Andreivian Turk Air Support

This Henschel Hs-126 of WW2 vintage was until recently an exhibit at the Air Museum of the Andreivian Air Pioneers Organisation outside Tuzkhur.

It has now been made airworthy by disaffected Andreivian Turk personnel of the Andreivian Air Force.

The effectiveness of firing an RPG-7 from a low-flying aircraft is yet to be determined....

Buildings for Tcherbevan

I thought it might be useful to show the buildings I have that are currently ear-marked for use in Tcherbevan.  I’ve included an Esci US infantryman and an M1 Abrams for scale.  

Let’s start with the airport.  The Important Building was used in the last game as the terminal building of Tcherbevan International Airport.  I suggest that it serve the same role again.

Likewise the control tower and the military radar station.  I intend to have them in the same relative locations as in the previous game, Spetsnaz at Tcherbevan.

Next up we have a couple of Russian isba-style houses by Will McNally.  I suggest these could serve as an Armenian village in the northern hills.

Also in an Armenian area but this time in the city is the “English Church”.  I intend to make a base for it to stand on with graves and perhaps a surrounding wall.

The following Mediterranean-style buildings could feature in the Armenian Quarter.

This light industrial unit could be used anywhere (when finished - it needs some weathering to tone down the luminous brick work).

More of the city centre next in the form of these resin models from Museum Miniatures.  When finished (a couple of them are only half painted) they will probably form the no-man’s-land between the Armenian and Turkish Quarters.

Likewise there’s this block of heavily damaged buildings.

The next building was originally intended as a police station in 1940s Lebanon! It’s since seen considerable action and I see no reason why there shouldn’t be a place for it in Tcherbevan.

Finally, there’s this rather lovely Bachmann water tower.  They normally retail at an eye-watering £17.00 but I got this one for less than half that in a sale at the Ian Allen shop in Manchester.  It’s worth keeping an eye out for bargains.

Updated Optional Rules

Ian S has pointed out that I missed out some of the optional rules from Arc of Fire when I originally posted the table.  Here it is fixed.

Page	Rule	Use?	Notes
4	Excellent leaders	y	But restricted to units approved by umpires and listed in unit stats
5	Heroes and unit integrity	n	Not inclined to use Heroes
7	Initiative Cards	y	Need to think about how this will work with multiple units activating on the same card
12	Direction of fire	y	No reason not to
12	Special camouflage	y	But restricted to units approved by umpires and listed in unit stats
14	Moving dismount	y	If anyone’s daft enough to use it
14	Jumping horses	y	If anyone’s daft enough to use it
17	Suspected fire	y	But reserve the right to remove if the game is slowing down too much
18	Gunnery skill	y	But restricted to units approved by umpires and listed in unit stats
18	Tightly packed infantry targets	y	Easy enough to implement
20	Extremes	y	Easy enough to implement
24	Multiple vehicles in close attacks	y	Easy enough to implement
24	Special close combat weapons	y	But restricted to units approved by umpires and listed in unit stats
24	Grenades and close combat	y	Need to agree grenade loads, “special grenades” available only with umpires’ agreement.
25	Snipers vs fortifications	n	Too powerful
25	Jamming	n	Slows down the game too much
25	Horrific KIA	n	Slows down the game too much
25	High ROF belt-fed LMGs	n	Inclined to leave it out and say no-one has enough ammo
25	Detailed infantry wound and KIA	n	Slows down the game too much
26	Canister Ammo	n	Simpler to leave it out
31	Light and medium mortar rate of fire	n	Inclined to leave it out and say no-one has enough ammo
32	Blind fire	y	Easy enough to implement
32	HE overhead fire	n	Simpler to leave it out
34	Ripple effect	n	Want to avoid the risk of players losing their force due to an unlucky series of die rolls
34	Destroyed unit retreat	n	Simpler to leave it out
35	Reorganisation of leaderless units	y	Allows people to keep playing a force that’s been unfortunate with Leader casualties
35	Hero and Panic	n	Simpler to leave it out
35	Heroes as Leaders	n	Not using Heroes
36	Entry and exit from buildings	y	Would have needed a house rule for this anyway
36	Fire from buildings	y	Ian S has suggested 4 men can fire per window, 2 per door.  Or we could just count the openings and divide by three?
36	Camouflaged field defences	n	Simpler to leave it out
47	Random Events	y	Best rule in the book!

