Hot Off The Press - Inside The Crisis In Andrevia

Don't Panic, As Mister Adams Once Wrote
     That's Douglas, not Gerry.  Yes, Andrevia, that Black Sea former-Soviet republic, with a hinterland in the mountains of the Caucasus, inheritor of ethnic divisions and competing spheres of influence, balanced between East and West -
     - well, it's not real.  My friend Richard Crawley had a lot of varied wargaming kit in 20mm that he wanted to use, but which didn't belong to any specific country or armed forces.  So - being a clever chap - he invented Andrevia several years ago, in order to have a country that did have a strange collection of military kit. We've played several games set in this fictional nation, but nothing as ambitious as "Crisis Point 3".  Richard hired the community hall at Dungworth, set up a dozen tables and got writing a scenario.

Naked tables being dressed

Conrad placed those trees!

The International Airport, under construction

  Each of the different factions or forces had a defined goal, with secret instructions on how to win.  Unfortunately one of the players dropped out at the last minute, so things had to be re-written on the hoof.
     Since this was a large skirmish action, we used the "Arc of Fire" ruleset.  Richard had prepared "cheat sheets" for each force, for convenience.

The Players
     Obviously - Conrad.  Me!  That's who. Plus my teenage assistant - and I've forgotten his
     name!
     Richard Crawley
     Richard Phillips
     Mark Kniveton
     Russ Phillips
     Gordon Malcolm
     Pete Jones
     Jamie Crawley

Tcherbevan
     This is the capital of Andrevia, and was split into different areas.  The Government forces held the TV station, the town centre, an old fort in the Turkish Quarter and a large house in the Armenian Quarter.
     The Armenian and Turkish Quarters were both held by their respective militia forces, with a number of foreign nationals congregating in the English Church in the Armenian Quarter.
     The International Airport had been occupied by Russian airborne forces ...

Russ - Commander of the Andrevian Turks - ponders over a view of central Tcherbervan

     A NATO peacekeeping convoy was due to arrive on the board, as were a contingent of foreign mujahideen.
     

Mark, NATO commander, moves his convoy onto the road

In a spectacularly bad decision, Russ fires at NATO and destroys a French armoured car.   Oh dear!

View from the Andrevian Turkish quarter

Russ and Conrad's forces exchange fire, ineffectively

The Andrevian Eurovision team (in police car) are stopped by the Russians.
Who then fly them out to the competition.

The French NATO force makes mincemeat of the Andrevian Turks who fired on them

Richard and Richard taking photos from where a Turkish force was going to arrive

At table corner, British NATO forces start to arrive

Pete Jones arrives with much-needed reinforcements for Conrad

Antique Government tanks rumble out of the town centre

Russ's forces have taken an absolute pounding

Foreign national hostages evacuees move out of the English Church under the valourous guidance and protection of the Andrevian Armenian militia.  The two houses opposite the church are now occupied by the mujahideen

The very nice Victoria cream with home-made plum jam provided by Stella, Richard's wife

     Mark approached Conrad and Pete in the later stages of the game.  He had, he said, brokered a peace treaty between us and the Government forces.  If we didn't attack them, they wouldn't attack us. Great!  That allowed both sides to concentrate on the Turkish quarter, and those pesky mujahideen.  Conrad also wrote out a statement for presentation to the NATO commander, stating that the Andrevian Armenians were only acting in self-defence and would never, ever dream of taking on NATO, but those mujahideen are putting foreign nationals at risk you know ...
     (a bit of skullduggery always oils the game, I find).
     Conrad came out of the game quite well.  He'd lost one house to the mujahideen, but had occupied a supermarket and the State Opera House, both of which would be useful in any negotiations with the Government post-bellum.

     Then came the hard work - putting all the pieces and terrain away, then folding up the (very heavy!) tables, taking them up to the village hall, then loading them into the cellar.

Richard has his own blog for Andrevia:

http://andreivian-tales.blogspot.co.uk/

And, we also raised £60 for Combat Stress.

Until next year!