AK47 and the African forces Supplement has been written by the RFCM, (rules for the common man), team and produced in two A4 spiral bound booklets. The original AK47 rulebook deals with battalion level actions in African conflicts from 1950-1990, whilst the supplement covers African forces from 1990 to present day and also includes Israeli actions in Lebanon during the 1980's. This supplement also covers some aspects of warfare omitted from the original rule set such as minefields, antiaircraft fire, and artillery. The main AK47 rules cover five army types for African conflicts, as does the supplement, but expands further covering forces such as the IDF, Syrians and Lebanese militias.

Each booklet gives basic background information on the various forces and a simple to use points system to construct such forces. The original rules contain a brief painting guide, a dictionary of terms used, and a terrain generating system. With the African forces there is a simple system for generating a name for the countries and forces involved adding a fun side to the game, and allowing a little 'role play' element to enter the game.

The Most innovative aspect of the game is the incorporation of political flow charts. Each player chooses a number of points from set limits and spends these on political maneuverings to advance through his chart. Usually the more points spent on maneuverings, the better the outcome for your force, (e.g. as you can gain better troops and weapons), however, this is not always the case. The political points also decide one player as the attacker and the other as defender and a series of objectives are then set and valued by the attacker. Then from this point the initial forces are diced for, and not all are guaranteed to start the game, but then there is a system to generate late arrivals.

All die rolls in AK47 are made on a D6 making the system quick for newcomers to grasp and learn. Movement is a simple system randomized by dice rolling, in the case of infantry, it’s the die roll +2", whilst vehicles simply double the roll. Firing treats weapons generically and again uses an opposed dice roll with modifiers to establish if an element is pinned, killed or okay. As a nice touch to this there are also random effects through firing invoked occasionally by the shooters rolling doubles. The roll of a D6 coupled with a short factor list also determines morale.

The end of the game is also randomized by dice rolling and the winners and losers section allows points to be added up for both sides to indicate the victor.

The supplement for Lebanon treats the IDF and Syrians in the same way as other armies but with the Lebanese militias you have to use a system of semi random generated points to gather sponsorships in place of flow charts. Extra rules have also been added for snipers and car bombs, and commanders are characterized more fully.

The rules are simple and efficient, with a game usually lasting a couple of hours at most. The checks and balances between attacker and defender work well and the game flows nicely, in essence this system is that rare thing, a set of fast play rules that work well.

There are randomizing mechanisms at several stages which represents the fog of war effect and a highly innovative political aspect which allows for changes in units to be set against a narrative style backdrop. This gives a degree of context and characterization for the action taking place.

As with any set of rules there are some problem areas but these are few in number. Firstly it is difficult at the moment to go beyond the basic attacker defender/capture objectives scenario, whilst secondly there are rules for airstikes and AA fire, yet no allowance for planes being shot down.

These points aside this is a set of rules which shows you don't need the complexity seen in some other modern rules systems to get an accurate, highly enjoyable game interspersed with the sort of good crack that is not of the loose women or drugs type.

The ever expanding range of figures from Peter Pig's catalogue is extensive and covers all the types you'd reasonably need for modern conflicts in Africa. These are generically listed being produced as types rather that forces for a specific army. Hence there are militia types which are poorly clothed and equipped, and regular/professional types to represent better equipped forces.

Each of these comes in packs armed with specific small arms. There are also command, crew, RPG, and casualties in each type. Support weapons consist of mortars, heavy machine guns and recoilless rifles. A nice touch to this range is also the availability of civilians, looters, media, and characters. The range also includes some vehicles and buildings but this part of the range is not as extensive as it could be. Packs contain eight infantry or four cavalry for £1.50 and are true 15mm scale. Vehicles, characters and support weapons come individually priced and in ones for the vehicles and buildings and various quantities for the others.

The infantry packs themselves contain a mixture of poses and have good detail on them, and are well proportioned and animated, making them a treat to paint up.

Due to the generic nature of the miniatures once you have bought sufficient you can produce any army in the lists. Hopefully future additions to the range could extend the type of vehicles available and produce troops to represent U.N./modern western forces.

Overall this is a well written set of rules backed up by an excellent figure range and well worth a look at by any gamer interested in the modern period.

For More information on AK47 check Peter Pigs Website

Or Snail mail: 34-36 Knightsdale Road, Weymouth ,Dorset ,DT4 0HS ,England

Telephone: +44 (0)1305 760384