The “Modern” genre in the RAFWA covers the period from the start of The Boer War (1899) to the present day.

The first few years of the RAFWA Modern Trophy were dominated by 1/300 Cold War armies, the details and uses of which may have been too close to their working life for some of our members! Later a new type of competition emerged, reliant on a Gamesmaster rather than an Umpire, where all the competitors are on one side, facing the “enemy” together. This has allowed an element of teamwork and, yes, fun, into our games. Steamy Vietnam jungle patrols (including 60s mood music), assaulting a Middle Eastern desert fort, the Somme trenches of World War 1 (including a football match between the lines), an attempted Caribbean coup, storming up Sword Beach in Normandy, all have been events rather than games, and continue to attract a loyal “Band of Brothers” to our competitions.

Some RAF Clubs are very well known to the general public, particularly with the Modern genre. With all of the above, plus such convention winners as Dad’s Army, Saving Private Ryan, The Longest Night, Who Dares Wins, and Mount Longdon, to name just a few of our offerings over nearly 20 years.

The 2004 Modern Championship game was 20mm Vietnam. Seven teams of elite Green Berets rescued American POWs from a camp just over the Cambodian border. They approached stealthily through the jungle, carried out a noisy and rapid assault on the strongly defended camp, then raced against time to extract the released prisoners from a helicopter landing zone which was under heavy mortar fire.