The Women's Institute Battalion of Death

Well, my VBCW Women's Institute force made their debut on Monday in an epic pre-xmas game at Eric the Shed's where we battled it out to seize the means of production at Christmas Tree Wood.

As predicted the WI didn't fare well... not surprising as it was their first outing and they didn't know what they were doing... they'll get the hang of it eventually (nothing to do with my tactics at all...)

There were 6 players in the game.  I know stuff happened at the other end of the table but it's a bit hazy.  It mainly seemed to involve our side's tanks blowing up!  And units in pillboxes becoming bullet magnets and dying bravely.

The Miners Battalion support the armoured column

My A/T gun faces down 'Big Red' an enormous Posties tank

At my end of the table the WI and their Miner allies were tussling with the Postman's Union forces to seize Mustard Manor.  I always find in these games that I'm too keen to grab the fortified locations but all this achieves is giving my opponent a nice static target to concentrate on.  Sure enough, once we'd taken possession of the building, the mortar rounds and artillery shells started landing and eventually drove us out with heavy losses.

Mustard Manor... home of the capitalist oppressors 

It did briefly give a good vantage point to call in my own artillery on the petrol station resulting in a spectacular (but not very effective) explosion.  I was gradually pushed back and lost my armour but the game ended on a pointlessly impressive moment as the remaining WI survivors charged back into the burning manor to drive out some naval troops in a ferocious hand to hand combat.  And that was the last time they were seen....

A great game and a nice way to finish off the year.

Some VBCW Reinforcements

 Way back at the beginning of the year I signed up to a Kickstarter for some 28mm VBCW "Ladies Who Lunch" figures from Tec Scene.  I don't tend to do many Kickstarters and luckily they've always delivered, admittedly usually late, but the goods have always turned up.

This one gave me a few worries as there was a long period of radio silence until October when there was an apology from the company explaining that they'd had health issues but were now trying to get back on track.  A good example of where a quick email would have saved a lot of angst.  Luckily my figures turned up in late October but looking at the comments on the KS page it looks like there are still some outstanding orders

The figures themselves are pretty good.  They're a range of armed 1940s style women, mostly rifle armed although there's a bren gunner, kne with a SMG and one with a pistol (and handbag).  There are also a selection of women armed with assorted handweapons including meat cleaver, a broom and a rolling pin!  These would be ideal for a 'Went the Day Well' scenario.  

Various other figures had been added onto the KS including land girls with bows, polo players and armed Beefeaters, but I'd avoided these.  I do think maybe the company over reached a bit and would have been better sticking to something more achievable.

The figures themselves are quite nice and ideal for a VBCW setting.  These will see action for the 1st time tomorrow (which means they're guaranteed to run away!!) in a pre-xmas game at Eric the Shed's.  I'll be fielding these along with my Armed Miners as a Women's Institute Battalion of Death.

Last game of the year

My last game of 2023 was a huge multiplayer VBCW game organised by Eric the Shed and using his fabulous terrain collection.  There's a post on the excellent Shed Wars blog with lots of photos which really give a feel for the size of the L shaped table and the terrain.

My photos show my end of the table and the hard-fought advance that my Lanarkshire miners, backed up by Hamilton Accies made towards the British Mince Pie factory to seize control of the means of production.  A great Xmas game and a brilliant way to end the year in good company.

 

Stop the train... a VBCW bash

A long overdue outing for for my VBCW  figures  in a Bolt Action game at Eric the Shed's this week

In this game the brave Communist/Socialist allies were attempting to stop the King's mistress making it to the station where she was due to be whisked off to safety by an approaching train.  

Hamilton Accies bringing up the rear

As always with VBCW games the fun is in fielding wierd and wonderful units: in our game a rag-tag assortment of Fascists were confronted by a combination of the Postal Workers Union, Cornish Fishermen and my flying column which had headed south from Lanarkshire, consisting of miners, Cameronians and some of Hamilton Academicals finest  all armed to the teeth.

My armoured car takes  a direct hit

Avanti Popolo comrades!!

