The start of an Imagi-Nation

Black Ops demo by Guy Bowers

It was only a couple of months ago when I was at a Dutch wargaming convention called Poldercon that the seed of creating a fictional nation of my own (Imagi-Nation) was planted. I have always been thinking of cool scenarios and rules for wargaming in a modern setting but I just never started writing things down, I didn't even had any modern range miniatures. For the past three years I have been really busy with Bolt Action and promoting it in the Netherlands. I have a few demo tables, a ton of scenery and four different armies but all WW2. Before that I played a few different games and all in all I have been wargaming for nearly ten years.

Osprey - Black Ops

At Poldercon I was doing another demo for Bolt Action and I got talking with Guy Bowers who was doing a demo game of Black Ops for which he wrote the rules. The game looked fun and eventually I sat down for an hour and let Guy talk me through the rules. Boy it was fun! I went straight to the Stand of Imaginative Miniatures who were also at the convention and were selling the Black Ops rulebook. Of course I asked Guy if he could sign my copy which he did.

In the weeks that followed I started doing some research to see what modern rule sets were available and during my search I also found some blogs about these weird African Imagination countries. Bongolesia, Zugando & Natonga to name a few. I thought this was a wonderful idea, you just make up your own country and regime and throw in some cliche characters with a unique background story and place your wargames in that scene for which you can use multiple rule sets.

Then I also received my copy of the Wargames, Soldiers & Strategy magazine (issue 83) which was all about modern wargaming and even has an article on creating your own Imagi-Nation. This issue came at precisely the right time and I started thinking about my own Nation, I had to think about names, places, characters and a complete story and the more I got into it the more I enjoyed it.

As a result I now have a ton of raw material for stories and scenarios for the following months. A lot of modern 28 miniatures to paint and I have already built a complete Jungle table including mountains, a river, a guerrilla camp and a lot of jungle terrain. I can't wait to get playing and tell you guys all about it.

Make sure you visit Zangali once in a while to keep up with the News, Battle report, scenery building, tutorials and loads more.

Guy Bowers vs Richard Clarke

Here's a funny picture I don't want to keep from you. Guy Bowers (black ops) and Richard Clarke (Chain of Command Fighting season) were talking about their games. Both telling eachother their games were the best (tongue in cheek). well let's say it was a very amusing hour seeing these guys duke it out and just having fun. Great lads!