Andreivian Forces Made Easy

Setting up Andreivian forces for AoF can be dead easy.

Suppose your 20mm collection totals a dozen WW2 Soviet infantry, a T34/85 and a Landrover.  Sounds to me like you have the makings of a nice little Andreivian militia force.

An Andreivian force yesterday

There's precedent from the Tuzkhur Valley game for the Andreivian paramilitary force, the Gendarmerie, being in WW2 Soviet uniforms.  We also know that some Gendarmerie units ended up defecting on masse to particular factions.  The T-34 is an obvious AFV for a second-line force like the Gendarmerie and the Landrover can be justified by the Andreivians' history of flexibility in military procurement.

Do we have a couple of figures that look like leaders?  A guy with a pistol or SMG would be good, especially if he's waving or pointing.  Assuming we do then we're pretty much there.  We end up with some thing like this:

Gendarmerie squad (Tac 7)

Squad Leader SMG 6(L)

Gunner Clip-fed LMG 7

Loader Bolt-action rifle 7

6x Gendarmes Bolt-action rifles 7

Speed-painted Soviets masquerading as Andreivian Gendarmerie

Recce team (Tac 6)

Team leader SMG 6(L)

3x Scouts Bolt-action rifles 7

    Landrover

The Recce Team - Landrover straight from the toy box

T-34/85 (Tac 7)

 with four crew (Morale 6)

A barely-painted T-34/85

Seven seems a reasonable Tac score for these guys as they aren't front line soldiers.  The recon guys are slightly better (recon types always think of themselves as elite).  Again 6 or 7 seems about right for morale too.  I've given the leaders better morale because I see these troops as reliant on a few experienced men to keep them performing at their best.

All of these need to be tidied up a bit but I think they illustrate how easy it can be to put a useable force together.  If I were to spend some more and time and effort on these guys I might see if I could find an HMG or perhaps an RCL to give the recce team some more firepower. 

Optional rules for Tcherbevan

I've put together the following list of the optional rules in Arc of Fire that I'd suggest using (or not using) for the game at Crisis Point 2014.  Comments welcome.

Page	Rule	Use?	Notes
4	Excellent leaders	y	But restricted to units approved by umpires and listed in unit stats
5	Heroes and unit integrity	n	Not inclined to use Heroes
12	Direction of fire	y	No reason not to
12	Special camouflage	y	But restricted to units approved by umpires and listed in unit stats
14	Moving dismount	y	If anyone’s daft enough to use it
14	Jumping horses	y	If anyone’s daft enough to use it
18	Gunnery skill	y	But restricted to units approved by umpires and listed in unit stats
18	Tightly packed infantry targets	y	Easy enough to implement
20	Extremes	y	Easy enough to implement
24	Multiple vehicles in close attacks	y	Easy enough to implement
24	Special close combat weapons	y	But restricted to units approved by umpires and listed in unit stats
25	Snipers vs fortifications	n	Too powerful
25	Jamming	n	Slows down the game too much
25	Horrific KIA	n	Slows down the game too much
25	High ROF belt-fed LMGs	n	Inclined to leave it out and say no-one has enough ammo
25	Detailed infantry wound and KIA	n	Slows down the game too much
26	Canister Ammo	n	Simpler to leave it out
31	Light and medium mortar rate of fire	n	Inclined to leave it out and say no-one has enough ammo
32	Blind fire	y	Easy enough to implement
32	HE overhead fire	n	Simpler to leave it out
34	Ripple effect	n	Want to avoid the risk of players losing their force due to an unlucky series of die rolls
34	Destroyed unit retreat	n	Simpler to leave it out
35	Reorganisation of leaderless units	y	Allows people to keep playing a force that’s been unfortunate with Leader casualties
35	Hero and Panic	n	Simpler to leave it out
35	Heroes as Leaders	n	Not using Heroes
36	Entry and exit from buildings	y	Would have needed a house rule for this anyway
36	Fire from buildings	y	Would have needed a house rule for this anyway
36	Camouflaged field defences	n	Simpler to leave it out
47	Random Events	y	Best rule in the book!