And now, I really have run out of Bordurians ..............

.......... well, for the moment, at least. These are my final four Bordurian clandestine agents, dressed as ordinary dock or factory workers.

Nothing new to add. Like the rest, they are Copplestone "Back of Beyond" Bolsheviks and I'll be using them for  In Her Majesty's Name and pulp games.

I've really enjoyed doing these. They are terrific sculpts and casts, lots of crisp detail and they take paint really well.

Now, on with the Syldavians!

Almost the last of my Bordurian agents

So, I am coming to the end of my late-19th century Bordurian active service unit. As well as the assorted intelligence agents and military and security operative, any unit operating undercover in a foreign country will have agents and operatives working as agitators, agents provocateurs and saboteurs. These will often be drawn from the ranks of the Politzya Militar, as well as from the Sekuritat and will usually be living in working class areas and working in factories, ports or on the railways. Here are four typical clandestine operatives;

Living and working in the industrial areas of Syldavia, their main role is to spread revolutionary ideas amongst the workers of the Syldavian proletariat, create dissent and organise strikes. Their secondary role is to fight as required to further the political ends of the Informat. They can also be found operating secretly in the forests and mountains along the Bordurian/Syldavian borders as smugglers and saboteurs.

They will be used for Pulp games as well as for  In Her Majesty's Name.

These are also figures from the  Copplestone "Back of Beyond" Bolshevik range. I have four more of these guys to finish and then I shall be starting on their Syldavian opponents. 

Four members of the Bordurian Military Police

The Bordurian Army also has a security unit, one that is dedicated to rooting out counter-revolutionary activities among the troops, in both the officer corps and the rank and file. That unit is the Politzya Militar, the Military Police. Here are four members of this unit. First an officer and an NCO;

Next, two rankers (known as "specialists") from a military police company.

These figures are once again  Copplestone "Back of Beyond" Bolsheviks.

The uniform of the Politzya Militar is the same as that of the rest of the army and you will note that the army conscripts both male and female soldiers.

Each infantry, artillery and cavalry battalion has a company of the Politzya Militar attached to it. In addition each company, squadron or battery has a junior officer, an NCO and a section of 10 specialists imbedded.

At higher levels. i.e. Brigade or Division, there are additional units of the Politzya Militar, led by experienced senior officers. These higher level units also contain officers from both the Sekuritat and Informat.

In addition to the anti-subversion role of the Politzya Militar, they are also tasked with ensuring that correct revolutionary discipline is maintained by the regular officers and NCOs and  that infractions of military regulations are identified and punished. In combat, the PM has a political role, ensuring that orders are obeyed and that deserters are executed. 

Unlike the rest of the Army, whose ranks are filled with conscripts who serve a five year active term, followed by a further 20 years as reservists, the PM is made up of volunteers. Anyone who has served at least six months as a conscript may volunteer for the selection process, which consists of a rigorous political screening as well as physical and aptitude testing. Anyone who passes this process joins the PM for a minimum of 10 years, starting at the rank of Junior Specialist. In practice, PM officers identify possible recruits early on and after the appropriate period suggest that putting themselves forward might be a good idea. The officer cadre of the PM is around 50% seconded from the Sekuritat and Informat for a period of two years and 50% promoted from the ranks. All NCOs are promoted from within.

As an aside, all Bordurian army officer cadets, since the end of the revolutionary wars have been selected from the most able conscripts within their first year and sent off for assessment. Therefore, it is generally considered to be more prestigious to be identified for the PM than it is to be chosen as an officer cadet.

Trusted PM officers, NCOs and specialists are often seconded to serve alongside Informat and Sekuritat agents in active service units. This is considered a great honour for those involved and is often a stepping stone to joining the ranks of the Second and Third Directorates. Veterans of the PM who have completed their  mandatory minimum 10 years service may opt to leave the PM and apply to become Political Commissars of the Watch, the local militia-based police whose patrol units are found all over the country.

As with the rest of my figures, these are intended for In Her Majesty's Name and Pulp games.

The Bordurian menace grows ...........

Here are some more figures for my late-19th century Bordurians.

