Mabutuland

Hello,

After getting over another cold (from yet another small person) I have slowly been painting 15mm pirates and basing two 15mm French Lt Cavalry units. For some time now I have looked into various solo colonial campaigns and for the tIme being I am going to run a 15mm solo campaign based on the Ubongo campaign that was devised by the Brilliant Chris Ferree at (http://www.reocities.com/cdferree/ubonga/ubonga.htm) whilst tying in my Imaginations nation, Jaxonia (Based on Rio from our illfated Imaginations campaign last year)


Mabutu tells the tale of a detachment of Infantry ordered to create a garrison on the banks of a river in Western Africa. This is in order to protect river trade and the local labour force from nasty tribesmen with sharp pointy sticks and their slave trader clients who are hell bent on getting their "product back". I have set it in 1742 as i) I have a few figures I can use for the Slavers and the Jaxonians and ii) I felt like a 18th Century Flavour. I do however need to get some figures to act as the tribesmen, and possibly a few huts.

I play tested the campaign twice in two days, simply to see the mechanics of it all and quite enjoyed it. There is a fair amount of paperwork and dice rolling but the randomness and feel of it all is good. If the weather, heat, snakes, animals dont kill the men the locals will.
The first test was over in one week as I managed to generate every negative event possible. A hunting party ran into an angry village and ended up on the wrong end of a sharpened piece of mango,  a horde of Slavers and Tribemen descended on the unprotected garrison, half of whom were sick and caught them unaware. The second test attempt tested various exploring, buildings and patrolling rules. I built some stockades, a Barrack and a watchtower, sent some patrols out to counter random events (Slavers, missionaries, etc etc) and just got to grips with the system. So the third attempt was the actual campaign that I will use the blog for, and actually fight the battles with figures on the Kitchen table.

http://mabutuland.blogspot.com/