Milsim organiser Okto Eight Milsim launched their Moldistan series in September 2014.
The series is a dynamic, living story where the players decide the direction that the milsim takes, depending on their own decisions and actions.
The story began that summer with a massive seam of high grade Titanium-yielding ore being discovered in the former soviet republic of Moldistan, a sleepy woodland country wedged between Europe and Russia.
Ruled by the autocratic President Aleksandr Gretsky, Moldistan existed largely out of sight from the rest of the world. What was originally a poor backwater country of woodcutters and farmers, existing on the edge of poverty, suddenly became a wealthy industrialist nation, almost overnight.
Usually wherever you find money, you will find corruption and Moldistan was no exception.
It wasn't long before Gretsky was surrounded by allegations of corruption and was suppressing the will of the people, keeping them in a middle ages-style serfdom whilst accruing great personal wealth.
Operation Skylight
The Operation opened with the Minister of Trade, Artem Novik being kidnapped by insurgents on his way to inspect the Gorazh National Mine, which was being hastily constructed to extract the ore.
The Peoples Front of Moldistan (or MPF) , an anti-Gretsky political body of former governmental soldiers and radicals, accepted responsibility for the kidnap. However, a botched rescue attempt by the Moldistan Defence Force or MDF (the government army) and it was rumoured, Special Forces from the west, left Novik dead.
President Gretsky arrived to perform the official opening of the Mine and despite the MPF making several attempts to assassinate him, the attempts were foiled and Gretsky was whisked to safety by his bodyguard and MDF personal guard.
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| Gretsky and Bodyguard Making Their Escape |
Throughout the weekend, there were continued fire-fights between the MDF, the MPF and western Special Forces, who were allegedly in-country to "advise the President on tactical matters".
Operation Tailspin
This occured in the spring of 2015. The "unrest" in Moldistan had stilled somewhat over the harsh Moldistan winter, but Gretsky, arrogant and confident at his ability to survive multiple concentrated attempts on his life, had not been idle. Irritated by US attempts to interfere in the running of his country in pursuit of Titanium, he petulantly signed a counter Titanium trade agreement to supply the Russians instead, effectively shunning the US.
Moscow, encouraged by Gretsky's public shunning of the USA and also eager to obtain Titanium supplies to produce key lightweight components in their own armaments industries, encouraged him to expel all US forces from Moldistan as a sign of good faith.
In Operation Tailspin, a black ops NATO reconnaisance flight crashed in Moldistan and there was a race to reach its pilot and the sensitive equipment on board. US Special Forces quickly formed a rescue mission and entered the country secretly. They joined forces with the rebels, supplied them with arms to ingratiate them and managed to jointly extract the pilot. Unfortunately for the West, a flight recorder recovered from the wreckage by government troops, contained incriminating evidence of NATO spying in Moldistan. This did nothing to improve relationships between Gretsky and Washington.
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| Donating Weapons to the MPF |
The operation also saw the neutralisation of a defence radar AA site which provided a "hole in the fence" and a mission to assault the Moldistan Special Research Facility (MSRF) by a combined NATO SF/MPF force. The Moldistan Chief Scientist Professor Gagarsky, an expert specialising in liquid explosives and insect-sized surveillance drones, was being forcibly held at the MSRF. The assault force were able to perform a successful rescue and when Gagarsky requested political asylum, he was offered a new life working for "Uncle Sam" in US Defense Research.
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| The MSRF |
Operation Firestorm
By the summer of 2015, Gretsky had quarrelled with Moscow. Their repeated attempts to force him to increase production had prompted him to accept a better offer from Washington and sell his Titanium to the U.S.
Meanwhile, Gretsky was losing the popularity war in his own country and he needed to wage a public relations offensive to win his people back. Furthermore, some of his beloved MDF, dispirited and underpaid had defected to the rebels. With the renewed influx of US Dollars, he was able to buy his own experienced private army in the form of battle-hardened Private Military Contractors from the shadowy US based organisation Mercury.
In order to lift the morale of his troops and citizens, the President despatched his Prime Minister to make a rousing motivational speech in the frontier village of Tsiara.
When he arrived, Prime Minister Borodin was mobbed by the protesting villagers, who had been agitated by the rebels beforehand. The PM was struck by a cabbage from a protesting woman, but the MDF managed to rescue him from further harm and get him back to Krasvin in the Presidential helicopter.
Strategically, just before the close of the operation, the Gorazh Mine was attacked by the MPF rebels and finally overrun.
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| The PM is Mobbed |
Operation Claw Hammer
The end of the year saw the Mine being operated by the rebels, technically assisted by Russian engineers supplied by Moscow. Titanium was once again being exported to Russia, but at a fraction of the price they had paid to Gretsky before !!
Gretsky was out of favour with Washington. Their Titanium supply had been diverted to their arch rivals in Moscow and Gretsky was chastised by the US President for his inability to control insurgency in his country.
Cornered like a rat and at his lowest ebb, Gretsky requested "boots on the ground" from NATO to help him fight the Russian-backed rebels and free his country from their clutches.
Once again set in Tsiara, this operation saw Russian Special Forces active for the first time in the game, training the rebels and conducting clandestine surveillance operations to support their espionage network in Moldistan.
NATO and the Moldistan Defence Force made a joint attack on the Gorazh Mine and after a hard fight, managed to re-capture it. The MPF leader, Nikolay Jakov, was killed in a US airstrike after being lured into the open by the promise of a pay-off from village elders.
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| Russian SPETSNAZ in Tsiara Village |
Operation Gate Guard
Forced to abandon thoughts of the mine for now, the MPF rebels regrouped in their forest hideout in the "Badlands" and plotted to attack the two airports just outside Krasvin, the nation's capital.
Hoping to make a tactical strike to separate Gretsky from his incoming foreign reinforcements, the rebels made a simultaneous two-pronged attack on both the civil and military airports.
Gate Guard followed the fortunes of the attack on the military airport. Government forces were stretched to defend such a large airfield, but they managed to rescue their billoted pilots from being captured by the rebels as they swept in. The MPF soon had the airfield under their control and managed to severely damage the runway with demolition charges. Fortunately, the government command had the foresight to protect all their aircraft in hardened bunkers and the insurgents were unable to breach them, thus preserving the Moldistan Air Force.
Eventually, having achieved their objective, the MPF retreated allowing the government to take back their critically damaged airfield.
The raid on the civil airport was less successful and the rebels were unable to penetrate the outer perimeter before being driven back.
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| Rebel Mortar Attack on the Airbase |
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| Clashes on the Runway |
Operation Serpents Nest
After the bloody battle at the airfield, the rebels retreated back to the village of Stariye Kverno-Korsevi, nestling on the edge of the "Badlands", the forest home of the MPF.
Using an old insurgent’s trick, the MPF began hiding in plain sight, sheltering amongst the loyalist village's civilian population, where they licked their wounds and regained their strength.
Realising that it’s only a matter of time before they rise up again, Gretsky considered the MPF situation a "ticking time bomb" and decided something had to be done (and soon).
Although no stranger to genocide and tempted to raze the village to the ground with an artillery barrage, he was conscious that his government was being watched by western human rights organisations. Foreign aid workers and UN observers were everywhere in the district.
Gretsky needed rid of the Serpent which is the MPF, but was wise enough to know that he needed to wield a tactical scalpel on this one. He needed troops who would go in to the Serpents Nest and cut off its head. He needed experienced troops that could separate rebels from innocent villagers and avoid war crime accusations from the West.
When the MPF started hijacking unarmed UN aid convoys, it gave him the excuse he needed...
