Return to Darkest Africa: Mbongo, Mbongo they drink it in the Congo..

Friday, 22 June 2007

Mbongo, Mbongo they drink it in the Congo..

I have decided to set up yet another wargaming blog as I am getting back into Darkest Africa wargaming again. Partly based on my current project on the Sudan, but also due to a documentary on The Nile I saw on TV last weekend. I have always been interested in the exploits of explorers such as Burton, Speke, Livingstone, Stanly and Baker so the appearance of 28mm figures of these and many other characters (who would have thought you would ever be able to buy a 28mm Sidi Bombay?) by Mark Copplestone for Foundry pushed me into buying my first ever 28mm figures five or six years ago.

I have a fair number of painted figures already and, needless to say, a big collection of unpainted ones (including a Foundry Belgian deal I really need to address.

My most extant army is an Azande one with Congolese allies and I will put some pictures of these up over the weekend.

I have played several games at Guildford using Chris Peers Darkest Africa rules and am also tempted to try a game or two using The Sword and the Flame to see how the rules differ..

Oh, and Mbongo, Mbongo is the Zande name for the Elephant fish. And you thought it was a drink..

1 comment:

Anonymous said...: When you have a Sword and the Flame Game you should write about it! TSATF is sort of the main rules used here in the states. They are fairly simple and have interesting mechanics for moving.

David S
Minnesota, USA; 12 July 2007 at 22:43

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Wargaming Darkest Africa

I had never collected metal wargames figures having always been a 20mm plastics man. I had maybe five metal Hinchliffe Napoleonics when I was about twelve but couldn't see the point of saving my precious pocket money when you could get so many Airfix plastics for the same amount.

So I didn't start buying metal figures until about fifteen years ago and the very first metal 28s I bought were some of Mark Copplestone's Foundry Darkest Africa figures. I had pictures of them in the magazines but it was only when I actually saw some figures at Salute that I decided to take the plunge and buy some explorers. For a long time all I bought was Darkest Africa so now I am in the unusual (for me) position of having more figures painted than unpainted. Unfortunately, most of them are painted to a very poor standard. Latterly, I have repainted a few characters and they are much improved but I can't really bear repainting all my tribesmen! Having said that my more recent Zambezi campaign has seen me repainting quite a few figures.

I have read, and continue to read, extensively on nineteenth century African explorers and several scenarios have sprung to mind based on my recent reading of Tim Jeal's book about Stanley.

I use Chris Peers Darkest Africa rules but find them (like all of his rules) relentlessly bloody and am really more interested in gaming a campaign which follows an expedition over a number of encounters and scenarios. For this I have been thinking of modifying Games Workshop's Lord of the Rings rules. Their Battle Companies add-on handles campaign type scenarios well and you can weight the abilities of your heroes to make them more or less indestructible. I don't want a set of rules where my heroes are killed in the first game!

Apart from the classic eras of exploration and colonisation I am also interested in World War 1 in East Africa and will continue to gradually collect the excellent Brigade Games figures for that conflict.

This site will look at the period from 1855 until 1918 and I will try to list useful books and other sources as well.