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Since Ukraine, Peshmerga, ISIS(is,isil ect.)and the pro-Russian sepertists are accepting foriegn fighters I think it would be great for a Recon game to play as ex-soliders or voulnteers for one of the sides ( dont really want to gm pc's being in isis mind you)
So to muddy the gamming waters if you were a player which setting and side would you want to make a pc for?

I think youd get more modern weaponary and backing up north but alot of arms and captured mechanized stuff has also been used in the southern setting. Would probably only work if the pc's had a passing understanding of the area though the idea of some westerners voulnteering out of Erbil and being almost totaly lost sounds fun too.

Sounds like a pretty good idea, but that isn't as a recent development as you might think, since Rhodesia had a lot of that going on as well with foreign fighters arriving to pursue disparate agendas...

Good idea. I'll make up some NPCs for that I think...

-STS

slade the sniper wrote:Sounds like a pretty good idea, but that isn't as a recent development as you might think, since Rhodesia had a lot of that going on as well with foreign fighters arriving to pursue disparate agendas...

Good idea. I'll make up some NPCs for that I think...

-STS

Rhodesia is a parralle, but when that was happening online recruiting and knowledge of the conflict was much less known. I can almost be assured my players no nothing at all of Rhodesian history or the war.
The nice thing about the current conflicts, from a gaming stance, are the known troop levels and maps of forces. Its like pre-written for a gm.

So for you which one would be a better game Ukraine or northern Iraq/Syria?

Iraq/Syria provides a lot more factions to be allied with/fight against. Payment is the problem...

There are all sorts of proxy wars to get involved it, however...not all of them make news.

-STS

Someone with a lot of money is behind ISIS. Fighting ISIS would be like fighting ants; not matter how many you kill, there will be more. The only army that could defeat ISIS would be Skynet or an Aliens outbreak.

The pro-Russian Ukrainians are backed by Russian Special Forces. Probably, the majority of the "Pro-Russians" are in fact, Russians. Pro-Russian Ukrainian rebels just do not keep advanced SAMs in their garages just in case. How many anti-US government Michigan militia men have Patriot missiles on hand?

This site: http://www.pointofexistence.com/index.htm has some Ukrainian military units, but it is from 2009.

Peacebringer wrote:Someone with a lot of money is behind ISIS. Fighting ISIS would be like fighting ants; not matter how many you kill, there will be more. The only army that could defeat ISIS would be Skynet or an Aliens outbreak.

The pro-Russian Ukrainians are backed by Russian Special Forces. Probably, the majority of the "Pro-Russians" are in fact, Russians. Pro-Russian Ukrainian rebels just do not keep advanced SAMs in their garages just in case. How many anti-US government Michigan militia men have Patriot missiles on hand?

This site: http://www.pointofexistence.com/index.htm has some Ukrainian military units, but it is from 2009.

ISIS is hardly some unstoppable force of nature. When you prime mover is a toyota hilux pickup truck, your primary weapon the AK-47 and your comms are cell phones you are not anything more then a regional threat against other bush league powers. I am not saying ISIS could not develop into a greater threat in the future but they are laughable compared to the militarys of industrialized countries (including Shiite Iran). They are being badly punished by drone and air strikes with guided munitions yet have no ADA capability to protect their C3 assets.

Currently the strategy is one of containment not annihilation. Sunni ISIS is kept around as a buffer against Shiite Iran.

I encourage everyone to read this article which predates the post 9/11 era but still is 100% correct and relevant.

Why Arabs Lose Wars by Col. Norvell B. De Atkine USA (Ret)
http://www.meforum.org/441/why-arabs-lose-wars

Col. De Atkine conclusions closely mirror my own interactions and observations as an Infantry NCO who trained and fought along side Iraq forces.

Zamion138 wrote:Since Ukraine, Peshmerga, ISIS(is,isil ect.)and the pro-Russian sepertists are accepting foriegn fighters I think it would be great for a Recon game to play as ex-soliders or voulnteers for one of the sides ( dont really want to gm pc's being in isis mind you)
So to muddy the gamming waters if you were a player which setting and side would you want to make a pc for?

I think youd get more modern weaponary and backing up north but alot of arms and captured mechanized stuff has also been used in the southern setting. Would probably only work if the pc's had a passing understanding of the area though the idea of some westerners voulnteering out of Erbil and being almost totaly lost sounds fun too.

