C'est le Congo Pt II and what is going on with me

Well, first I am sorry that I have not been updating my blog or doing much towards gaming, including gaming.  But work has my sole and my time.

Anyway, I got a chance to take some pictures of the miniatures that I had painted up from my last batch finally, as well as some EBay or other purchases that I have made recently towards gaming.  But there is quite a bit to do in one blog, so what I am going to do is break them down into several blog entries over similar topics.   

Also we had another play test of IABSM3 that I will be covering along with some pictures.  But it might be a few days between each entry as my work schedule is still staying in high demand. I will try to type them up on Word and later cut & paste them over on to my blog (which means I might even get two entries up the same night, but don't count on it.)

Unfortunately, I forgot to take my camera to the play test game and had I done so, I would have realized that my camera’s batteries were dead before I started taking pictures late that night.  So I had to use my crappy cell phone’s camera and that is why the pictures are not very good.  Remember to click on the picture for a bigger version.

First up – 15mm "C’est le Congo"

I already have quite a few miniatures for post-WWII African conflicts, which can be seen on this blog under the "tag" of "B'Maso" for the name of the rules set that I will be using for the Congo games.  I did sold off a large number of my stuff 2 or 3 years back, but I still keep a pretty large force both painted and unpainted miniatures.  This project will actually be started in 2013, but I am going ahead and picking up some of the figures & vehicles I need this year.  To meet that goal, I bought some 10 figure, 20mm circular mob bases from Litko.  I will be using these bases to move the various tribal / irregular mobs with as you can see with this picture below.

Peter Pig Militia miniatures on a Litko base

As you can see, I am remounting my figures on to pennies as well so they can be used with the mob bases.

Before I go any further, while I really, really want to do the 1960’s Congo Crisis, (I have been amazed by that conflict since a child after watching Dark of the Sun (link) on TV) but the proper vehicles for the period for the UN (which was heavily involved in the fighting) and civilians are just not available.  I am going to start contacting various companies to see if I can convince them to make some models just for me or as release if I get enough support (like S&S Models 15+ Club).  So, I am going to do a faux African country in an unspecific year for my games, but heavily mirrors the history of the 1960’s Congo Civil War (so it is possible for Hind gunship to pop up in the games.)  But I still really want to do the ‘60’s.

So with that noted, I made the following purchases off of EBay and Hobby Link Japan for the following jets for the Congo game.  For the Katanga “Rebel” State, I was able to buy an old Out-Of-Print Heller Starfix model kit of a 1/100^th Fouga Magister II. 

1/100th Fouga Magister II from Heller

Towards the beginning of the 1960 Congo Crisis, the Katangan Air Force had three Magister jets converted to be ground attack aircraft.  Due to various reasons, they only had one functioning jet by the time the conflict begun broke out between the Katangan forces and the UN.  The lone Magister was flown by the mercenary pilot, Joseph Deulin.  He flew unchallenged for quite some time as the UN failed to bring any fighter jets with them to their Congo mission to control the air.  It was not until the UN’s Ethiopian F-86’s and the Swedish J29’s showed up, that Deulin was finally check in his daring raids.  And speaking of the Swedish J29’s, I was also able to buy from Hobbylink Japan a 1/144^th J-29B with UN decals from Fairy Kikaku.

1/144th Swedish J29 Fighter with UN Markings

I am not concern that the two kits are not in the same scale as for 1) Neither where involved in dogfights and 2) unless I go to 1/72^nd scale, there are no other kits of both planes in the same scale.

10mm Vietnam

My plan is to run at least one Vietnam game for the Fall session of Recruits this year in Lee Summit, MO.  I will be working on re-basing some stuff, making new blinds for hidden movement, and painting up more NVA.  The reason for me to mention about this in this specific blog entry is because I also bought from Hobby Link Japan a 1/144^th Japanese Ground Self Defense Forces in the 1950’s kit set.  In that set is a M42 Duster and a jeep with a 106mm recoilless rifle, both will work for my 10mm Vietnam, especially for convoy actions.  I forgot to take a picture of the kit…sorry!


If everything goes good, the next blog entry will be about my upcoming 20mm Post Apocalypse and 1970's / '80's "Dark Days in America" projects.  These projects will be small in size for number of figures and will have some figures double with my "Anarchy in the UK" project. 

That is it for now.

Cheers