Studio Tomahawk has finally released the long-awaited details about their upcoming Congo wargame rules! Read on for more details about this upcoming story driven historical miniature wargame and start to assemble your expedition at once!
With the upcoming release of our new game, it seemed that the time had come to draw a quick picture of Congo. Congo is a miniature game that offers you to follow the footsteps of great explorers like Stanley and Livingstone and head out to the heart of Dark Africa, deep into the Bassin of the great Congo River, which gave its name to our game. This new venture is primarily an adventure game, aimed at intrepid players, willing to risk everything in a desperate quest for fame, wealth and knowledge.
The period covered by Congo is fascinating. Well before the massive arrival of europeans, adventurers pioneered the exploration of the African subcontinent. They were explorers, scientists or Arab merchants and traders. At the head of columns of many men (most of them natives), they went into the jungle or followed the tracks of the savannah, with various objectives (some of them being less than moral). And throughout their journeys, their journey brought them into the lands of many indigenous tribes who have never seen white people and their path took them through the kingdoms of major African powers like the Azande.
Today, a mouse click allows us to contemplate vast exotic landscapes or communicate with remote friends living thousands of kilometers away, and it is hard to imagine the difficulties these explorers faced. The climate, environment, fauna, flora and local population were so many pitfalls that could transform the expedition into a terrible and deadly fiasco. And you really needed a good dose of courage, recklessness or greed to sink in the Congo Basin.
But our game will not only about progressing in the savannah under sweltering heat or painfully advance in the moist jungle infested with mosquitoes. Congo also draws its inspiration from the contemporary accounts that mingled happily fantasies, embellishment and novelization of the stories of explorers (like the famous penny dreadfuls did with folklore). More than being informative, these papers were intended to distract the reader, kind of pulp novels of their time!
Thus, Congo invites you to experience adventures, rather than play scenarios. The adventures are the subject of separate sheets inserted in the book, and presented as a fictional articles published by « Le Bulletin de la Société Géographique » (ed. note : the Bulletin of the Geographical Society!). Each Adventure presents a unique situation, which will provide its share of incidents and tensions. Due to their nature, they have a great replayability, and you will certainly some game before getting a grasp on all possible approaches and strategies for each adventure.
During these Adventures, you will lead a column taken from on of the 4 cultures presented in the game: White Men Expedition, the Sultanate of Zanzibar, the Forest Tribes and the African Kingdoms. Each culture has its own troops, characters and special rules.
Wargames Foundry will be releasing several Column packs to most likely represent the four different factions being White Men Expedition, the Sultanate of Zanzibar, the Forest Tribes and the African Kingdoms. Also heard there will be an animal pack to supply you with plenty of deadly wildlife! There will be no new miniatures sculpted as these will be assembled from their current Darkest Africa miniature range. Although some new exclusive miniatures will be sculpted to be sold as part of paint sets probably aimed to give you all you need to paint your column or starter 'armies' for Congo.
A column is generally made of 20-30 miniatures, and adventures only require a small gaming surface (120cm x 90cm) to be played. Thus, if the scenery items are an essential part of the fun of the game, the table surface will not require a disproportionate investment to provide a satisfactory framework for your games.
Congo takes the shape of a book (hardcover) 108 pages, full color. Inserted in the book you will find 8 Adventures and a dangerous terrain cardboard sheet. In addition to the book, your retailer will hand you a bag containing the deck of cards needed to play, and a punchboard with the tokens needed for the game and that also includes the measuring sticks. Not included in the game, you will need some dice (D6, D8 and D10) miniatures (available as Column boxes for each culture) and some scenery to start your adventure! We will soon return to the game mechanics, and continue to introduce Congo, hoping that this invitation to adventure was interesting!
Sounds like an interesting game with an unique story driven gameplay where you will face both foe and the deadly African nature. Look at the pictures, top-notch quality in both book, card and tokens! So stay tuned for more information as these rules will be released soon now!
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