That's a VERY interesting idea!


Something like the Siege of Kobani might make for very cool adventure/campaign fodder, and there actually ARE some interesting people volunteering to fight ISIS.

It's the kind of thing that could make for a colorful party of mercenaries and/or misfits.

ISIS is hardly some unstoppable force of nature. When you prime mover is a toyota hilux pickup truck, your primary weapon the AK-47 and your comms are cell phones you are not anything more then a regional threat against other bush league powers. I am not saying ISIS could not develop into a greater threat in the future but they are laughable compared to the militarys of industrialized countries (including Shiite Iran). They are being badly punished by drone and air strikes with guided munitions yet have no ADA capability to protect their C3 assets.

Currently the strategy is one of containment not annihilation. Sunni ISIS is kept around as a buffer against Shiite Iran.

I encourage everyone to read this article which predates the post 9/11 era but still is 100% correct and relevant.

Why Arabs Lose Wars by Col. Norvell B. De Atkine USA (Ret)
http://www.meforum.org/441/why-arabs-lose-wars

Col. De Atkine conclusions closely mirror my own interactions and observations as an Infantry NCO who trained and fought along side Iraq forces.

I agree with you; the ISIS are similar to pirates; they do not have the support of the people and only the support of an ideology network; want is the life-expectancy of a pirate? Not very long.

The ISIS is MINO (Muslim In Name Only) so any MD running an ISIS-side game would need basic understanding of the principals of Islam and how the ISIS operates; also, given their atrocities, they have clearly dehumanized their enemies (anyone who isn't ISIS), which makes them over-confident and inhuman. If this were a WoD game, their humanities would go down the drain real fast.

Edit: there's a movie out there in which American military serving in Iraq awakes some sort of ancient demon in an ancient ruin. The players would never suspect that!

If you are going to run ISIS, you might want to explore their eschatological end game...that is some Old Testament Biblical/Quranic End Times...

http://www.todayszaman.com/interviews_professor-saritoprak-isis-uses-eschatological-themes-extensively-for-their-ideology_374099.html
http://blogs.lcms.org/2014/muslim-eschatology
https://graceuniversity.edu/iip/2015/03/isis-an-islamic-armageddon/
http://www.johnjazwiecblog.com/2015/02/isis-and-religious-eschatology.html

These are all opinion pieces, since it's kinda hard to have an objective look at this issue in open sources. Take them with a grain of salt (or a whole shaker), you can not ignore the ideology of your enemy.

-STS

Wooly wrote:
ISIS is hardly some unstoppable force of nature. When you prime mover is a toyota hilux pickup truck, your primary weapon the AK-47 and your comms are cell phones you are not anything more then a regional threat against other bush league powers. I am not saying ISIS could not develop into a greater threat in the future but they are laughable compared to the militarys of industrialized countries (including Shiite Iran). They are being badly punished by drone and air strikes with guided munitions yet have no ADA capability to protect their C3 assets.

Currently the strategy is one of containment not annihilation. Sunni ISIS is kept around as a buffer against Shiite Iran.

I encourage everyone to read this article which predates the post 9/11 era but still is 100% correct and relevant.

Why Arabs Lose Wars by Col. Norvell B. De Atkine USA (Ret)
http://www.meforum.org/441/why-arabs-lose-wars

Col. De Atkine conclusions closely mirror my own interactions and observations as an Infantry NCO who trained and fought along side Iraq forces.

I am revisiting this as I have been thinking about this lately; yes, ISIS is no match for modern-weaponry, but, they are not a military force per se; they are an idea. You can't kill an idea by using drones to kill. And yes, their weapons are AKs and pick-ups and what's to stop them from hiding their AKs and pretending to be farmers? Fighting a terrorist organization is like playing Chess; one side has nothing but queens that can move in any direction and take out any piece they wish; while the other side has mostly pawns and maybe one or two bishops or knights. BUT, every time a queen takes out a pawn, another pawn comes to the board to fill his place. The pawn army has a king and the queens can sometimes take him out; BUT, a pawn rises and becomes a king in his place. You can't beat the pawn-army by simply killing them; to defeat them, you have to remove the board, which is their base. They can't move a space if there are no spaces to move. To defeat the ISIS, one had to neutralize their base.

I read the link. The Iranians are Persians not Arabs and the Iranians did rather well against the Iraqis in the First Gulf-War when they used Western-tactics.