Progressive Republic

I started this blog back in 2011 whilst sitting in our rented apartment in Jamestown, on the South Atlantic island of St Helena, looking out the window at the house opposite that the future Duke of Wellington once stayed in.  As I was far away from all of my wargaming stuff I wrote down some lists of things I was going to do when I got back to Scotland a few months later, this being one of them.

Work in progress

As that post says, I had recently (i.e. in 2010) bought some Peter Pig AK47 Republic armies on eBay but had never done anything with them.  Fast forward to 2026, when that is still the case, but at least there has been progress.

For one thing I've actually been sorting out the figures I have and have been organising, refurbishing and rebasing them.  It turned out I had everything required for opposing Dictatorship (that's him on the roof there) and Colonial Powers/Settler armies, the former provided with armour in the shape of T-55s and the latter Centurions.

Peter Pig 15mm religious leader, extra militia and AA guns

There were also a large number of shirtless militia (I don't think PP makes those any more?) that I realised could be a Religious Movement army, although they lacked a suitably inspiring leader and any hardware.  This was rectified this week when my order from Peter Pig promptly arrived.

Peter Pig 15mm technicals and a Ural truck

As well as the new leader, the militia and some AA guns, I ordered some Toyota technicals, something that I had always wanted to have.  I mean if you're going to play AK47 you have to have technicals.  I also got the Ural truck, not because I needed one, but because I like them.

The Wishful Wargamer admiring a Ural fire tender

[The photo is from western Uzbekistan (Karakalpakstan, technically) near the (former) Aral Sea where I had a long-running project].

Anyway, once the armies are done I will post about them as well as any games I manage.  As noted, the rules I have are the original AK47 Republic (a genuine plastic comb-bound hard copy with all the supplements that I bought new from PP back in 2010), which are still highly regarded. 

Building attributed to Dave O'Brien, from the AK47 Ztum Setum blog

I will also be adding to the collection of AK47-adjacent buildings I have been making for the last 10 years or so (see other AK47 posts here).  These will probably be more urban examples such as those shown on the AK47 Ztum Setum website (see direct copy in progress) as well as some of the excellent buildings being fought through in Irish-Serb's Mugabia-Uwanda war series of posts, that aren't strictly AK47 but do have the same setting.

The Russians are Coming No.5

Just a quick update with another addition to my collection of 15mm Napoleonic Russians.  In this case I painted another general, to add to the four I already have.

This is a 15mm Warrior figure, in fact a Prussian general, but I thought it was quite a nice model so he was transferred to the eastern front.

As you can see he is riding past a French casualty.  This figure is actually from Peter Pig's AK47 range, sent back 150 years and painted up to pass as a fallen French officer.

Building for the Future

Happy New Year everyone.  And now I've got the pleasantries over with I can confirm exclusively that I'll be looking forward/backward with "2020 Vision" this year.  Right, where did I put my glasses...

On patrol with a BTR70 (QRF)

Anyway, continuing on from a previous blog post from (wait, what?) last January, here are a couple of new 15mm-ish buildings for Africa/AK47 which I made in the same sort of style.  As I mentioned in the earlier post, I've been to various places in Africa with work and in rural west Africa houses are usually made of wood. 

The planks used are very wide generally because the trees are big and there are (or were) plenty of them.  Consequently, wooden coffee stirrers that can be pilfered widely here are just the right scale to make these sorts of buildings.

In this case I wanted to make a more modern building, still with a thatching grass roof, but with corrugated iron accessories.  This was based on a building I saw in Gabon, which now I look at it again had an all corrugated iron roof and the side-planks were vertical not horizontal.  No matter: 'tis but artistic licence.

Therefore, construction as noted was mainly from coffee stirrers braced with matches and cardboard.  The removable roof was made from bristles cut from an old brush stuck on to more cardboard and the veranda was roofed with bits of corrugated cardboard.

After undercoating inside and out in black, I basically dry-brushed the whole thing in various colours to get the effect I wanted.  Dark washes were used around the bottom of walls and in the shadows.  I have numerous tester pots of house paint lying about and to be honest they do just as well for this sort of work as anything.

The other building I did was meant to represent a collection of shanty houses.  This was made from thin polystyrene sheet (pizza packaging) and then covered in corrugated cardboard.

Again, dry-brushing in various colours was the order of the day, with an emphasis on giving things a rusty wash (I use Revell 37 Reddish Brown for that).

And as usual for the bases I textured these from my tub of coarse shelly sand and added various tufts of long grass in the corners.

Our glorious leader arrives in town, taking no chances

Anyway, that's it for now.  I'll have various other cardboard 'n' coffee stirrer construction projects to write about this year and, amazingly, a wargame AAR I've still to recount, so stay tuned.