German East Africa

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.

Heia Safari is the title of a book published post-war by Lettow-Vorbeck about his time in East Africa. It’s also the title of a song first published in 1916. The phrase was originally Arabic that got translated into Swahili. It roughly translates as either Hurry or Hurray,  a journey! It was spoken as a rallying cry/motivational phrase when the Schutztruppe broke camp.

Another version of the song appeared in WW2 and is about the Akrika Korps. Below is a video of the original lyrics sung in German but with English subtitles.

I originally thought that palm trees were mostly in North Africa but I’ve learned that various species are scattered throughout Africa so, here we are!  In game terms they’ll be treated as forests which makes them area terrain that blocks line of sight and provides light cover.

There’s quite a wide variety of terrain that can be included in an African campaign from jungles, to swamps to savanna’s, cities, towns, rivers, plucky little steam launches, Zeppelin’s….

Yes, Zeppelin’s. But more on that later.

Large termite mounds are one of the more interesting features to be found and for a short time Warlord Games sold resin termite mounds in partnership with Sarissa Precision MDF. In game terms we’ll probably treat this as area terrain that provides hard cover. May or may not be line of sight blocking. We’ll have to experiment with that.

There are any number of scenarios that require objective markers and I have a few ideas for African themed scenarios and I figured these guys would come in handy. Painting the butterflies on the collector was a lot of fun.