactic Brain
  • Posts: 6218
  • Culpame de la Bossa Nova...
Re: African Bush Wars rules recommendations
« Reply #3 on: August 28, 2015, 08:01:35 AM »
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.

Offline CptJake

  • Mastermind
  • Posts: 1418
  • Hooah!
Re: African Bush Wars rules recommendations
« Reply #4 on: August 28, 2015, 01:04:35 PM »
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.
Every time a bad person dies, a Paratrooper gets his wings.

Offline S_P

  • Mad Scientist
  • Posts: 527
Re: African Bush Wars rules recommendations
« Reply #5 on: August 28, 2015, 03:35:03 PM »
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

Offline juergen c. olk

  • Supporting Adventurer
  • Scatterbrained Genius
  • *
  • Posts: 2388
Re: African Bush Wars rules recommendations
« Reply #6 on: August 28, 2015, 09:07:18 PM »
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.
« Last Edit: August 28, 2015, 09:09:22 PM by juergen c. olk »

Offline FrozenRob

  • Student
  • Posts: 12
Re: African Bush Wars rules recommendations
« Reply #7 on: August 29, 2015, 09:14:07 AM »
I am going to mod Bolt Action using the Russians for the Africans and the British for the Rhodesians :)

Offline Chuckaroobob

  • Scientist
  • Posts: 315
Re: African Bush Wars rules recommendations
« Reply #8 on: September 13, 2015, 04:53:38 PM »
I use Iron Ivan's "A Man Among Men" Rhodesian supplement for their WW2 rules "Disposable Heroes."
They call me "Point Cow"

Offline Rhubarb633

  • Assistant
  • Posts: 47
    • My Blog - Two Rounds Rapid (Toast, tea and table-top wargaming)
Re: African Bush Wars rules recommendations
« Reply #9 on: September 13, 2015, 06:20:32 PM »
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

"I was hoping for a battle of wits, but you appear to be unarmed"

Offline sundayhero

  • Scatterbrained Genius
  • Posts: 2452
Re: African Bush Wars rules recommendations
« Reply #10 on: September 13, 2015, 09:40:53 PM »
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.

 

Related Topics

  Subject / Started by Replies Last post
5 Replies
2908 Views
Last post February 17, 2014, 02:38:57 PM
by juergen c. olk
20 Replies
5781 Views
Last post January 19, 2015, 01:08:38 PM
by sundayhero
1 Replies
1112 Views
Last post March 20, 2017, 07:01:26 AM
by smirnoff
8 Replies
1837 Views
Last post July 20, 2017, 09:02:00 AM
by von Lucky
63 Replies
7686 Views
Last post February 29, 2024, 08:56:39 PM
by AKULA