Once again, these are Copplestone "Back of Beyond" Bolsheviks, this time representing two rank and file members of the Second Directorate's Security Police, the Sekuritat.

Members of the Sekuritat such as these can often be seen on the streets of Bordurian cities, particularly guarding important state buildings but also patrolling the main streets. They have far greater authority than those local militiamen and women who comprise the Watch patrols in towns and cities across the country, and they operate the Customs posts and entry points around the borders of the country. They have a large barracks and prison complex, housed in the former Orthodox monastery on the island of Zodastrum in Lake Poliszchov, where political prisoners are held, many never emerging again once incarcerated behind the grim walls of the prison.

These two will join my Bordurian active service unit for In Her Majesty's Name but will also be useful as Bolsheviks for Pulp games.

More late-19th century Bordurian Secret Police

Following on from my last post, here are the next two recruits for my Bordurian Active Service cell for In Her Majesty's Name.

These figures are also Copplestone "Back of Beyond" Bolsheviks and the tufts are, once again Gamer's Grass from Bad Squiddo.

These are two officers of the Second Directorate, also known as the Sekuritat, responsible for domestic State Security, although Security Police are known to work closely with the agents of the Informat, the infamous Intelligence Services of the Third Directorate.

The figure on the left is Leitenant Eirena Karras, whose fame comes from her loud singing voice, which she frequently uses to urge the troops on to great feats of revolutionary fervour. Her power as a revolutionary orator is another of her assets, although she is also a good shot and a dedicated and thorough investigator.

Accompanying her is Inspektor Pyotr Mavros, nicknamed "The Priest", because it is said that everyone always confesses to him in the end. His family were exiles under the Autocracy, living in the slums of the Syldavian city of Bellicosow, constantly under the surveillance of the Syldavian Königliche Gendarmerie. The young Pyotr was recruited by the local undercover cell of the Proletarian Alliance and returned to Borduria when the last Autokrat, Constantine IV was overthrown.

Incidentally, my chosen map of Syldavia and environs is a wonderful thing that I found on the http://syldavianchronicle.blogspot.com/ blog, which unhappily no longer seems to be active. It is a terrific piece of work and I hope that I am not infringing anyone's copyright by using it.

The Bordurian Secret Police in the 19th century

In an earlier post I brought the history of Borduria up to the end of the 19th century. In that post, I wrote about the Bordurian Security agencies.

In that earlier post, I introduced two Bordurian Secret Police agencies, the Second Directorate (also called the Sekuritat), which controls the press and oversees state security and the Third Directorate or Informat which is the secret intelligence arm of the Bordurian state.

I should also have mentioned a further arm of the Secret State, the Military Police, but I will leave them to a later post.

These two characters are officers of the Third Directorate in uniform, although agents are commonly found in plainclothes for many operations.

These figures are both from the excellent Copplestone "Back of Beyond" Bolsheviks range. The tufts on the bases are Gamer's Grass from Bad Squiddo.

So, who are they?

Well, the female officer is Kapitan Anastasia Dimitrovna, a cold and calculating figure in the Service, whose speciality is running female agents in the decadent bourgeois societies of the West, but who is also feared as an assassin and expert interrogator. Although her background lies in the minor rural boyar families of the 18th and early 19th century, Anastasia is the daughter of a prominent revolutionary general Michaelis Demetrios (who slavicised his name to Mikhail Dimitrov) and committed supporter of the present regime.

The male officer is Commissar Evgeny Petrov, born Eugenios Petros in the industrial city of Peshod. As with many members of the new regime, he has also slavicised his name. Petrov fought as a young soldier in the battles following the coup that overthrew the original Republican Provisional Government. His revolutionary fervour in denouncing secret opponents in the ranks of the Army of the Proletarian Alliance government brought him to the attention of the Second Directorate, where he quickly rose through the ranks. He subsequently transferred to the Third Directorate to oversee the section whose responsibility is the infiltration of anti-revolutionary emigré groups elsewhere in Europe.

I am really pleased to finally find a use for these terrific figures. They will be part of a Bordurian company for In Her Majesty's Name, but they will also be really useful for Pulp games using the Crooked Dice Pulp rules.