"Thoughts on playability of German East Africa?" Topic

Your thoughts, not mine. For those who've looked into this period, how to you rate it for playability? I mean does it have the versatility to be able to sustain interest or is it more of a short term type of project? Thanks for your constructive input.

German East Africa can present many challenges. It depends on how many armies you want to build and what type of games you want to play. For 28mm skirmish games, I use The Sword and The Flame. I have Colonial Germans, Belgian Force Publique, Congo Arabs, Congolese natives, and British infantry. I wouldn't mind having some Masai warriors, either. I can do all sorts of Darkest AFrica games with The Seord in Africa. I just haven't run some Darkest Africa or Great War in Africa games in a while.

Do you want it to be historical or 'what if?' … or even imaginary?

I took part in a campaign based around a conflict in East Africa that lasted a year and which is still talked about over 30 years later by those who took part.

The terrain is variable, there are lots of different military units and nationalities involved, and the fighting includes skirmishes through to set-piece battles.

What is there not to like?

The name of the campaign I took part in was the Madasahatta Campaign, details of which can be found here = link

I would like to to it in 15s, but there isn't much available yet in that scale. Hopefully soon. It would mostly be small skirmish level actions – a company to a battalion at most.

It is a niche interest for me, I tend to use a lot of the stuff for Mesopotamia and Palestine too. For east africa I usually do brigade ish sized actions.

It could present interesting skirmish level fun, maybe even a few gunboats

It could play as pure historical, what if, or a very good pulp setting as well.

Phil

Martin what rules do you use for Mespot? (well actually, for all of them)

My gaming mate, Lord Sterling, does WW1 German East Africa in 20mm. Right now he is working on a TSATF variant that he hopes to debut at Colonial Barracks in November.

An old battle report -- link

Jim

Good background reading is 'Tip and Run'.

I see it more as a side dish, rather than the main course. I've thought about gaming with colonial Germans in Africa, but never actually got going.
Should be very playable. As to interest, ColCampbell's link should wet the appetite.

Bob, I will have to peruse the link – lucky you to have been involved in that.

I see many of you see the same potential I do for the period in that there is the actual history and the "adjunct history" or the what-ifs and, especially, the pulpish overlay possibilities.

I just finished re-reading Battle for the Bundu and got concerned at the sameness of almost all the battles presented, Tanga being the notable exception. Of course, that may be more the fault of the writer – this was my third read of the book and it would be hard to read it a fourth time now.

And Sundance, keep up the hope – I smell 15 mm somewhere in the offing. Or maybe I've just spent too much time in the sun without a hat!

Our group has done a half dozen East Africa games, and put on a couple at local cons. Like Blake, we have 28mm armies of all the major powers. We did Tanga, based on a book of skirmish games
link

and other games in the book, plus some what-if games with Belgian Congo involved. There is a variety of terrain and troops. Lots of figures in 28mm available for the game. To test it out, at first we just used British and Indian and German figures we had from other episodes (NWF, SWA) and liked it so invested in the actual participants. We used Contemptible Little Armies, 2nd edition.

While running GFI, I did a set of rules called for "The Great War in Africa" and had a blast! It was done to promote Chris von Fahnenstock's range of Outland Games 20mm figures. For inspiration, I read Byron farwell's "Great War in Africa" book. Contained therein were so many ancedotes that kept me in stitches that i had to write rules for such! I finally found a model T to use in a scenario where a British destroyer sent a raiding party 200 miles up the east coast to recover the radiator to fix a floatplane! The naval officer that wore dresses and won a VC for capturing the first German naval battle standard….the battle of the bees….the relief Zepplin mission….on and on!

Yes, very playable IMHO!

Tom Dye

And, coincidentally…

TMP link

Sundance, I would agree this campaign could really do with a comprehensive 15mm range.