Lead Legionaries: Congo, Bloody Congo - Wars of Insurgency AAR from Cincycon 2023

The Katangan Merc's armored personnel carriers roll along the road carrying vitally needed ammo

For Cincycon 2023, I wanted to play around some more with the number of "sides" in a six-player game. For many of my Wars of Insurgency games, I have done an "every man for himself" scenario with each player controlling their own faction with wildly different objectives. At Advance the Colors 2022 I ran a three side, 6-player South American game with Leftists, Narcos, and Paramilitaries. For the Cincycon scenario, I reduced this to two sides, but each of the three members would have different victory conditions and objectives. They wouldn't be shooting at their so-called allies, but they may different goals in mind. One of the advantages of this type of scenario is it will move much faster than every man for himself. All of Side A will be activating one of their units followed by all three players of the other side.

For this 6-player game, I had two sides, but each faction had their own separate victory conditions

The "Congo, Bloody Congo" scenario was taken from the 1961 U.N. Operation Morthor, when ANC Congolese and U.N. troops attacked Katangan gendarmes, militia, and mercenaries to end the Katangan Secession crisis. This is all the operation that saw the more well known Siege of Jadotville. The mercenaries would appear in this one as one of three players on the Katangan side. They controlled three armored personnel carriers loaded with vitally-needed ammunition for their Katangan employers and allies. They would seek to move diagonally from one corner of the 6'x4' board to the opposite corner. The Katangan gendarmes awaited them at the destination corner. The road the APCs would take passed in front of a Katangan village, filled with militia who were much more concerned about protecting their homes and families than the fate of any white mercenaries!

A player no-show put me in command of the local ANC, hurrying to get a shot at the APCs

Meanwhile, the ANC/UN side also had three players. The Belgian-trained paratroopers came in on the corner directly across the table from the mercs. Their goal was to simply to crush the rebellion, getting most of their VPs for killing enemy. The local garrison of the ANC (Congolese Army) was aiding them, but were upset with the central government. They felt starved of ammunition and equipment, and would dearly love to seize the APCs or their ammo. The UN was itching to take out the mercs (as they seemed to be historically). All point totals for the side were identical except for the mercs, who were given a supplement because they had to move from one corner to the far corner with lots of folks gunning for them with abundant RPGs on the table.

Meanwhile, my ally, the Belgian-trained paratroopers, advance towards the Katangan village

The player controlling the Mercs had no qualms about shooting up the opposition. He immediately got into a firefight with the ANC, which deployed to his right. However, as soon as any of his APCs saw a long-range shot on the paratroopers, he was not shy about engaging them, either. Although this may seem somewhat unwise when you weren't really sure what each player's real objectives were, the Mercs had luck on their side. As it turned out, a LOT of luck. Their dice were consistently hot all night long. I ended up playing the ANC as I had a no-show player. My dice were the polar opposite and were ice cold, which also helped the Mercs.

When one APC veered off the road, my ANC pounced and blazed away to little effect, unfortunately

The paratroopers and the opposing Katangan militia in the village were controlled by husband and wife players who delight at going to a convention and getting out their aggressions against each other. They blazed away at each other merrily all game. The militia ended up better off in the long run. They stayed hunkered down inside their huts and sniped at the paratroopers through windows and doors. Meanwhile, the paratroopers had to advance across the light cover of fields and medium cover of the bush. Whenever the heavy machine guns of the APCs opened up on them, they lost a couple troops. This turned the tide in the militia's favor in the long run. The paratroopers seemed unable to mount an effective enough assault to breach the village's thorn and wood fences.

On my right, the Ghanaian UN contingent ran into pinning fire from the Katangan gendarmes

Meanwhile, the APCs progressed steadily across the table. The ANC fired shot after shot from their RPGs, but were unable to score a hit. The Congolese troopers did manage to slow whittle down the number of mercs, though. The machine gun required repeated re-manning in all three of the vehicles. Other shots picked off the crewmen riding in the open toppped APC, as well. However, the hope of stopping the vehicles seemed to be fading as the three APCs passed midpoint of the table. Perhaps this would not be the day the under-supplied garrison troops scored a bounty, after all.

The Mercs' APCs begin to run the gauntlet, rolling incredible saves and dishing out stinging fire

On the right side of the battlefield, the Katangan gendarmes and the UN were locked in a long-range firefight. Each scored successes against their enemy, but casualties were relatively low. The harassment by the gendarmes kept the UN from effectively lining the road to take shots at the APCs as they came into view. The Katangan fire was keeping the UN pinned down in cover and unable to advance quickly to the roadside. Meanwhile, the UN's allies, the ANC troopers, were being worn down by the constant barrages from the mercenaries on board the APCs. The last ANC RPG gunner scored a minor hit on the trailing APC.

Katangan gendarmes await the arrival of the APCs, providing effective covering fire against the UN

The ANC/UN's greatest moment followed that. A long-range RPG shot from the UN hit the slightly damaged APC. The player rolled maximum damage. The Merc player picked up his dice -- which had yet to really fail them significantly all night -- and whiffed all his saves. The APC went up with a flash of flame and rebounding explosion that echoed through the bush. When the Merc player rolled the saves for the men on board he failed all of those, too. We theorized that the RPG round ignited the stored ammunition, which caused a devastating secondary blast that killed everyone on board and destroyed the APC.

Did I make the Mercs' force too strong? Or was their player just rolling too well?

The first two APCs had reached the cover of the Katangan force shortly afterwards. They gunned their engines and roared off-table to the cheers of the gendarmes. We decided to count up victory points at that stage. It would still be possible to rack up more VPs by killing enemy soldiers. However, the main action had occurred, and any losses would probably be relatively balanced on each side. Once totaled up, it was a resounding victory for the Katangans. Operation Morthor -- or at least this skirmish -- had failed to quell the secession crisis. The Katangan gendarmes had been resupplied and a victory gave them fresh heart to face down the central government. They would hope that the UN and ANC would deem their losses as unsustainable and would return to the negotiating table.

One APC takes minor damage, but then suffers a catastrophic explosion from a UN RPG round

I was fairly satisfied with how the scenario went. All the players said they had a good time. I felt that perhaps I'd placed too much terrain on the table, which meant player forces were slower to engage. I also may have made the Mercs too powerful. Still, they suffered significant losses in men, so perhaps not. Their die rolls were incredible for most of the night. So, maybe they don't need to be cut down too much. I do think I need to do something to speed up the engagement between the paratroopers and the village militia. That was a little slow and static for what I like in a convention game. It certainly is a scenario that could use some tweaking and another running. Perhaps at Drums at the Rapids, this May? Stay tuned, and we shall see...