Welcome to the Hotel Zugando!

Welcome to this, the inaugural post of my new blog, Hotel Zugando. This blog is dedicated to my ongoing Wargaming and modelling project for Force on Force set in the fictional Imagi-Nation of Zugando, a war-torn county situated somewhere on the west coast of Africa. The blog will focus on a strong narrative theme and will feature the background for the campaign, back-stories for those involved and so on. In this way it will differ from my previous blog, Four Colour Super Minis, which is much more focused on the collecting and painting side of my hobby.

I began to collect and paint models and scenery for my Zugando camping about 18 mounts ago when, inspired by Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare, I thought I would venture for the first time into the world of ‘modern’ wargaming.

Modern era wargaming in generally defined as being anything following the end of WW2, so includes Korea, the Cold War, Vietnam and so on, up to the current time. The term ‘ultra-modern’ is sometimes used to describe games set in a very current of even very near future setting.

As a wargamer with a background in Warhammer and 40K I felt more comfortable with fictional setting rather than recreating actual battles, especially with the Afghan conflict still raging, and people being killed every day. I have played 1938: Very British Civil War for some years, and I liked the fictional aspect of the setting. Therefore it was logical for me to create a fictional setting for my campaigns, something that has become known as an Imagi-nation. Hence the Democratic Republic of Zugando was born.

Nigerian Army Serving As Peacekeepers On Patrol in Rural Zugando

The Democratic Republic of Zugando is inspired loosely by various West African Nations but is very firmly a work of fiction; something dredged up from my own imagination. As the saying goes, any similarity to reality is purely coincidental. This gives me the freedom to change things on a whim, bring in new factions and so on. It also gets me away from the nasty business of real modern warfare.

As far as possible I have tried to base the combatant forces on their real world counter parts. Zugando might be fictitious, but the nations involved in the I-Coz coalition are real. This has meant I have had to research the British, US and Nigerian armed forces. This is an aspect of the hobby I really relish: I know more about the armed forces and politics of Africa than I ever did before, and so my gaming hobby ends up informing my knowledge of current affairs too, so that it a very good thing.

To amuse myself and to make the settings of my campaign more convincing I have added some flesh to the bones of Zugando, developing its history. You can find out more about the setting by clicking the tabs at the top of the page. This narrative will certainly develop as I continue to add models to my collection and to fight battles in the campaign.

A typical Zugandan Shanty Town 

So what can you expect from the blog? Well I am about to embark on gathering my Zugando collection together in on place and working out what I have got and what I still need to do. While I am doing this I will take some (hopefully) nice pictures and post them on this blog. I will also photograph any new stuff I add to the collection. This will certainly include infantry, civilians, AFV, terrain and buildings, and perhaps other things I have yet to think of. I will also be post AAR (battle reports) as and when I get round to fighting them. Unfortunately, real world pressures get in the way and I find I spend much more time collecting, painting and making than I do gaming. I might also re-post a few articles from my other blog, Four Colour Super Minis, if they are relevant to this setting.

So there we go. Hotel Zugando is launched, and from here on who knows where our path will takes us. I hope you come along for the ride. Comments and advice are always welcome.