Book review

James and the Duck by Faan Martin\


This is my latest purchase, culled off amazon at the amazingly low price of $ 14.95. Unheard of for a book about Rhodesia. The 257 pages cover the authors time as a National serviceman with 1 indep Company and his time with 4 territorial BN. This book is a series of short vignettes about the author and stories he heard during the war. There is very little of the gritty combat writing aka Fireforce. That said the Author is a witty and compelling writer. I enjoyed the book so much I polished it in an afternoon. Buy it for both the background and the writing and to see a soldiers perspective from a line unit.

2.5 stars for direct relavance to wargaming the period
4 out of 5 stars for background and writing

odds and ends

Just found a new blog covering this periodhttp://jasonswargames.blogspot.com/ Jason has some excellent conversions and can't wait to see what else he does. Thanks for the link Jason.

I have a lot of new projects on the burner right now so a lot should be coming out in the next month or so. Just started a C-47 in 1/72 scale. what a monster it is to just make a single pass over the game board! also started some conversions of figures.


If anyone has a blog or gaming link let me know and I would be happy to link to it.

Motor transport

Just finished these 2 Landrovers. I was inspired to get them after viewing a DVD on the SAS that had 2 landrovers driving over a course and suddenly opening up on a target with front and back GMP's. Shades of David Stirling! Unfortunately I have never read an account of that happening in reality. Although landrovers were used to transport SAS on an external op into Zambia.

These 2 are painted in standard Rhodesian colors. The GMPs are Lib figures weapons. The tire on the hood is left over from the Panhard 90. Both are Liberation miniatures. I am hoping the longer wheel base landrover comes back in stock as well as the bedford trucks. I need to order some crew to go with these vehicles still. They will be useful for a convoy scenario or external raids.

August game

The game was a generic fire force action. I had thought I lost these pictures. I can't remember when the game was except the end of august. the usual suspects where involved. Myself and the long suffering Chris. Rules were Chris's play test modern rules.

G cars unload the RLI off board and the 3 stop groups advance toward the middle. The green chits represent suspected guerrilla locations. Once a site is spotted a dice role on a table lets both sides know what is there. Although it could also be caches of weapons or booby traps. The guerrilla player picks the locations of the chits and not the locations of the individual forces. this helps to keep both sides on their toes and helps to lessen the omnipotence of the guerrillas.

This group(2nd picture) ended up being in a fire fight with 1 of the stops and being force to retreat after most of the squad was wiped out. they retreated to the large clump of elephant grass which had a chit. rolling on the table the single survivor ran into a Lion definitely not his day. after a hand to hand combat the lion was the winner and this group was hors de combat.

high water mark

The K car continues to circle known enemy positions . The 20mm cannon proves to be deadly wiping out concentrations of enemy forces. This is proving to be a model game for a successful fire force attack ...but things are about to change.

bravery medal

The alouette is shot down. The Door gunner survives the crash and a rescue team advances toward the helicopter behind the hill on the left side of the picture. An alert sentry hears movement, throws a grenade taking out 2 of the fire team. goes berserk, charges and takes out the other 2! continuing his berserk status he advances and wipes out the door gunner all under a hail of fire form the other Rhodesian positions!

Provost Strikes are called in resulting in most of the remaining guerrillas being destroyed. We are still developing the air rules but 1 pass with ordnance and 1 for machine guns is what we are going with for now. At a later date I will list it by individual ordnance load to provide more flexibility for a strike.