Sadly the King's mistress made it by the skin of her teeth, speeding off on a passing locomotive and leaving much devastation and destruction in her wake.  The game prompted lots of discussion about new factions for our collective armies and has made me think I ought to add some more troops to mine.

'Mon the Accies!!

More additions to my Lanarkshire themed VBCW force.  My armed miners were all very enthusiastic but I figured they'd need a bit of support from some well-drilled regulars.  Luckily the Cameronians were based in Hamilton in the inter-war period

And for a bit more dash and flair we have the Provisional wing of Hamilton Academicals FC....

The Cameronians are by Reiver Castings and the armed footballers are from Irregular Miniatures.

Although I'm not a great football fan I found a fascinating website which gives historical strips for teams in Scotland and England... Link.  Now I just need to decide whether to deploy them in a 4-4-2 or 4-3-3 formation!

A Very British Civil War...

A couple of years ago I took part in a VBCW campaign which was played over a couple of nights via Google Maps and Skype which made for an interesting experience.  John, who organised that event, is putting on another campaign although this is going to be more of a traditional turn based Kriegspiel rather than the real-time events of the last one.

The players have all been putting together their factions on paper and it was too tempting not to base mine around my VBCW miners which I've had for a couple of years but which have never actually seen a game.

My original miners from Ironclad have been added to with some lovely figures from Sloppy Jalopy, pictured here complete with their Trade Union banner.  They're about to reinforced with a squad of Cameronians (also based in Lanarkshire in the 30s) and the Hamilton Academicals team armed with Rifles and a Lewis gun.  I've also been cannibalizing some Back of Beyond Russians which had been destined for eBay to add as 'advisors'.

Although the Campaign is likely to be map based, it's been a good motivator for us all to put our figures together and there is the possibility of some of the encounters being fought out on the Tabletop. With this in mind we had a large VBCW game at Eric the Shed's on Monday.  The game pitted the brave Socialist heroes of my miners, the postal workers union and some Cornish Fishermen against the BUF, Royalists and (randomly) the AA.

It was a confused and bloody affair...to be honest I'm not entirely sure what happened at the other end of the table but my miners and the AA fought each other to a stand still.  It was all going well until I realised my allies had all run away!

The Miners arrive in style in their Coal Lorry.

"Edward VIII, Edward VIII, Edward VIII...out, out, out!"

When we first arrived at the Shed we found this secret fascist weapon lurking under the bridge...eeek!!!

Fire up the Crossley!

And now the Armed Miners have gone mobile!  I picked up the Coal Lorry ( a Matchbox Models of Yesteryear Crossley) for a snip off Ebay and the seller very generously threw in the Liptons Tea Lorry for free!!

Some bits and pieces

There's been a bit of a lull in my blogging with nothing of note since Cavalier last month.  In the last few weeks I've played another game of Bolt Action VBCW at Eric's Shed which was great fun but little else.

At Cavalier I hummed and hawed about buying the very nice Ironclad Miniatures Armed Miners and eventually decided not to.  Of course as soon as I got home I immediately regretted that decision and ordered them online!  The whole VBCW setting has always been really appealing but I've always felt a bit daunted by collecting enough for a game. It doesn't seem to have made any impression at all at Guildford and although it does regularly crop up at the Shed (I've very lucky to have 2 excellent opportunities for regular gaming!!) there are always plenty of very nice figures there to play with so there's no incentive to get my arse into gear and get painting.

I had a bit of a revelation though after I ordered the Miners...maybe I don't need to worry about collecting enough for a game...maybe I should just buy and paint them because I want to!  That may seem fairly obvious to some of you but I've always tended to work to a plan and focus on building forces. For the VBCW I've decided to slowly (very slowly I suspect!) pull together some slightly random forces...not so random that they couldn't be fielded together, but not working to an army list or trying to get enough together for both sides of a game.

I think the VBCW setting works best when it's based around something local.  I could have gone with a local Surrey/London force but instead decided to go back to my roots, so the Miners will form the first part of a People's Lanarkshire Battalion!  I can already think of some more related units to field at some point.

