Wargaming Musings?

I'm a bit of a butterfly in terms of my attention and sticking to gaming projects long term isn't my strongest point. On the bright side, atleast I flit between the same things. Expect an ecclectic medley of Moderns, Dark Ages, Quar and Early Wild West, almost all in 28mm... (with some 1/48 moderns thrown in... )

Friday 9 November 2012

Plans - 28mm Malayan Emergancy

So, I thought I'd start  working out some of my plans for projects which will be starting sooner rather than later... I'll start with Malaya as I currently have some figures for it, sitting waiting to be striped (13 Gurkhas, 2 'planters', 14 Communist terrorists =CTs) and it will probably be a smallish project so shouldn't require much planning (!)
Commonwealth troops trek through the jungle
Ideally, what I want to 'get' is going to be linked to the sort of scenarios I'll be playing. After a bit of thought these will probably brake down into:
*CTs ambush British (Probably involving CTS barricading a road used by British troops, possibly National Servicemen, and waiting to pick off the troops that attempt to clear it. The Brits will need transport vehicles of some sort)
*British ambush CTs (This will probably be a matter of a small force of 'elite' men - Gurkhas or SAS - lying in wait on a jungle trail)
*British attacking a CT camp (Not sure what British forces, CT camp will be a couple of Jungle houses)
*CTs attacking a Planters house (The Planter and his family will be armed, and there may also be some Malaysian Home Guard to help defend it)
*CT sympathisers trying to smuggle food out to CTs, whilst pursued/ambushed by Malaysian Police (So I'll need civilians and some police troops. Maybe some army regulars too)

Commonwealth Infantry move through a Malaysian Village
So from this it looks like I'll be aiming to get an aproximately platoon strength force of CTs, 1 section Gurkhas, 2 sections + platoon command of British Infantry along with a couple of 'native' trackers, the Malayan Police pack, a couple of Native 'home guard'*, some planters*, planters bungalow,* a couple of native huts*, Malayan civilians*, a few civilian cars/trucks*, Malayan Police Jungle Squad*, a Saracen and/or an up-gunned Dingo and possibly an armoured platers car*.

Malayan Home guard
The figures marked with astrixes (*) are not in the Britannia Malayan range...
The civilian vehicles should be easy enough  to source from the diecast market (albeit they might be a little out of scale). An 'armoured' planters car will have to be a plasticard conversion jobbie.
Dave did make some planter figures, they were never officially released, but I may be able to get my hands on them. If not, then I've got a Foundry Chindit & a Copplestone KKBB agent in short sleeved shirt and slacks which might be able to make a Father & son duo...
Uniformed Malayan home guard will be a problem, but I'm hoping that maybe a mix of WW2 Chindits, some of the Brittania Armed Malayan Police figures and some Brittania Gurkhas might do the trick. for the less uniformed units, I've picked up a pack of Pulp figures Chinese student's militia in assorted head gear which, whilst not perfect, should do the job.
Native huts in the right scale can come from Scheltrun (Their Borneo range), otherwise it'll be converting the Airfix jungle outpost set which is only available in 1/72 or 1/35...!
Malayan civilians are a bit of a problem, but I've seen some in 'coolie' hats (especially amongst the chinese minority, which were also the main CT sympathisers) so I might be able to get away with Vietnam Civillians. maybe the ones from West wind (which will be a fair bit smaller than the Britannia figures, so will get plasticard booster shoes)
Which just leaves the jungle squad. Sikhs in long trousers and turbans can be found in the Artizan WW2 range, but their a bit heavy on the webbing front, so I might end up extending the shorts on some Pulp figures ones instead. The Malaysian members present more of a problem - on extended service they wore 'boonie' hats, so possibly conversions of Britannia Gurkhas might work, but in other situations they wore pill box caps or berets. Berets could come from '2-gun' Stafford pack I guess, but otherwise it'll be tracking down colonial  period Gurkhas and lopping their heads off...!

Members of the 'Jungle Squad' run to their vehicles

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