German East Africa

Too many games, too many unpainted minis but eventually found my way back to some Blood & Valor. Today we played the river crossing scenario from the End of Empires supplement. 200 points French vs a Schutztruppe.  The Germans have to cross the river via the bridge or a ford and have two unengaged, unshaken units in the defenders half at the end of turn eight.

Despite excellent artillery support, first rate shooting and the undaunted courage of the Askari, the Germans couldn’t quite shift the French

Firelock Games hosted an eight player game at GenCon this year.  The aliens were represented by two French armies, one American army and one Russian army. The Central powers had three German armies and one Ottoman army. Armies averaged their initiative pool and then bid collectively for their side. The win condition was to control two of the three objectives at the end of any turn.

My Schutztruppe faced off against the Russians but everyone took fire from everyone else. It was a very much a back and forth affair all day but the Central powers won the day by claiming two objectives. My Russian counterpart pretty much got shot off the objective multiple times.

Here’s some in game photos.

The true, and bizarre, story on the origins of The African Queen.

https://youtu.be/i5cp-QFzfxU

At the end of 1915 up to July of 1916 there were several naval battles between the  British and German navies on the waters of Lake Tanganyika. One rather eccentric British naval officer took two small gun boats from South Africa and carried them overland and through the jungle to reassemble them on Lake Tanganykia. The series of battles served as the basis of a book written by CS Forester

Forester wrote a number of novels  about naval battles that later became movies. Several featured his most well known character, Horatio Hornblower. One of his lesser well known books, The Good Sheppard, became the movie Greyhound starring Tom Hanks.

But the subject of today’s entry was his novel, The African Queen.

In 1951, director John Houston decided to turn the book into a movie and film it on location. While scouting locations he came across the Steam Launch (S/L) Livingstone. He renamed it The African Queen and it was one of two boats used in the film. S/L Livingstone was built in 1912 and served with the British East Africa Railway.   It was still active until the late 1960s. It eventually found its way to the US and remains afloat as a tourist attraction in Florida. You can read more about her here:

http://africanqueenflkeys.com/history.html

I plan on using the boat as an objective or terrain piece. Made of metal and resin, it’s rough and is going to need a lot of cleanup.

With two of the three scientists in German hands, the quinine formula is obtained, German victory. Heia Safari!

The three objectives are the scientist figures.  One each in the building, the termite mound and the jungle. The building follows the standard rules for buildings. The termite mound counts as hard cover and the jungle as soft cover.

Nathan B Ortega and I played a 200 point game of Blood & Valor Firelock Games US vs German East African. The scenario was The Cure, basically a re-skinned version of the Demolition mission. Instead of destroying an objective, you were interrogating scientists for the formula to make quinine, the anti-malaria drug.

I took 3 large Askari squads, a single Schutztruppe squad with an LMG, a small Naval Landing party also with an LMG and one MG team and a sniper. My commander was a Hauptmann (Captain equivalent).

The Americans took 2 MG teams, one small regular squad with grenades and three large squads with LMGs and a Major for the command squad.

And here’s a few shots of everything together.

I picked up an MDF kit from Sarissa Precision from their Far East range. Looks like it should be suitable as a generic jungle dwelling. I’m honestly not sure exactly how to go about this but we’ll see what happens.

The paint schemes are relatively straight forward. For the Schutztruppe and Askari I primed them with Army Painter Skeleton Bone. The cloth folds were carefully washed with GW Seraphim Sepia. Leather gear was Army Painter Leather Brown washed in GW Seraphim Sepia. Rifle stocks and canteens were Vallejo Mahogany Brown also washed in Seraphim Sepia. Rifle barrels and canteen caps were painted black. Bread bags were Vallejo Canvas again washed in GW Seraphim Sepia.

Schutztruppe hats and leggings were Army Painter Uniform Gray and washed in Seraphim Sepia. The hats were edged in white and the cockcades were white and red. The outer ring should be black but that detail is so small I just washed them with Seraphim Sepia.

The Askari leggings were also Uniform Gray but washed in Army Painter Blue Tone. The blue trim of the Schutztruppe was Vallejo Prussian Blue.

Buttons and buckles were Army Painter Plate Mail washed in GW Nuln Oil. Caucasian flesh was Vallejo Dark Flesh washed in GW Reikland Flesh Shade. The Askari flesh was either GW  Mournfang Brown and washed in Seraphim Sepia or Mournfang Brown then layered with Skragg Brown washed with Seraphim Sepia.

The sailors were primed white and then painted white again. Shading was difficult but ultimately I wound up using GW Apothecary White in the folds and then highlighting back to white. Collars and rank insignia were Vallejo Medium Blue. Leggings were Vallejo Canvas. All other equipment was painted the same.

