Belated BatRep

 Last weekend I trekked up to Kingston, PA for a meeting of the PAWM. Our Host, Mike S and his wife Kathy put on a holiday meal for us, as I previously posted. But our game that night was a "Somewhere In Africa" 15mm Modern game using the AK47 rules and GM'ed by Darrell. 

The game table as shown above. I wound up on the left of the near side of the table. Dark green spots are woods, the brown areas are boulder fields. There' a river with the requisite bridge, three villages of declining worth and increasing poverty, and an army camp for Da Gub'Mint men wayyyyy over yonder in the far corner of the table opposite me... Gee? I wonder what could possibly be hidden there? 

There were eight players split between Da Gub'Mint Forces and The Rebel Militia. On the Militia side it was myself, Jim K (elected leader since he arrived last, a very democratic way of choosing a general), James, and Mike. Da Gub'Mint Men were Jim B, Mark, Roger and John the OFM. 

 

Dem Dastardly Gub'Mint Men (Roger hiding off camera)

Der Plan, for the Militia, if we chose to adhere to one, was to capture the three villages. And hold them. There was that one little caveat...capture AND hold.... And we didn't know the strength or composition of the opposition. Of course, neither did THEY. But we do know that everyone had at least two units. And that Militia in AK47 are a "minus one" on pretty much everything. 

A map filched from the Rebel Archives and the unit cards showing my two units. One of truck mounted militia with RPGs. The other a fun loving, rollicking land pirate group of machine guns mounted on Toyota Hi-Lux trucks. Kind of like a modern-day version cavalry. No cowboy hats, though. 

Things started off well. And then they stopped going well, about the time we started having to follow the rules and roll dice for stuff and things. 

Start yer engines, boys! 

Jim K's Fearless Militia with two Mortars and Cranky Clanky Tanky support from James

Mike advancing on the right flank against Roger. John the OFM stubbornly defends the village. 

Somehow, we were unable to convince the Gub'Mint Men to just go home and call it a day. They actually wanted to fight. Lo and behold! We found out their victory condition was to destroy all our vehicles. How ungenerous of them! Don't they know how far it is to walk back through the Arfica wilderness to our villages? Why, we could get eaten by a hippopotamus! 

Either way, every time we hit them, they made their saving throws, thus negating our militia bog standard dice rolls. And believe me, we did bog standard die rolls for militia. The Rebel Alliance was not pleased. 

 Roger coming form off camera to off more Rebel militia with his hot dice rolling. 

In the end, even though we occupied the three villages, well, two and then the less desirable bits of a third, they managed to kill off almost all our vehicles. Why, do you ask? 

Oh well, let me show you the surprise I found as I motored down the road to see what was lurking in the Gub'Mint Army Camp after securing my objective. 

Gub'Mint Camp with stuff and things 

And then....

Surprise! Mark sallies forth out of the woods to try to take the village I secured.

But wait there's more! 

Annnnnnnnd, there you go. A battery of gun hidden in the woods. And if you guessed that it was ME that found them the hard way, you would be correct. 

Three dead bongo trucks and one pinned, which is really kind of the same thing as being dead when you are playing Rebel Militia. 

And there is stood. I was on my objective, but the fast moving, zippy zip zip unit of bongo trucks was obliterated. That was my contribution to the Gub'Mint victory. 

All in all, a great game. Always good to see my fellow PAWM crew. Definitely worth the drive. AK47 is a fun set of rules for our group and Darrell always runs a great game.