Lewis gun team...the figure in the right is either carrying spare
 ammo or his sandwiches in his piece box

I can already see some tensions in the platoon...the foreman appears
 to be a Hamilton Accies fan while the rifleman is wearing a Celtic Scarf!

 

The Miners still need their bases sorted and hopefully a Coal Lorry is on it's way from EBay to turn them into a motorised platoon.

 

I also recently bought a Demon-type thing for Frostgrave...this is a Gargoyle figure from the Reaper Bones range which looked suitable.... again, part of my new approach of buying stuff just because....

 

I've never really looked at these before and while the figures are very nice I was surprised how soft the plastic was...very nice to paint though.



 

Sunday afternoon...

It's been a few weeks of coughing and spluttering in the house with my son, and then me, and now finally my wife succumbing to a particularly unpleasant chesty cough/sore throat type of lurgy that seems to go on for ages and re-appear just when you think it's gone. I'm now feeling a bit brighter and had a quiet day today with my wife in bed, the dogs snoozing after a lengthy walk and my son off being a teenager (probably best I don't know anymore...).

I thought I'd take advantage and start work on my Frostgrave figures which I undercoated a couple of weeks ago.  Despite the afternoon sunlight I felt I needed a lamp to help pick out the detail.  I tend to use an old angle poise lamp which I knew had a slightly dodgy connection but this afternoon I discovered the actual problem was the socket holding the bulb had completely split in two!  My eyes weren't up to job on their own so I only managed a little bit of painting before packing it in to watch the rugby instead (...muttering "it should have been us!" as Australia took the field!).  I'm due for an eye test and I think I might need to talk to the optician about struggling without bright lights. A trip to Hobbycraft might be in order too, to pick up a better light.

 

Earlier this week I took part in an interesting on-line game set in the Very British Civil War period.  This was organised by a couple of chaps from the Molesey Wargames Club in Surrey, one of whom I know from Eric the Shed's regular games, and both of whom I knew coincidentally about 20 years ago in the now-defunct Epsom/Stoneleigh/New Malden club (it had several homes in it's lifetime!).

  The idea of the game was that 5 or 6 players per side command Companies under an overall commander and that over the course of an evening we email our orders in to the 2 umpires who would then update us on enemy encountered etc.  The action takes place on the Surrey/Hampshire borders with the good guys (an assortment of Anglican League and Communists and Anarchists) attacking into Surrey to drive off the evil Fascists.  We managed to complete a days action and are now trying to find a convenient date to reconvene...I can't say too much about the events as you never know who's listening!  Suffice to say the good guys are making steady progress and I suspect there have been a few near misses as columns march/ride/cycle up and down the Surrey country lanes.  Excellent fun though and a real sense of drama as you advance towards a town unsure if you'll receive a friendly welcome or face the guns of the BUF.

I've always found the VBCW setting really interesting but have done little about it apart from some excellent games at the Shed.  This has inspired me to invest in the original source book from Solway Crafts and Miniatures as a start and I'm already beginning to think about figures...oh dear....

VBCW at the Shed

I was lucky enough to be invited over to Eric the Shed's wargaming lair this week for a game set in the VBCW genre, using Bolt Action.  Normally his games clash with my regular Monday night club but I was able to make it this week (and it's only about 3 miles from home).  I also met another Shed regular who I last gamed with around 18 years ago in Epsom!

This weeks game was based around a scenario from the VBCW forum.... 

http://vbcf.freeforums.org/index.php

In the scenario competing Fascists and Socialists are on the trail of the crown jewels which are located in one of 3 farms on the table.  The idea is that the game is played by lots of players around the country and the results are somehow fed into a culminating game which will be held at Partizan at the end of the month.

There is an great write up over on Eric's excellent blog... here


Suffice to say it wasn't my most glorious of evenings and the Socialists were outmanoeuvred early on, allowing the Fascists to concentrate a lot of fire on some of my forces.  Combined with some unlucky dice (always the excuse of the losing gamer!) this meant the Socialists failed to hold any of the farms, and indeed had to flee with most of their forces lost.

As always at the Shed it was an excellent game on a lovely table.