Naval officers uniforms were similar to the Schutztruppe minus the blue trim and keeping the helmets white.

I wanted most of my terrain to be jungle. Relatively quick and simple, here’s how I did it.

Designated LZ-104 by Zeppelin and L-59 by the German navy, this airship had one of weirdest missions of WW1.

Dubbed Das Afrikaschiff, it’s mission, dubbed the China Show, was to fly 4500 miles, one way, and deliver food, ammunition, machine guns and medical supplies. It apparently also carried a supply of Iron Crosses. The crew was then supposed to join Lettow-Vorbeck’s forces. The airship itself was to be cannibalized. The cloth exterior wasn’t doped (essentially varnished) so it could be reused as tents. The gas bags were to be cut up and used as bandages and the airframe repurposed as a radio tower.

The story of L-59 is an epic story unto itself. But essentially, the airship left Bulgaria, traveled over Crete then down through British held Sudan and got over half way to East Africa without being detected by the British Royal Flying Corps even though they knew her mission and destination.

After getting more than halfway to East Africa, the airship was recalled. The crew was in favor of continuing the mission but the captain was insistent. It reportedly took two hours to convince the crew to turn around. By the time they returned to Bulgaria, they’re been in continuous flight for over 95 hours. This was a world record that wasn’t broken by any aircraft until 1957 when a US Navy blimp upped the record to 264 hours. Fixed wing aircraft wouldn’t break L-59’s record until 2015.

The message to recall the airship is shrouded in mystery. The recall message was originally claimed to have been issued by the British as a deception operation but this version has largely been debunked. Another version is that Lettow-Vorbeck issued the recall because he wasn’t able to hold the landing site and had to retreat to more mountainous terrain where the airship couldn’t land. However even this story has issues as his army was two days away from the last radio station still in operation and it was damaged and unable to transmit messages, but could still receive them. This story requires more research.

While a 28mm scale airship would be epic, it would also be in excess of 10 feet long. I have however found a 3D printed version in a more reasonable size of about 1 foot long.

I’m working on scenarios but don’t have firm plans yet. Maybe something like securing the LZ or unloading the airship in a certain amount of time.

So I kept this plog  private for awhile while I tried to get everything ready for the first game with this army. With one game in, need to work out what’s next.

I’ll definitely be adding more terrain. I have a nifty river steam launch that looks like it came right out of a movie. I have some buildings to work on and I have some ideas for scenarios.

Scenario ideas include the one with the bees and another with a lion, both historically based. And then a what if involving a Zeppelin. And yes, an actual Zeppelin was made and flew south and almost made the trip.

But what would’ve happened if it had arrived?

I did not take as many photos as I should have but the opening moves of both sides were units trying to stay out of line of sight and trying to move into cover. The jungle areas provide light cover to units in the terrain but blocks line of sight for units on the opposite side. The termite mounds are the same except they provide hard cover. The trenches on the right flank provided hard cover to units in them but did not block line of sight. They are effectively below ground level.

After five turns we called it as the Germans didn’t have enough units to realistically grab another objective.

Highlights included the French rifle grenade and sniper never scoring a hit and the surprising resolve of the Askari squads.

The German sniper did slightly better in that he actually scored a few hits but nothing spectacular.

While this was a German loss I’m generally pleased with how this build worked. Might drop the sniper and replace the naval squad and use those points for another squad. Not sure if it should be a Schutztruppe squad, another Askari squad or maybe a specialist Assault Squad.

We recently played a 200 point game using a modified scenario with three objectives.  The objectives were worth more points the farther away they were from your deployment zone

For the German East African force I took:

1 Captain
1 Sniper
1 HMG
3 x Askari squads with 8 rifle
1 x Schutztruppe squad 5 rifle + LMG
1 x Naval squad 4 rifle + LMG

The French were:

1 Major,

1 x Riflemen x7 (lmg, rifle grenade),

1 x Riflemen x8 (lmg),

2 x Inexperienced Riflemen x6,

1 x Sniper,

1 x HMG

1 x Trench Raiders x6

The photos above show the relevant objectives. From left to right, the closest  objective to the German line, the central objective and the far right objective closest to the French line.

I don’t make enough terrain for my games so I’ve set that as a new goal. Jungle terrain works for a variety of games so this project was good motivation to get stuck in.

I used cheap aquarium plastic plants and decorative plastic plants from local craft stores. I then put them on Sarissa Precision MDF terrain pieces.

The resin rock piece shown below came from Warlord Games.